Taffin

This receives my rating of "TB," which either stands for "Total Badass" or "Tuberculosis," I'm not sure. It's definitely good, though.

Don't judge this song on the first listen. I didn't care for this mix at first, but it just came up randomly on my iTunes playlist while I was just doing other stuff and it finally hit me. I don't have any detailed criticism to give, only to say that it takes a few listens (and maybe even a "subliminal" one where you aren't paying attention) to fully appreciate it.

Surprisingly, not my favorite rendition of "Beginning" (arguably the most recognizable VG tune after the original SMB). The one thing I love about this track is the different directions goat takes the original music in. It shows his creativity as a guitarist better than the other tracks he has on OCR and has a perfect ending.

This track couldn't be much better (and kudos for picking a neglected CV2 song). The darker side of CV is well captured and features my favorite use of gothic organ in a metal song outside of Avenged Sevenfold's "Eternal Rest." OCR has but a small sampling of goat's work. If you love his particular brand of CV Metal as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to check out http://www.powergoat.com. I didn't notice the link on his remixer page for a while, so I'm pointing it out for those who may have missed it.

To me, this is the definitive version of Dwelling of Doom, although it's let down by muffled recording/production that robs the beautiful playing of a lot of its power. There's no way I can be listening to the same mp3 that someone said was "too loud." I may have severe hearing loss from years of listening to this sort of music live and on CD, but I refuse to believe anyone could think this recording is overbearing. The sound quality on his later recordings is so much better that I wish he'd rework this one!

I thought the idea behind using the "unfitting" password music at the beginning was to immediately put the listener into Castlevania mode by drawing on that piece's ability to really evoke memories of the first time you loaded up CV2, and then sort of shock you out of it with the beat, eventually bringing you back with a fairly unchanged rendition of a beloved theme. I'm not really a fan at all of mixes that deviate extremely from the original, ones that if you heard them on the radio you wouldn't even know they came from one of your favorite games, so this is right up my alley. In fact, I only registered so I could let Vic Viper know that I've literally been listening to this mp3 for years and consider it to be one of the finest versions of one of the best songs from my favorite game series. It seems sorely underappreciated here. Thanks man, and move your ass on making some more music!