Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

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:

Artist Name: H36T Hey guys, another sub by me, this time with a tiiiiny tiny source of just about 14 seconds or so. Still, i wanted to challenge myself to take something that small and try and make it my own or at least create something expansive off of it. To be honest the arrangement wasn't that tough this time. A lot of it came in a few days. It was...everything else that pushed me and my skills to their limits. I think it is just outside of or the edge of my skill level to try and tackle a sound palate like this and make it sound good. Some aspects I'm quite confident with still much to learn and others....I still have a long ways to go haha. Also usually I come at composing and the like with a story first and then the music goes from there. Here it was the opposite. The story came along as I was writing and I might try more of that. I'm interested in how others approach writing in this regard! Welp, that's it for me. I hope you and others can enjoy Manoria Cathedral: Corruption! P.S. Them demons was wiln' in that cathedral Games & Sources