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Man. I've been loving working with Eino and Jorito. These guys are amazing. I only wish I was better at including them in my tracks. I feel like team Maverick Astley is a competition almost. We all compete to see who can be the most whacky, but still coherent and impress the others. I really love it and I really have to thank you for giving me this opportunity Darke. <3 You're the bae. xoxo

A lot of fun songs this week, good job everyone! I was loving the playlist order too... wildfire's track felt like a natural extension of Maverick Astley's #funkbias

Sry, I've been busy all morning so I couldn't post the log until now: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93696675/SFRGRound6Party.txt Thanks again to Timaeus for providing the log (I got disconnected for a little bit near the start).

Originally an arrangement I created in Famitracker, for NES hardware, back in 2012. Three years later, I took its component parts and re-arranged them in Sonar, adding modern post-production effects and non-chiptune elements. https://soundcloud.com/shaelriley/i-accidentally-the-whole-mario-2015

It's vst; unfortunately Joe (XPRTNovice) was too busy to help out on such short notice. The sax is from NI Session Horns Pro, the solo alto sax. Guess I was too subtle For completeness sake, here's 4 sneaky references: the intro (0:00-0:03) lead the chorus (e.g. 1:03-1:32) has a 'never gonna give' backing vocal; also heard in the break starting from 2:17 the last verse (3:01) has 'never gonna give you up' backing vocals; probably too subtle to hear the last verse also has this sub lead that plays the 'Never Gonna Give You Up' chorus lead I'll get it cleaned up after-compo (there's some timing issues and the mix needs some more TLC) and submit it to the judges to find out what they think about it.

Holy crap Tons of great suggestions in here! Thanks a lot, people. On a cold winter morning...in the time before the light

I second Resonance of Fate. By far and away one of the more unique and clever JRPGs of the previous generation. If you're fine with it being something of an FFT ripoff, Mercenaries Saga 2 on the 3DS is an excellent little TRPG. Think FFT merged with Fire Emblem class progression. And it's only like five bucks!

I like the idea of having a thread for reviews, maybe a separate thread for each round?

Great to see this album finally here! Patience well rewarded, a lot of jewels in a large variety of styles! After a first listening, it will be difficult for me to list all track which really marked me, so much there was. I'm almost impressive by arrangement on tracks whose originals wasn't really marking IMO("Fixations", "Into the Sandstorm", "Four Score and Six-Eight"). Very much interesting tracks in this album. I retain also : - "To Be Forgotten", really surprising knowing original and so nostalgic - "I Am Gonna Stop Eventually" where Brandon has a new time managed to surprise us by using a new style - "Corra!" not really surprising, but so powerful! - " Knight-wit" I didn't expected this style for this track, but I love it ! - " Vamo alla Django" Impressed by virtuosity of artists. Style original and welcome ! I tried to make an eclectic selection. But a lot of other tracks are really great ! Thanks to OCR and to the artist for this album ! I've really found in it the tribute that the OST deserved

When I think Tactical RPG, I think more along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem. Assuming that's what you have in mind, the main series that stands out for me is Shining Force. Shining Force I & II are both Genesis games. They're fun, but admittedly there is a bit of level-grinding around the middle (though nowhere near as bad as FF Tactics). If I didn't play them emulated with the ability to speed up things, it probably would've been a little more irritating. Nevertheless, the strategy is good, and the fact that nearly all battles are story-related (i.e., very few random encounters) helps to keep it from feeling repetitive. Shining Force III is one of my favorites. It contains a very epic story that spans across three episodes. That is, there are three separate games, each of which is from a different character's perspective, and they're interrelated such that certain events in one game affect certain events in the next. The strategy is challenging, and while it doesn't require leveling up per se, I did find it really difficult without a bit of grinding. Unfortunately, there are two major down-side: it's only for Saturn, and only the first episode was ever translated. (...I have a Japanese Saturn and all three episodes, so this wasn't a problem in my case, but the rarity might make it prohibitively expensive.) So, well, if it's not apparent from my signature and name I can elaborate a bit on this {^^}. To give a few 10-second reviews of the games (not counting imports)... - Lunar: Silver Star Story (PS1): Major overhaul of the first Lunar game (The Silver Star for SCD). Feels like a classic JRPG though with a richer backstory and mythology. It's not my favorite of the series, but it sets up the universe and is relatively the easiest one to find. I didn't find it terribly difficult, but I've heard varying opinions on the challenge level. - Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete (PS1): Remake of the second Lunar game (Eternal Blue for SCD). This is a more epic and longer JRPG and goes deeper into the background of the world. This is my favorite of the series, though it's better to have played SSS first. This is also one of the more challenging games of the series, though not as difficult as the original SCD version. - Lunar: The Silver Star (SCD): The original and first Lunar game. This was ahead of its time in terms of the music (which is fantastic), voice acting (...perhaps only so-so by today's standards), and depth of the world. I also like the original more than the remake. The challenge level here isn't too high, though, especially if you're used to more recent RPGs. - Lunar: Eternal Blue (SCD): The original sequel. This and EBC (the remake) are very similar, and (unlike TSS/SSS) the remake added a lot and only removed a few things. This is also possibly the most challenging game of the series, and requires you to consider position, turn order, and a few other factors well beyond "which one's stronger" in battles (unless you toss up your hands and just level-grind). - Lunar: Legend (GBA): Very toned down version of The Silver Star / Silver Star Story. Not worth playing and the challenge level is a complete cakewalk. - Lunar: Dragon Song (DS): THIS GAME DOESN'T EXIST MOVE ALONG NOW - Lunar: Silver Star Harmony (PSP): Toned down version of Silver Star Story with a few added plot points. It's... all right, and gives you the same story, so it's worth it if you can't find Silver Star Story. It's much easier by comparison, though. I admit my own bias here, considering these games formed a core part of my life. So, I won't go into talking up the games (and don't feel bad if you find them a bit meh). KF

Taking a break between blocks to write reviews sounds great to me at least in theory. I really admire and appreciate everyone who has written reviews for rounds. I just don't seem to have the time to sit down and write down what I have in mind from listening (at least for me, it takes a lot of time & relistening).

Nice bass line!!

Please keep in mind that right now, the draft, the submissions gathering, the encoding, tagging, and uploading; the voting, vote collection, and tallying; it's all done manually by either you guys or by me. There's very little that's automated about this process for gauntlets, and it's why scoring hasn't gone up yet (I have spreadsheets to help me tally but it's still some manual labor on my part to get everything in there). In my spare time, I'm working on a database-driven web application that will help me manage and automate practically everything having to do with the competitions I personally run on OCR. This is a large-scale, complicated software development project and I'm still in the data design phase of the whole thing. These kinds of ideas can certainly be incorporated into that, but it's a long ways off. I don't anticipate this application being done any time soon. It's also worth noting that the more complicated you make the voting process, the less likely people are to vote at all. VGMix had a lot of these problems with their review system. They attached scores and weights to reviews (through meta-ratings on reviews) which ended up intimidating people from participating, which led to a total crash of the entire system. Building the kind of things you're asking for into the current competition's scoring system is pie-in-the-sky; it sounds great and I understand the intent, but to be honest it's needlessly complicated for the purposes of this competition. If you're interested in detailed feedback about your track, please feel free to ask for specific feedback either here or in the Workshop forum. Nonetheless, I appreciate the comments and aware that feedback can be an issue. Perhaps next Gauntlet we do (rest assured, we will be doing one next year), we can have a one-week break in between blocks where people can be encouraged to review and dissect tracks from the previous three rounds. Maybe setting up a separate review thread per round could also be beneficial next time. On a related note, this December 18th will be 6 year anniversary of the first Grand Robot Master Remix Battle, which is the first of the large scale choose-your-theme competitions that everyone has enjoyed so much over the years. I'm happy to say that I've seen so many awesome artists who've either gotten started or gotten better by competing in these large scale events, many of them honing their skills to the point of going pro and making careers out of music. I'm not pretending to take any credit for any of that, but I will say that I'm proud of everyone that's given the compos a shot and have managed to push their skills higher and higher.

Hey Darke, I have a crazy idea for future competitions like this that might be unfeasible but I wanted to drop it by you anyways. Obviously my entry this week was a joke, but I noticed with the way the voting is set up that there is an opportunity to make this a more rewarding experience for everyone involved. It'd be interesting to see something where people could rate a mix out of 5 based on different categories, like production, arrangement, source usage, mastering, etc. Maybe bring in one of the OC superstars that aren't participating in the competition like BGC, Zircon, Will Roget, yourself etc every now and then to give some external professional insight on the mixes on a round. Either just adding this to their top 3 picks of creating a simple form for people to check box out. It would allow people to see where their mix falls short and the areas people liked. Right now, and I had this happen with the Wily competition too, but it kinda feels like you submit your track into a blender and its not heard from again unless you happen to get voted for or participate in the listening party. Luckily people volunteer feedback in the thread, but you kinda have to hunt for it. Its why my team mates dropped after the first one and I think thats why people might struggle to be motivated to keep submitting with the long format nature of this competition. The consistent feedback could help everyone improve on each other and know what areas they should focus on. Under the current voting scheme its extremely unclear what qualities people liked in a track or why they prioritize certain tracks over others, because different people are listening for different things, but the system doesn't really give any insight into what those things are. Overall, introducing a more categorical system for voting I feel would be beneficial to OCR as an organization as well because it can help you guys refine your content creators to publish the highest quality of mixes. There are a lot of really talented folks in here that have areas, that, with proper focus could turn them into truly top tier composers/musicians. I'm no exception. If any of those guys go on to become great film\tv\game composers, you guys can take pride in knowing you helped foster that talent.

Oh, another I might recommend would be Way of the Samurai for the PS2. It's not strictly an action RPG. It's a somewhat short story-driven game that takes place in a small area. It's got real-time combat with a wide variety of melee weapons(primarily various asian-themed blades, but a few bludgeoning weapons and the like). All of the weapons have a different style and unlock moves based on how you fight with them. Trying things like jumping and attacking might unlock a new aerial themed attack, while blocking and attacking with good timing might unlock a counter type move. In addition, your blade has a "Heat" meter that goes up by attacking or blocking(and down when doing nothing), along with a durability meter divided into 1-5 bars. Whenever the Heat meter hits max you lose a durability bar, and if you have no durability the weapon breaks completely. You can have the local blacksmith appraise a weapon ahead of time(before it breaks) to sort of save a copy, but outside of that you're screwed if you aren't careful. No levels or stats. It's all about reflexes. Story-wise it's very short and takes place over the course of a few days, but has a large amount of endings based on almost everything you do. At the start of the game you can even decide to just turn and leave the area to it's own problems. You can respond to dialogues by attacking, or you can even stay silent by not choosing a reply for a period of time. It has a very ambient environment. There's also Way of the Samurai 2(PS2) and 3(PS3), but I haven't played them and I've heard they don't quite match up. WotS4 is available on Steam, but I have yet to play that either.

This album is AMAZING!

I seriously think this is a pretty genius approach to a tune that has been done a million times. Still comes out sounding funky fresh.

oh man! dat organ! dirty!!!!