Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Artist Name: Zach Chapman Features Earth Kid on lead vocals, Gregorio Franco (who doesn't have an artist page on OCR yet) doing the harsh vocals, themanpf on guitars, and jnWake (also no artist page) on synths and keys. This song was made for Dwelling of Duels' April 2025 Rhythm Games Month. Originally this track was going to be even more faithful to the original, but I only know one female singer who can also do great harsh vocals and she was too busy that month to collab, so instead I split the vocals up between the leads and the growls, landing on Earth Kid and Gregorio for each, who are both fantastic. The other shift in the song's direction came mostly from jnWake, who took the keyboard parts I sent him and added several synths without ever being asked. Anytime you hear a synth in the song - echoing the intro riff, in the background of the interlude, the synth solo before the third chorus - is all stuff that he did entirely himself. That helped to give the track its own identity, and I love what it added to the song. TheManPF killed it on guitars as always, and also put up with me sending him about 20 different drafts of the mix for feedback over the course of the month, as I'm still pretty awful at the production side of things. Other than that it's a largely faithful cover, with some minor changes to riffing and the bass (which I played) to make it more interesting. Games & Sources This is a cover of "Stygia" from the rhythm shooter Metal: Hellsinger, composed and performed by Two Feathers, the developers of the game, featuring Alissa White-Gluz, the lead singer of the metal band Arch Enemy

Starts with a fully original intro that has a nice sparkle to it. Zeal melody arrives at :40 with some basic but impactful beats with it for a nice, full sound. I liked the gated vox line and padding as well. Shift at 1:38 to some overdriven, distorted kicks that feel like a stylistic thing I'll have to get over; they lasted until 2:16 (back at 2:57). Very lush textural changeup at 2:16, great choice for the lead synth. As the added beat were in play until 2:56, I liked how much space the track had to breathe, and it made the dynamics of the instrumentation changes more effective. 2:57 brought back the beats and added an original countermelodic synth line and a gated-style supporting line until 3:33. Not as much contrast/dynamic as I would have liked, but just a personal taste thing, and the relative additional complexity's dult noted, though I could imagine other judges complaining. I would have liked to have heard more dynamic evolution of the track from 2:57-on, because the continued build was very subtle and thus feeling on the vanilla, repetitive side. That said the overall transformation of the Zeal theme to this light dNb style works nicely. Definitely leaning towards what works more than getting hung up on what other potential twists or added sophistications there could have been. Nice job, Nobel, this was a cool concept. :-) YES

Artist Name: Nobel Yoo Unfortunately, some parts of the original project file were lost so I wasn't able to re-export it for this submission. Sorry! I was struck with the thought for a drum and bass version of the Corridors of Time track after hearing it a bunch at Magfest. I was really excited by the allure of turning what's typical a pretty slow and somber song into something fast-paced and energetic. It turned out that the original song is a little too fast for an easy conversion to drum and bass. The original song is 117 BPM. I slowed down all the parts from the original song down to 100 BPM so that I could use it for a drum and bass track at 200 BPM, but that's still much faster than the typical 184 BPM that most rum and bass tracks run at, so it actually feels even faster! I really enjoyed juxtaposing instrumental/acoustic sounds with electronic sounds on this piece as well as adding some new melodies and harmonies. Hope you enjoy! Games & Sources Chrono Trigger - Corridors of Time Composed by Yasunori Mitsuda

Glad to see this back again. Opens up with a nice fade-in of strings and cool sampled female vocal line. Whoa, woodwind at :32 isn't winning any realism contests, for sure. :-D It's serviceable, but it did jar me to start. Nice addition of the low pizz strings and male vox at 1:01 behind the lead. Piano accents sounded fake, but quiet enough to not stand out too much and were tastefully produced. This is so reminiscent of my first vote nearly 21 years ago when I NOed Koelsch1 for the same kind of thing going on with his woodwind lead, though his got shrill and had some trills that majorly exposed the samples. Brass at 1:46 was also fairly anemic, but became a little more forceful not too long after coming in. Nice lil' percussive thump as a transition to the organ and vox padding up the texture after 2:13. Nice countermelodic writing going on with the brass underneath the woodwind for a stronger finish. It's not humanized-enough sequencing, so any uncanny valley criticisms are valid, but for a mockup, which is where I believe our hobbyist bar is, this is alright. If this doesn't make it as is, it's not because of the structure or arrangement, which are already well personalized and dynamic, it's for the production. This is solid enough though, I'm not being smacked in the face with any terrible-sounding samples, just cognizant enough at the fact that it could be better humanized. All that said, the instrumentation choices, particularly in tandem, demonstrated a lot of care and intention, and the execution's cohesive enough! Good job, Eric; I know you'll stay with this and improve it further if this doesn't make it, you've got the sticktuitiveness we wish everyone had. :-) YES

Thank you for laying out the source tune order, Gregorio. Been a fan of this OST since hearing Beatdrop's ReMix of the first stage! Right from the intro, it has an intense sound, though it feels like the soundscape's lossy and crowded; what I'm mainly hearing is the countermelodic backing parts and then the lead synth's upfront, albeit quiet. The drums are great when I concentrate on hearing them. Not ideal mixing when the guitar chugs are drowning a lot of other parts out, but I can make out stuff enough where I feel it gets by. Nice transition at 1:42. When lots of elements dropped out and the texture was emptier from 1:42-1:57 as a contrast, things didn't sound cramped. I haven't read the other votes yet, but I hope I'm not the only one pointing this out. At 2:24, the transition was sudden but seemed to flow smoothly from the previous theme. The melodic synth was a lot louder and more upfront as the lead, which made me wonder why the balance of parts felt so off in the opening verse for the stage 1 theme. 3:09's theme change basically had no transition, which was disappointing. Another sudden theme change at 3:52 and the medley-itis charges feel more and more valid as this moves along. There was at least a quick transition at 4:37, but very minimal and still a big break in the flow. Whatever those snap sounds were from 4:37-4:51 were too loud yet lossy-sounding, just really coming through too loudly in my headphones. The mixing isn't ideal and does meaningfully ding it -- it's arguably causing ear fatigue from just making this so loud yet cramped most of the time -- but I'd still pass an otherwise-cohesive arrangement mixed like this. It already got invoked before, but I'll quote the Submission Standards again: Here's how I felt about the transitions: 0:00-1:42 - "Solo Sortie" smooth transition 1:43-2:23 - "Counterattack '91" smooth transition 2:24-3:08 - "As Wet As a Fish" abrupt transition 3:09-3:52 - "A Submerging Titan" abrupt transition 3:53-4:37 - "Dream of a Labyrinth" abrupt transition 4:38-5:54 - "Return of the Creature" smooth transition 5:55-6:12 - "To the Next Zone" In other words, 3 smooth theme changes, 3 abrupt ones. We don't require 6 smooth, developed theme changes for a pass. I'm just summarizing how a fair amount of the track felt like a basic medley structure without enough flow in the theme changes to make the overall composition feel cohesive enough. Indeed, this is a well-performed and sequenced rock adaptation of several Super R-Type themes, but it's not presented as a cohesive & uniform enough musical concept where it doesn't primarily feel like 7 (amazingly amped up) covers stitched together without enough flow from theme to theme. I definitely appreciate you submitting this, Gregorio, with this intensity and great soundtrack choice. I'm a NO for this fitting our arrangement Standards as is; if there was openness to fleshing out the transitions between themes, I'd love to hear this resubmitted. It'll sound like we don't want any medleys, when in fact we've got a ton of medleys on OCR, but there's more intention to making the overall track feel like one cohesive, developing, evolving idea rather than jumping quickly from theme to theme. Whether it's with this piece again or another arrangement, I hope you'll keep submitting more of what you're creating, you definitely have a spot waiting. :-) NO (resubmit)

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Main source melody for "Reset" arrives at :20 with a lot of personality behind the sequenced guitar, thanks to the supplement of the measured bassline. Beats at :41 didn't feel like the right fit on account of feeling too dry, but the texture got fuller at 1:12 to help mitigate the realism issues. Good dropoff at 1:45. The sequenced bowed strings from 1:18-1:44 were in the uncanny valley although it was a decent, recognizable sample. The beats did drag on by the 2-minute mark and needed more dynamic contrast. As a personal highlight, I loved GotW taking over as lead at 3:23 with his beautiful restating of the melody, including the interplay with the sequenced acoustic guitar which had VERY classy flourishes at 3:35. It may be underselling some different part-writing, but the beats felt relatively underdeveloped or lacking variations. Everything else though was clicking, so consider me on board with this arrangement! YES

Artist Name: Bionic Leaves Synth-wavy sounds with an early nineties amen breakbeat. I thought it fit the melancholy of the melody well. Games & Sources The Guardian Legend (Compile, 1988) Composer: Miyamo Shant (Masatomo Miyamoto & Takeshi Santo)

Artist Name: Tremendouz First of all, huge thanks to Gamer of the Winds ( https://ocremix.org/artist/16615/gamer-of-the-winds ) for recording the flute part. "Reset" from Ōkami has a special place in my heart, as does the whole game and its OST. For this arrangement, I decided to use the vocal version playing during the credits of the original PS2 release as the main bones and inspiration while incorporating some elements from the orchestral "Thank You" version—namely the harp, as well as the intro and outro structure. In addition to these, you can hear a nod to "Once Upon A Time..." from Ōkamiden in the synth melody at 1:45, and to "Ryoshima Coast" from Ōkami at 2:15. The style I went for is quite electronic in nature (synth bass and leads, drum machine, overall quantized feel) but also uses some more traditional instruments as well, although in virtual form: acoustic and nylon guitar, harp, string ensemble, Rhodes electric piano and grand piano. As usual, everything is programmed in the piano roll. The two versions of Reset differ somewhat in their chord progression and since I lifted the harp pretty directly from the orchestral version, I didn't stick too closely to the vocal version in this regard. All in all, I combined a bunch of my favourite elements from both versions into a mix that's attempting to be both laid back and puncy at the same time. Ilya Efimov Acoustic guitar does the heavy lifting in terms of the lead melody and solos, the latter of which are mostly pretty straight transcriptions from the vocal version (minus the last one at 4:12-4:24). Scarbee Classic EP-88S fills the midrange with a familiar stereo Rhodes sound, while Samantha Ballard Harp adds some much needed plucky, organic quality and texture. Tokyo Scoring Strings from Impact Soundworks fills the background during the choruses, although my string programming here was rather rudimentary due to their somewhat buried nature in the mix, as well my own laziness. If I had to pick my favourite detail from the arrangement (aside from Gregory's fantastic flute playing), it would be how I took the acoustic guitar rhythm element from 3:24-3:44 (before the last chorus) which was already present in the source, and recalled it in the first half of the outro (4:39-4:52). I think it worked pretty seamlessly there even if I say so myself. The name of the arrangement refers to the credits scene where Amaterasu (ya big furball!) walks in front of a backdrop consisting of scenes from the rather lengthy journey that the game is. Edited Saturday at 03:10 PM by Tremendouz Games & Sources 1. Okami - Reset https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeyK_gmd8Ik VGMDB credits the following artists: - Lyrics: TAK&BABY - Composer: JUN - Arranger: Yoshinobu Takeshita - Vocal: Ayaka Hirahara (dreamusic) 2. Okami - Reset (Thank You) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRx9gnY0Mp0 composed by Hiroshi Yamaguchi 3. Okamiden - Once Upon a Time... (minor nod only) https://youtu.be/bVyBr0L7DaE?feature=shared composed by Rei Kondoh 4. Okami - Ryoshima Coast (minor nod only) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztlng1aSnGU composed by Hiroshi Yamaguchi

The Bloodstained source sounds like a more militarized run-and-gun version of Castlevania, so that was interesting. Not a surprise to hear TBR slow this down. Texture sounds nice and full at :28 with the melody coming in. This feels like the result if you'd asked goat to arrange this, which means it rocks. Once it gets going at :37, experienced OCR listeners will hear what I mean when I say it reminds me of "Stained Glass Filth". Mixing-wise though, it's comparatively more cramped. :-) It's nothing even dinging the track, because the primary elements are mixed well, but you have supporting writing like the lil' belltone stuff doubling the melody at times (e.g. 1:34-2:02), and it's so utterly buried, smothered, and covered that it might as well be taken out. It adds a tiny bit of color, and is a genuinely worthwhile part that would sound great if audible, but if you're not listening on decent enough headphones, you won't hear it. Brilliant changeup at 4:05 with the acoustic-led section; would have loved to have heard more like this just because of how stylish it was, and certainly not a material criticism that this style wasn't present enough. What a smart bit of contrast! Amazing stuff as usual from thebitterroost, who shouldn't be slept on as top-tier metal artist in this scene. I'd love to hear him on some game scores, this is dense and intense! YES

Very cool intro; great beach/water SFX, then the gradual fade-in of the source elements. Awesome sound design in the first :45 seconds. Oh nice, some voice sampling, followed by in-game SFX. 90 seconds in, this is solid. Some cool stuff going on at 1:35 for a build-up, then the melody arrives at 1:56. Here, the countermelody and beats are creating clutter, IMO, though it's nothing dealbreaking for the moment. At 2:28, more parts came in that gave the melody support and the track more overall direction. Good textural change at 3:05 to clean up the soundscape and hit the chippy sounds for some contrast. Nice lead and breathier supporting writing from 3:22-3:33 for the chorus. Then some more wilder synth writing underneath that was potentially pushing it into a cacophonous direction, but thankfully things didn't get too busy. The lead at 4:13-4:34 was arguably too quiet compared to all of the other writing around it, but I could still make it out well enough. Nice SFX bookend to the piece at 4:34. I felt like this had a lot of dynamic similarities to VQ's Lufia II project track. Whereas the first version of that was overstuffed, too busy, and had a lot of clashing elements, this piece was a lot more like the second pass of the Lufia track, where there was more structure, the textures were thinned out and had room to breath, there were constantly effective moments of contrast, and the writing didn't veer off into non-melodious stuff that was detracting and distracting from the overall direction. What genre do we call it? I dunno either. :-P Very stylish! YES

Glad to also see some of your VGM COM set this year, Daniel! The fun easily shines through here with these spirited performances! Short and sweet vote with how straightforward this call is. YES

Man, the original's produced in the best way to give it an oppressive, foreboding feel. Total aside, but anything like the countermelodic synth brought in at 1:19, which is a Euroscene staple sound to me, gives me that tinge of nostalgia. Then that was followed up by the C64-esque chipsound stuff at 2:39 for even more throwback vibes. Gaspode did an effective job weaving together his arranged and his original composition segments. This had quite a different character to it than the original, more skulking and cerebral, mainly in part due to that awesome bassline. Cooler than the other side of the pillow. YES

Rocks out at :13. Hate the piano at :19, which sounds super fake and blocky, but it's well-produced enough (and doubled by the belltones) to take the uncanny valley stink off of them; kudos for making good use of the sample. :-) The vocal delivery at :27 sounds awesome to me; when I look at the lyrics, then you notice some ESL tendencies in the delivery. That said, the overall pronunciation is done well. I had no inherent problem with the prosody and felt the timing and inflections of the lyrics sound nicely stylized. From :45-1:02 & 1:35-1:52, I wish the vocals didn't get as pushed down, but they definitely sound like they're surrounded by the music, so I'll have to live with it. At 1:46 & 1:50 though, the vocal parts of "(This is all I'm worth)"/"(Never mind the hurt)" and at 2:58 & 3:02 "(Set myself free)"/"(Show love to me)" all get so, so buried, they might as well not be there, which I'm sure wasn't the intention. If one thing were to be tweaked here, making those lines more audible would be it. That said, it's not a dealbreaker. Really, really enjoyed the stereo panning of the chorused vocals from 1:10-1:18, as well as the clock ticks ping-ponging around the field from 1:52-1:56; small details that sound great and separate the good from the great. All of the musicianship sounds awesome, and the theme treatment is creatively comprehensive. I really dug the countermelodic and rhythm guitar work underneath the second verse from 1:57-2:13. I don't want to miss the forest for the trees. I do understand the comments on the prosody and some mixing nice-to-haves, it just didn't come off as anything dealbreaking with the standards. The source is creatively arranged and the production's solid. The same type of voting dynamic happened with his Silent Hill 4 mix where production/mixing stuff got nitpicked. This is above our bar all day, don't get it twisted. YES

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Well, isn't that lovely? You wouldn't be able to readily tell that this had such a protracted development history based on how cohesive and straightforward it seems, including the gradual increases in personalization from verse to verse. A bread-and-butter/meat-and-potatoes arrangement approach success! :-) YES

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Now that's a fun playlist theme. :-P

Artist Name: zykO Hello there. Back from the outer rim with offerings; it's been some time so let's cook. The source sorta fell randomly into my lap, the sort of serendipitous flurry of inspiration that spurred this whole video game remix thing for me all the way back in 1998; June Chikuma's Bomberman 93 Blossom Planet tune popped up on a YouTube playlist and I was running over myself to fire up the ol' furnace. I've been studying ancient Egyptian music for the past few years as an Egyptology grad student in Cairo and, as a part of my exploration into wonderful new things, I've also been studying the Arab musical tradition proper (leading to such experimentation as my most recent album, the Dune-inspired "Long Live the Fighters," for example). So stumbling upon Chikuma's masterclass in the form was well met. Around the same time, President Trump suggested that he intended to SimCity the Gaza Strip and "do a job with it." Political leanings aside, treating the Levante as if it were a map pack for Civ VI is bizarrely ambitious at best… even if most of us wish the world was more like a video game. In that sense, this tune is meant to serve as the spiritual successor to 2017's "The Long War," although the two songs deal with fundamentally different scenarios and contexts despite both describing geopolitical quagmires in the MENA region. Of course blowing shit up isn't exactly the solution for any of the Middle East's problems either and I did find it darkly ironic that the source tune comes from a Bomberman game. So I juxtaposed the whole thing by opening with a classic Egyptian folk tune by the famed late-19th century composer Sayed Darwish called "El Helwa Di" which some may recognize as Egypt's theme from Civ VI. It's a simple song about the sunrise and the good day to be had no matter one's circumstance. It's the sort of idealistic work song that is commonplace and deeply ingrained in the Egyptian cultural memory and a form that actually dates all the way back to the earliest days of dynastic Egypt. It's the sort of scene, I think, that reminds us that simpler, calmer times did and still do exist and they are the things worth fighting for when the bullies come knocking. The orchestration is fairly straightforward oriental fanfare: darabuka, daf, riq and shakers make up the percussion section while a ney and organ lead the way atop a bed of strings including an acoustic guitar. If I haven't lost you by the end, you'll catch the nod to Sonic 2's "Oil Ocean Zone" to close us out. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy. Dig it. Games & Sources Bomberman 93 just the first bit: