Theme finally arrives at :32. The grace notes added into the woodwind lead (:38, :44, 1:08, 1:11, 1:17, 1:21, 2:29, etc.) were awkward, with :38's feeling off-key, but it was just a blip. Even if the melodic personalization sounded a bit ham-fisted/try-hard, in principle, I like what was done there, and it sounds more comfy on repeated listens. The brass swell at 1:43 exposed the samples a lot; not a great sound, but thankfully only a brief moment. I'm not an orchestrator, but should this woodwind lead be so loud over the other orchestration around 1:06? In any case, the woodwind lead was getting tired, but I did like the change at 2:13, redoing the melody in a minor. Minor thing, and I might have missed more of these, but there was a faint pop at 2:45, usually meaning there's a problem with a sample.
To me, this is getting it done on the bread-and-butter level, and I'm cool with that. I agree with proph that the mixing should be better balanced and the levels reined in, but I can actually live with this, and it would have been a shoo-in 20+ years ago. It's not the most fluid, but its earnestness is winning me over as good enough. Because Audiomancer has done/is doing/will do tons of revisions and resubs, it can be easy to take his availability and appetite for redos for granted; what I'm saying here is, if the source files were kaput, I'd rather we post this than not.
YES (borderline)