Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

The track was 4:30-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 135 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :00-:50.5, 1:35-2:12, 2:56-3:03.5, 3:20.5-3:42, 4:17.5-4:28.5 = 110.5 seconds or 40.92% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Easily the most interesting genre transformation and another rarer example where the music during part the verses at least sounded adjacent to the source music, with backing patterns from the original in play on bass even when lyrical melodies weren't related to the source. This one's actually also the only example where I heard the vocals partially arranging the source theme. Much more of the source usage was from the bass usage rather than melodic arrangement. No surprise the chorus was disconnected from VGM, given the precedent of the other music. Aside from the lyrics feeling tired (because it's the same meta-narrative concept every time), this was the most interesting result, so that's something. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:16-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 128 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :05-:17, :30.5-:40.5, 1:39-1:45, 2:02-2:08, 4:00.75-4:13.75 = 47 seconds or 18.35% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO This is still interesting tech, but there's still a soullessness to it at this stage. 8 tracks in, my patience is thin. :-D /rhymes ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Probably the most warbly instrumental this time, it's very rough. Drums were particularly quiet and bland in this one. Instead of "Who's that Pokémon?", it's "Where's the Pokémon music?", since it's only in the intro (:04-:21). -------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 3:18-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 99 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :05-:20, :41.5-:53 (-ish), 1:16-1:28, 1:50-2:01, 3:01-3:04, 3:06-3:12 = 58.5 seconds or 29.54% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Punk pop this time. For seemingly-generated music, it has solid enough pop fundamentals/tropes, and it does create variations on the repeated elements. But as a formula, this album's functioning like a one-trick pony (see: checklist). Will restate there's 0 chance these aren't generated lyrics as well. I dunno why Craig claimed he wrote them. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 3:09-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 94.5 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :05-:14, :16-:19, :22-:23, :26-:28, 1:20-1:22 = 17 seconds or 8.99% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Goes for some quasi-Pentatonix vocals this time. Still the same creative formula, though for this one, the second half never circled back to the VGM source tune, even for a small piece. No matter the genre, the tropes end up being the same. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:47-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 143.5 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :00-1:16, 2:30-2:55, 4:33-4:42 = 90 seconds or 31.35% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Opens with a spirited rock cover, clearly not a real guitar, but a serviceable sound. Definitely the longest stretch of invoking the source material, and then the non-VGM arrangement at least sounds similar enough to the source material that it doesn't feel as disconnected from the VGM as the previous tracks. Not to be outdone though, the dropoff at 3:33 was absolutely in a different mood/style from the rest of the song before going back to an even more intense original/non-VGM section at 3:57. Part of the problem of doing all of these tracks using the same voice across multiple tracks and the same basic song construction is just creating a samey feel to all these concepts, even with different sources & genres. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

In a vacuum, this is an interesting concept, but it's not a VGM arrangement, it's unrelated to the source. Not sure in what circumstance you believe we'd post original music about a VG character, as opposed to a VGM arrangement. Checklist: - Mostly unrelated composition, practically 0 VGM arrangement - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume NO ----------- Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

Boy, banjo's gonna be tough to arrange. You pretty much need to either keep the bassline persistent or straight up stick to banjo as a lead instrument. Not that I'm expecting that here... I've definitely heard this AI voice in other AI-generated stuff, so I'm not even sure this would be from Ace Studio AI as much it's from Suno; wouldn't be shocked if it can be found in multiple AI music generators. Three tracks in a row, this again seems to have the formula of briefly but straightforwardly referencing the VGM, then completely going disconnected from arranging anything from the source theme, not even worth timestamping this time. The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:33-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 136.5 seconds to consider the source material dominant :03-:41, 1:32-1:42, 1:45-1:52, 2:47-2:49, 4:01-4:19 = 78 seconds or 28.57% source usage There's likely some progressions I'm overlooking re: counting source usage, but it's not a close call. The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO On a production level, these vocals always sound warbly, so that's definitely not ideal; since these are AI-generated vocals, that's gonna have to wait for the tech to catch up. It's difficult for a non-musician like me to articulate, but while the instrumentation sounds pretty serviceable, but it very much sounds like it has genre pockets it falls into. Drum writing once again doesn't sound bad, but feels very staid. I know Craig claimed he wrote the lyrics for these, but once again, the lyrics seem generated by prompt, not written. And two tracks in now, this again seems to have the formula of briefly but straightforwardly referencing the VGM, then completely going disconnected from arranging anything from the source theme. ----------------------------------- Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:36-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 138 seconds to consider the source material dominant :00-:34, 1:45-1:57, 4:20-4:33 = 49 seconds or 17.75% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO The volume's pretty low; not sure why it's limited like that, it could be bumped up. Opens with a straight rock cover of the source until original vocals done through Ace Studio AI come in at :35, sounding like Nickelback but having some roughness that exposes them as AI, at least on headphones. They sound fairly solid, all things considered. Dynamically, this feels like they have one main style of delivery, so that along with the relatively straightforward drum patterns makes this song feel like it basically has one gear and very samey sections. Hemophiliac had pointed out to me that the drums lack clarity, which also makes them appear generated. 3:09 finally had a dropoff and rebuild, though I'm listening to these lyrics and it all feels very generated before another iteration of the chorus at 3:50. Ugh at "Yoshi" not being pronounced right at 4:28. It sounds like this is built out over the chord progression of the original, but not directly arranging it for extended periods of time, which definitely makes this feel like it's generated music extrapolated from the one segment of the source that's directly referenced. Lyrically, I was initially feeling these could have been made by a human, due to so many different words invoking various Zelda game titles, but having listened to a decent clip of AI-prompt generated music ahead of voting on this, it feels like one extended lyrical word salad about an annoyed Link, and lots of antiseptic rhymes. It does at least have decent prosody to try and make things flow. Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

Artist Name: Craig Jackson Underneath the cozy melodies lies the quiet grind of village life. Gentle acoustic guitars and soft vocals reveal the emotional labor of building a home and community, turning the lighthearted theme into a heartfelt reflection. Games & Sources Animal Crossing - Title

Artist Name: Craig Jackson The stage is set, the tension palpable. Synth-driven rock pulses through the theme, giving the menu’s iconic energy a cinematic, almost combative weight, reflecting the high stakes behind the battles. Games & Sources Super Smash Bros Melee - Menu

Artist Name: Craig Jackson Grooves meet banana-induced chaos in this jazz-funk adventure. Smooth rhythms and syncopated instrumentation reveal the emotional aftermath of barrel-laden escapades, mixing humor with a touch of melancholy. Games & Sources Donkey Kong Country - Title

Artist Name: Craig Jackson Slippy’s rookie anxieties come alive over driving pop-rock beats. Guitar riffs and energetic rhythms capture the thrill and fear of interstellar missions, turning heroism into relatable vulnerability. Games & Sources Star Fox - Corneria

Artist Name: Craig Jackson This pop-rock reinterpretation highlights the evolving journeys of trainers and Pokémon alike. Bright guitars and catchy hooks underscore the tension of battles and the bittersweet nature of adventure. Games & Sources Pokémon Red/Blue - Title

Artist Name: Craig Jackson Upbeat punk energy masks Kirby’s inner conflict. Jagged riffs and frenetic drums reframe the whimsical theme into a story of identity and personal struggle, giving the pink hero unexpected angst. Games & Sources Kirby's Dream Land - Green Greens

Artist Name: Craig Jackson Luigi’s shadows take the spotlight in this smooth R&B spin. Soulful melodies and gentle grooves explore the overlooked hero’s insecurities, turning playful hauntings into emotional depth. Games & Sources Luigi's Mansion - Mansion (Luigi Humming - High Health)

Artist Name: Craig Jackson High-speed heartbreak meets nostalgic 90s rock. Driving guitars and soaring choruses capture the loneliness and adrenaline of F-Zero’s racers, blending speed with the quiet ache of retirement. Games & Sources F-Zero - Big Blue

Artist Name: Craig Jackson Samus emerges from the visor in this sweeping orchestral ballad. Powerful strings and cinematic swells reveal the humanity behind the armored hero, elevating the classic theme into a story of resilience and introspection. Games & Sources Super Metroid - Samus Aran's Theme

Artist Name: Craig Jackson The overlooked hero takes center stage. Bluegrass banjo and Broadway-style flair dramatize WaLuigi’s frustrations and hidden ambitions, turning a quirky theme into a theatrical, heartfelt lament. Games & Sources Mario Strikers Charged - WaLuigi's Theme

Yes, the grammar is wrong in the title. I'm just carrying over what was there. -LT Artist Name: Craig Jackson Yoshi’s gentle heart meets smooth R&B grooves in this soulful reimagining. Layered vocals and warm instrumentation convey the quiet sting of abandonment, turning a familiar staff roll into an intimate confession of melancholy. Games & Sources Super Mario World - Staff Roll

FYI, the submitter hasn't included linked YouTubes for the source tunes, so I'm providing those. Most of their links are to SoundCloud streaming links rather than downloadable files, FYI. They've submitted way beyond what we allow in such a short timeframe, but the panel's been doing well and it almost caught up, so we'll go through these. This sounds like AI, so including some conversation we had in the submission area with the artist for reference. Asked whether this was generative AI, the answer was: "So this is a yes and no answer. I wrote the lyrics, played the guitars and bass. I added in the drums using garageband, and used AI for the vocals. So not generative AI, with Ace Studio for the vocals yes. Much like all of my other submissions, I play as much as I can with guitar, bass, piano, mandolin or violin and let garageband fill out the rest of what I can't play, do not own, as well as Ace take care of singing for me."

Artist Name: Craig Jackson Chains of heroism and hidden sorrow collide in this post-grunge take on Zelda’s classic overworld theme. Crunchy guitars and driving drums channel the weight of unspoken struggles, transforming Hyrule’s adventure into an emotionally raw release. Games & Sources The Legend of Zelda (A Link To The Past) - Overworld

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.