Audity

Having heard the main melody about 500 times before, it's gotten a bit boring, so it playing by its lonesome during the beginning wasn't great for me. Due to me knowing how the whole song sounds now, listening to the newly incorporated melody at about the one minute mark, despite it being quite lonesome as well, has me enjoying it now, due to its very remixed nature of "Balcony", so it's appropriate for buildup obviously, whereas I might not have understood it upon first listen. It's not until the Balcony section at 1:30 or so starts playing that the whole song piques my interest, regardless of what listen # I'm on. It reminds me of the calm piano section in Corran's Cave Story mix. Sounds more like a remix of Terra's theme from FF6 at points, with a hint of Metroid Prime atmosphere. I'm not a fan of the great increases in volume. Strings are pretty nice otherwise, and I like the synth solo (that area of the mix sounds like a smooth rendition of some Mega Man song). The song follows no real genre guidelines, which has me really picky picky about things. But ultimAtely (lol) I find the combinations of instruments occasionally to not work out well to my liking; this is teamed with the volume issues. This remix is what it is, but personally I would have liked some additional elements thrown in somewhere, or some kind of other driving force (besides the bass), since as I mentioned before I don't really like the melody. The whole song's not really much of a solo Cave Story mix than it is Cave Story, Mega Man, Secret of Mana (the Balcony source tune and melody in and of themselves reek of SoM), and FF6. Okay okay it's a Cave Story mix . Regardless of any of my possible harshness given with my spoken opinion (perhaps I need to listen with speakers instead, or listen with a higher volume, which would probably be painful given the 2nd half of the song, something I very dislike [the bass is really nice at higher volumes, no matter the section of the song]), I will completely and eagerly await more submissions by DrumUltimA, since I think he's capable of a very wide range of techniques and genres. Edit: actually listening to it with higher volume really makes me not think of the instruments having an out-of-place feeling anymore. However I still feel uncomfortable listening to those strings when they first enter. 1:14-1:19 right ear has some issues. I can somewhat hear some kind of musicality that was trying to be done with it, but it sounds a bit cluttered. Luckily besides the string volume, random singular synth-note volume increase, and possibly cluttered ending, this is pretty much the only "flaw" in production that I can spot, with my highly trained (not) production-noticing ears.

Has a major problem with being too loud, but I like the kind of artistic expression that was put into this anyway. I thought the best parts were when this certain melody is playing. It's the melody that's played on a sharp trebley sample in the middle of AmIEvil's remix of this same song. So I thought that could be focused on a bit more, given it has a lot of energy, and seems to be this remix's main drive that would have people remember it, if that's what you're aiming for. The beat that was added in the beginning, compared to its inexistence in your first WIP, has a nice production ring to it. But then I'm not too sure about that dirty synth that comes in. Sounds pretty standard, but doesn't have to go away. 1:26 sounds plain bad. It ruins the highly enjoyable 2nd section of that above-mentioned main melody. I think that long-note synth that's added at that part ruins everything until 1:46. Lovely Cave Story-like effect at 2:21. Afterwards (and before, though I didn't spend much time listening between 1:46 and 2:21) is just okay. Then it gets too cluttered at 2:44. The downward progression soon after is a nice retrospect, but perhaps 2:44's section could be a little better. Despite how surprisingly loud 2:21 is compared to what has been happening prior, 3:13 I find to be quite awesome in intensity. The high pitch at 3:30 is even better. I actually really like these two sections. The main melody comes in again, though I don't think there's good enough focus on it, seeing as how many things overpower it. Maybe some cool personal touch could be implemented to change around the melody (a.k.a. make it more conclusive, like that "call and answer" basic melody 101 that they teach in music theory, regarding melodies) to make this mix really stand out. Since, after all, that main melody stands out enough as it is, like I've been saying all along. 4:48 repeats that bad 1:26 progression. Maybe you could turn 1:26 into a good progression, and 4:48 an even better progression. The ending piano sounds very out of place, and very overdone, but you might be aware of this. Other than that, again, see if you can make things less distorted. I hate mastering songs, myself, so I wouldn't know how, besides changing the volume painstakingly, which always seems to make things sound not like I want it. If that happens, try it anyway, and then come back later. You might just like it better. Either that or try really hard to think why your changes would sound better if you "turned this knob here and turned this other knob there". Hm, this is actually quite fun. Maybe I should provide advice as opposed to remixing altogether!

Take McVaffe's Crystalline Caverns for example. I was going to make a thread to request the Healing song since I was just hearing the remake of it on Twilight Princess. But since this is here....SONG OF HEALING GO It's really simple. So simple that even I can probably make it sound good if I tried. I will try eventually probably. I can't recall any mixes of it at all, whether good or bad. Maybe I downloaded some VGMix version which got erased from my mind from me not liking it or something.

original in-game song: http://escaprism.org/audity/411%20To%20the%20Place%20of%20the%20Gods.mp3 updated WIP: http://escaprism.org/audity/FF12path2.mp3

(I haven't made any progress on my Xenosaga III WIP. If anyone reading this likes the WIPs in this post and doesn't know about my XSIII WIP, PM me and I can link it.) Here's this WIP: WIP1 http://escaprism.org/audity/FF12path.mp3 WIP2 http://escaprism.org/audity/FF12path2.mp3 WIP3 http://escaprism.org/audity/Audity_FinalFantasy12_crystalpath-remix_WIP3.mp3 This is halfway inspired by Tepid's recent FF10 mix, Via. I heard this song in FF12 in the Japanese version when watching some video of a certain boss (in Giruvegan/Crystal Grande or whatever it's called), thought it was interesting then, and remembered it right away when playing the US version. I think the original is pretty similar to the original song covered by Tepid in FF10, in terms of mysteriousness, so I figured I would think a little similarly. Constantly changing notes is how my brain works anyway. The piano is all I ever remember, and the background rhythm, so that's all I really remix, not so much the progression of the strings and such found during the other parts of the song. But since I'm running out of ideas, I might do something with that. I work in Reason, know nothing about mastering, and just pick samples that sound good. Though actually this time I set up an Equalizer, Mastering Suite, Reverb, and Compression device right off the bat, and basically have each one controlled for a couple samples right now. I should look up some tutorials sometime...

Right at the beginning of the game. Ally: any. See the bottom of my post

Just sounds like a nice chordstuffs, but given the rest of the notes I'll have to say it's something that Hiroki Kikuta made originally. Like Soukaigi. No thanks I already have a cookie, as you can see. (That's not me.) 0:46-0:47 and all subsequent similar parts sounds like the title screen of Ocarina of Time. And the above person should get used to the electric guitar because it actually sounds really nice to me, when it didn't bef...I already said this 2 times.

Concurred, about the first image. I just watched the trailer twice, really noticed that "scene" the second time even though I already liked it, in the one second it shows, the first time. Then I saw your post and for some reason had 100% perfect confidence that the first image would be what it is. I mainly just like the design of the character, and how mysterious those all those dark looking creatures are actually. This is why I don't like to think of theories. I might come to close to guessing why things are the way they are, therefore making them less mysterious. And that's why my life is better than everyone's.

I hope those weren't the muffled voice actors he was talking about It's generally good. There are plenty of reviews so I won't go into that. But there are some minor things that frustrated me quite a bit, which I never see anyone mention: --they should have made the faces a different color depending on whether or not you already talked to that NPC before. As it is now there's just too many people to talk to, and half the time you're going to be talking to the same person twice. Maybe I should have stopped at the first sentence since I think it would have been the best idea ever. --there should have been a way to organize the order of the faces in the menu, and who appears on the top of the battle screen. Once again, another very great thing they left out. --there is no way to tell ALL of the stats of equipment in shops. All it tells you is what the magic resistance and defense is. --the on-screen map is way too zoomed in. There should have been a way to zoom out without having to hit select. The L1 and L2 (and L3) buttons aren't even used. --I feel ashamed to even have to type this one: L and R don't do anything while in a menu. This means if you're trying to scroll through a large list you have to hold up or down for way longer than necessary. --there should have been more monsters or a hard mode (this would have added only about 5 trillion times to the gameplay). Half the time you're fighting the same thing(s) over and over again. There's a general sense of dullary throughout the entire game actually. However, a decent argument for that is that it's pretty true to life in that sense. No unnatural bright color happy happy. Oh well. I can't complain about two polar opposites at once. --scenes that don't have the bottom letterbox (for subtitles if you have those on) CAN'T be skipped. Like going down an elevator type thing, or switching those things in the sewers on and off. It's completely pointless to have to keep viewing those things. ally: any -> esuna is the best thing ever ally: any -> pheonix down/arise is the best thing ever These two things basically null the point of having ally: blind -> eye drops, etc., and ally: KO, which is gotten later on in the game as opposed to right away. foe: any -> dispel is very useful I'd imagine, during the beginning and middle of the game. I found out about it too late for me to care about debuffing enemies. I actually found out about all of these way too late. That's really every last thing I could ever complain about. Besides that I didn't think the story was anything amazing. Finally some good voices, though. One less major thing to worry about.

Guitar blends in really well actually, and is the driving highlight of the mix overall. Except for its solo section. (Already posted before this, just wanted to say this.) I didn't like it at first for some reason, which just says how different each subsequent listen has actually been if such a dramatic change in my opinion has occured already.

Just as long as it doesn't turn into vgfrequency a soap opera!

The reverse cymbal near the beginning is too trebley for headphones (and speakers?), and it's all in the right ear for some reason. Makes me have to turn the whole song down. Though luckily I can still enjoy it with headphones, unlike Protricity's ZAMN mix. Besides that, this mix is so much of a mixed bag it's insane. With so much "experimentation" with the chords in the song, teamed up with the very beauty-flowing original as the base for interpretation, half the time it sounds like the best song ever created, and the other half is just interesting or decently good (or bad, depending on your tastes). Recently I've been thinking about how I love parts of songs which seem like they're going into a strange chord progression, but then resolve the final chord in the phrase in a way that sounds completely new and pretty. And this arrangement has quite a bit of that. One thing very true is: a bit too short. In a way it sounds like a song that I would make since I never build anything up. Always gogogo to the next section. Wow. Upon first listen I thought the electric guitar in the 2nd half was annoying. But now I really understand it, along with the whole song. I think most people would have very expected thoughts for a remix of this original, like "wait why is electric guitar in this", so it's very hard to listen to at first. I even thought, during the opening of the song, the drums were pretty basic upon first listen, and that they could have been done without. But now, and by now I mean a simple 15 minutes later, it's perfectly natural. However, while I now understand everything for this particular arrangement, I still wish different ideas could be done with this song. Since it's so short and concise, I think it's missing out on some other very nice interpretations upon the very interpretive source song. Also, as it is now, there's less time to enjoy a very nice idea. I think I need to stop listening to this for today. Everything seems too natural now and less mysterious! Very Ni...wait I've said that like 5 times now.

And what about the rest of the song besides the vocals? There are many other parts of the song. Regardless, I would say they are a little bit excessive at times, but they really give the whole song its structure, since the instrumental breaks that follow them are so well done. I like that part at 1:07 that sounds like this Cave Story song, which just so happened to also have a smooth jazz remix by Rexy. Sonic Story.

It's definitely better quality than most Chrono Symphonic, but I don't like the source material at all. Even though there is mucho expansion from that, I know that every second that it is going to go back to that theme that I don't like. In my opinionz, if you want non-boring orchestral with a good tune, check out Russel Cox's EVO mix. Probably one of the only orchestral mixes I have on the site. I like Nigel Simmons's Castlevania 4 arrangement too, but not as much as the EVO one, on a personal level. Back to this mix: Very nice ending.

So I came back to say that this would really work in the game but that it's not something that I can listen to while HEY Thanks for the comments about your headphones. I really appreciate it. Uh? Nice sarcasm for no reason. Okay no more reviewing your tracks, even though I favor them a lot over many mixes due to their focused and constant-cool sounding nature. Crap I just reviewed all of them. As you can see, I'm mighty confused by your comment. You obviously don't seem to care about reviews if you can't say anything other than that, so I say all Darkesword mixes shouldn't have review threads from now on. How's that sound EH? EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHfux im tired

Mandolins are the best part out of this high quality song. I like the melody that it plays, and such. What is that part a remix of?! I can't stop thinking about that part in the song. Aural blissssssssss. And I haven't seen one person really express how great that part is. Really sticks out, and has good structure from the first part of it to the second.

This song came on my playlist and as soon as that section came up I remembered that I wanted to comment on that. I think it's very awkward. Having that melody played on the 16th offbeats or whatever doesn't sound right at all. I think something similar could have been pulled off but without every single note landing on a 16th offbeat (or whatever). Whatever that rhythmic sample is in the background, it's pretty nice---one of the highlights---but I completely looked it over when paying attention to the offbeat weirdness. Some things, if not most, don't have many velocity differences (or whatever else contributes to these purposes), or even rhythmic variety. I'm all for not caring about perfect realism, since synthetics are being used anyway, but there's always the problem of becoming too static. It gets better towards the end. Ah, finally a track that I sort of like where I feel like I can actually review it properly. The whole thing focuses very heavily on arrangement, but I think nuances in various places were overlooked as a result.

As others have said...completely baseless. I even agree with artemisjaeger. I really liked the chord progressions in the beginning, and my expectations for the rest were crushed. Plus that I didn't like the violins. I think...I just don't like violins...at all. I like many other string instruments. They're really loud and dry to boot. I need to find a song where I actually like violins. Perhaps even 50000 songs I would like that have them, but I can't recall their sound being good. I just don't know!™ With the other judgement day mix on this site, it's sort of the same. Somehow in the past it was one of my favorite songs, but recently I couldn't stand it, and got rid of it. I guess the source tune just got repetitive.

Those extraneous noises at the end were really annoying, at least this listen-through, since I couldn't even pay attention to the piano at all. I think the silent part at the beginning is alright...if it wasn't so long. I mean it's like TOO long. It could have easily had the same feeling if it was just a little shorter. Other than that, I have no clue what the post above is talking about with the "you should have practiced it more" comment. The soundscape is what made me keep this song, besides the arrangement, much like with what the guy said about burning the song for his truck. Near the end of djp's write-up rings true.

I was just listening to this by myself with no one else's input, thinking of deleting it because it felt like just another rock mix, from a song I didn't know at all or really care for. But suddenly I thought of reasons why I shouldn't delete it, and all I could think of is, "There's...nothing wrong with this song technically. It's perfect." I'm still not sure about the source tune, besides it just being a "rockin'" tune, and not really striking a personal note. But then I thought of driving, and it was perfect. Then I found out it was a direct post! And that no one hates it. Well, except for grandmas, since they're being rocketted out of their seats supposedly, as said by someone else. Here's to hopeful source-tune personal-likingness! And to already drive-pumping music.

lol LOL LOL (actually I don't know, but it just sounds like original lyrics to me) But still. 3 lols in a row, from me is pretty crazy. djp needs to hurry up and delve into every genre so he can go back to the funk! Better than it could have been. I'm not going to keep it because of personal preference, but I like how it develops even if it doesn't really go anywhere, and how the guitar seems to conclude at points, but then continues, echoing the vocals.

This remix was made that long ago? I thought it'd be at least a little later. Um, everyone who's liked it pretty much said all my thoughts. Middle section leads very nicely into the ending. Also some other nice lead-ins.

I thought I would be the only one to really like this song when I came into this review thread. But it seems there are rabid fans of the original game. Myself, I've never played it . But I like most of it quite a bit. Very different sounding, though perhaps too different sounding during the "climax" sections. I never really liked those, as they sound like something 5-year olds would hear while riding one of those circular-moving "rides" in front of huge retail stores. Well, I don't like this song as a whole TOO much, but can really hit the spot occasionally. A keeper.

None of this means shit if people like how the rest of the song is done. I hate when people say something is overrated. As if they think everyone's opinion is wrong. There's a way to have a different opinion than acting like a jerk, since the latter leads to absolutely nothing but more jerk actions (well at least it's hard for a lot of people not to react in the same manner). I know very well that this has "lol generic trance synths and percussion"...except it's actually not that bad of a sound. In other words...try to enjoy a song without setting up an immediate barrier. Well, you did say it was very well done, though cliche in genre. So that just gives way more chance for quite a large number of people to like it. After all, you're basically saying, "This is very well done trance." And not everyone has to think of trance as LOL EASY GENRE FOUR ON FLOOR DUH SOUNDS THE SAME except it doesn't. Really in the end it just sounds like someone mimicking someone else's act of arrogance towards the frequent structural similarities of trance, instead of making a unique opinion. Anyway, enough talking about someone I don't even know. I like all the nuances. And it's very beefy, and raw (which I imagine the 2nd version got rid of, which would be why some would not like it, kind of like getting rid of the human touch to a song). And I like energetic songs, so yay. Very fun to listen to on rare occasions. Somehow it's the only ffmdj song I like (I haven't heard all his most recent ones, maybe). Well I liked his Jenova one, but it got old.

Stock samples indeed. But the whole song makes me happy inside. Super-excited announcer guy adds to the mix by at least one thousand percent. It's pretty crazy that right now I have a tiny bit less than 300 mixes from the whole site, with this and matt pollard's FF6 "EngineerCid(factory)" mix included with it, two arrangements with pretty low quality sounds, yet I keep them, despite there being 500+ more mixes with great sounds that I didn't keep. Being selective is awesome, because then you get really excited about your accomplishments, and can be as excited as this announcer when you play this happy little generic song in front of friends. I wasn't quite sure about this mix when I did just that, last winter. But after playing this more by myself, I've found that next time in front of someone I can say stuff like "Whoa man this song, is so exciting! Get ready for it!" with confidence. So thanks for the simple request, person!