SwordBreaker

Nu Metal lives! Definitely improved from the DoD version in many ways...and I already loved the DoD one a lot back then. Instruments sound better, guitar sounds better too. The rap sounds tighter...I like the subtle reverb effect on Jose's rapping...feels like he's actually rapping in a mine if you know what I mean. Singing vocals are really good stuff too...this is Hale we're talking about after all. Nothing against Taucer's singing, but Hale's style is more suitable to this type of song. I did like Taucer's voice in that Civ remix awhile back...that style fits him better.

That's virt for you...so versatile. He's usually portrayed as a rock/chiptune veteran, but here he is making a very, very catchy trance remix. Not a huge trance fan, but I can't help but move my body as I listen to this. Very suitable counterpart to the fast-paced nature of the original track. Definitely one of the best tracks of the album. Awesome work, man! Glad you're still contributing to these remixes on top of your VG composing work.

Man...that's too bad. I LOVE mithius' work. Been a fan ever since his solo outing for "The Story of Hyrule". There's just something that screams style in his guitar playing and tone. I hope this gets a bonus release in the near future.

Wow, wow, wow, wow! This is freakin' amazing! AMAZING in captials!!! What an excellent remix. Expecting no less from the man himself, David Wise. Game music ain't what it used to be. Seriously. The electronica and ambiance are just as good, if not better, than the original. Then to have live trumpet and electric guitars by Robin and Grant...perfect! I love how the sax "skewers" towards the end and goes off-key, makes a very dramatic ending to such a fantastic track. Of course, I'm a sucker for electric guitars in any mix, so I'm loving the stuff here. Thanks, David, Robin and Grant. Glad you guys contributed to this project and I'm happy that you're still in touch with each other. I've been wondering what Grant has been doing since he left Rare. It's been so quiet from his end especially.

Spontaneous comment! I had to listen to Stickerbrush Symphony first since it's my favorite track and I gotta say...AMAZING JOB, Joshua. You really did the track justice. I feared that this track in particular wouldn't be good or completely deviate from the original's calm vibe, but man you went above and beyond. Love the soothing sound ambiance that complements in the original...love the acoustic guitars...love the orchestrated samples...love the electric guitar solo. Couldn't have this track any other way to be honest.

Wrote a small blurb for the site I work for. More coming later as I listen to the whole album. All I can say is David Wise's track ROCKS!!!! http://www.projectcoe.com/blog/2010/03/16/ocr-has-some-serious-monkey-buisness-to-do-dkc2-remix-album/

Definitely...and yes, Sazh is perhaps the best character in the game. Not stereotypical at all (unlike FFVII's Barret) and his voice work is pretty good. I feel an aura of maturity from him compared to the rest of the characters...maybe it's because he's the oldest and he does act like one. His humor is good, too. I like the surreal comic relief regarding the Chocobo living in his afro...that's just charming and creative. I've yet to meet Dajh (don't know who he is yet), but I'm sure he'll be just as cool.

Weird that you haven't noticed the amount of grunting and awing in the game, for the tiniest of things, too. Vanille is guilty of this the most. In my case, there's one recent scene when the team first discover the Temple in Lake Bresha, just before the boss fight...Vanille just overdoes it there. http://www.youtube.com/user/DarksydePhilFFXIII#p/u/43/dmXzgcuXAnM Go to 7:45. SPOILERS. I guess it all depends on one's comfort zone with such games. I mean...take FFX for example, I was just so impressed with the audiovisuals back then I did not notice the amount of awkwardness in some scenes. I recently went back to playing it a year ago...definitely didn't stand the test of time in some parts. FFXIII feels stuck in those times to me. You've kept me optimistic though, Necrotic. It may take awhile for the game to pick up the pace.

Highly considering buying this despite being all the way in the Middle East. Just working out problems with my credit card. Either way, congrats on the release, guys!

I'm still about six hours in. One thing I'm definitely very disappointed about is the quality of localization. After the very impressive work put on FFXII's English dialogue and theatrical voice overs, I'm surprised that Square-Enix USA took the mediocre JRPG/stereotypical anime route with this one. Vanille and Snow are extremely annoying first off. The former is just too perky and that accent is unidentifiable, while the latter is obsessed with the word "hero" for some dumb reason. "Heroes don't run from fights." Seriously? Is that the best you can come up with, Square-Enix? Are we stuck in the late 90s or something? So yeah, the audiovisual production is one of the best ever, but the storytelling simply doesn't back that up thanks to the poor dialogue and "okay to bad" voice overs. Lots of needless grunting and yelling too...characters like Vanille are constantly having orgasms for no reason whatsoever. Lost Odyssey was a much more believable game in terms of cut-scenes and storytelling...at least most of the characters put some emotion into their voices. Those kids can be annoying at times, but not as annoying as Vanille.

Old: New: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgaHGKF4_J8 First off, I LOVE the music from Lunar: Silver Star Story. The vocal intro theme in particular had a big impact on me back then. Those lyrics just stick to you like glue and the instrumentation is awesome. I'm sure most of you heard of the recent remake on the PSP: Lunar Silver Star Harmony. Instead of starting from scratch, XSEED built upon the original localization...although sadly they had to remove some of the obvious 90s pop culture references to avoid lawsuits. I haven't played a lot of a game to comment on the localization, but I'm loving the graphics and voice acting thus far. Anyway, the main theme took me by surprise. XSEED have completely redone the lyrics but left the vocal melody intact. I'm not feeling the new lyrics but the updated instrumentation sounds a lot better, not to mention the singing. I have to give it to XSEED; I've recently learned that they actually bought the vocalist of the original song on board for the new theme. Her name is Jenny Magallanes and she definitely developed her vocals well in the past 11 years. There's a certain warmth in the new vocals that I don't feel in the original. Also, notice that the new theme doubled its length to 4 minutes compared to the original. In the end, I prefer the original theme because the lyrics are better, although I'm very impressed with the effort put on the new theme. Thoughts? You can also talk about the Lunar remake if you like. Anyone pick up the limited edition? Brings back memories of Working Designs' impressive packaging, eh?

No probs, dudet. It was fun doing those. If you need me to re-record them, I think I can manage to do so as soon as I'm done with exams. Just holler. And yeah Dunther, this is better than the DoD version. The volume is of the overall mix is actually higher I suppose.

Been a fan of this ever since DoD and it's WIP stages. Glad you finally returned to the scene via this mix, LuIzA. As always, it doesn't disappoint. I can listen to the Tom Morello influences clearly. Keep it up, dudet. Your CT mixes are hyping me up to actually play the game. Yep, hard to believe that I have not played this game yet. You never posted Dimensional Horizons in OCR, btw. That track still rocks! Could use some remastering like Fire Cross and it'll be ready for more exposure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxLyGiUdMN8&feature=player_embedded# Sort of old news (a few days ago), but I haven't seen any threads created for this. That link contains an acoustic version of the The Megas debut OCR single, The Annihilation of Monsteropolis. To be honest, I'm not a fan of the original version. Found the lyrics to be a bit cheesy and the singing voice not that exciting. But man...the acoustic version is far, far superior. Excellent playing, sweet vocal harmonies and some orchestral ambiance. Makes it more listenable to me. I'm really considering getting the whole album, which is an acoustic version of the original debut. I'm a sucker for acoustic music. http://www.themegas.com/store.html Thoughts? Is the digital release worth 10$?

I may post something on the gaming site I write for. Would be cool if you guys get the gig. I know that Sega's North American and European blogs are very community-friendly so if the word spreads out well enough they may pimp you out as well. And once that's done, surely someone inside Sega will notice. Perhaps the hardest thing about this is that Sonic 4's release only a couple of months away (summer) so it may be hard for you guys to meet that deadline...considering that there will be a lot of internal discussions going on. I got the impression that Dave and company had to do a lot of talk with the development team of HD Remix in order to make the deal crystal clear. Also, it doesn't help that the game is developed internally by Sonic Team...doesn't allow for a lot of flexibility. I know I'm sounding a bit grim here...just my two cents. Like you said though, no harm in trying.

Wow...now that's news to me! It's great that BGC has finally entered the industry...and what better way to do so? Mass Effect 2. Never in a million years did I expect this. Not that BGC is devoid of talent...complete opposite of course. It's just that this is a huge debut. Congrats, man! I'm obviously curious about the regular stuff like how this came to be. I also want to know the directions that these composers took. Was it something ordinary like each one handling a specific amount of tracks or did all composers collaborate on everything? Or was it a bit of both? Were all composers in the same room together, or was everything through the internet? Also, coming into Mass Effect 2...has everything been done from scratch or are certain motifs from the previous one carried over? Was it essential to even study the prequel's music either way? I'm not familiar with the soundtrack's style so I'm wondering if it's restricted to a certain genre (orchestra) or does each composer get to show off some flair. What kind of discussions has this team gone through in order to determine the direction of the score?

Good point. Funny story about that. During the first 3 hours of my playtime, I did not noticing the scrolling bar for the abilities, so I assumed that each character started out with 4 and that I'll get more as I level up via EXP. So I kept on grinding the first 4 abilities of my party until I noticed that damn scrolling bar. Too small and tucked away. And yeah, I do feel overpowered right now because of that slip up.

5 hours in. I like the fact that the characters don't take themselves seriously. It's pretty obvious that the voice actors were having a lot of fun with the lines during the recording sessions. Speaking of which, I'm quite surprised by the amount of voice work present here. For a DS game, it's pretty epic. Now I know how all the space has been filled out. Everything else is pretty much traditional JRPG standards. Graphics are Xenogears-like. The battle system is basically an updated version of Xenogears as well, which is enjoyable to mess around with. It's fun to distribute your points to power-up and unlock various attacks. Dungeons are standard-fare, too. Loving the music...it's not Mitsuda's best work, but it's still great stuff. My only quip is with the programming of the music itself...random encounters happen frequently, an as soon as you're done with one, the dungeon music loops from the beginning. It's a bit irritating since tracks are long and the only time you can fully appreciate them is when you're in the menu messing around with stats and equipment. If you're looking for a standard JRPG on the go I'd go for this one. They are much better choices on the DS obviously but this game is the most recent. It helps that you can save anytime, anywhere. I can understand the disappointment of some media outlets since people were expecting an epic tale from this game just like Xenogears or Chrono Trigger. Sands is the complete opposite.

OCR going into unplugged mania these days, eh? While I personally enjoyed Dreams of Absolution's transition a lot more, this one is not a bad effort overall. The vocals are commendable, but as most of you pointed out they're not perfect...and maybe they don't have to be. It's understandable to nitpick because this is an extremely hard song to get right...the bar is already really high. Not to mention the millions of fans who already memorized the song from top to bottom (including me). As a first attempt to remix this song for OCR, it's not bad. The high-pitched parts sound strained, especially towards the end. The low-pitched ones, on the other hand, are really good. I'm impressed that you included both the Japanese and English parts. Japanese sounded awkward at first, but picked up well later. Finally, the vocals do indeed sound very high compared to the instruments...and it would've been great if you included back-up vocals and more harmonies. Perhaps that would've covered up the small weaknesses. Maybe the imperfection of the vocals gives the song an organic unplugged vibe as some of you mentioned. Also, it helps that diotrans is a talented singer. Nobody's perfect. Finally, I have no quips with the instrumentation; violins and acoustic guitar sound great! Gutsy attempt, people! Hope you collab for "My Sanctuary" next!

Nice stuff, level 99. Thanks for the fast replies. So you were the one singing, eh? Very interesting. You should keep some of your vocal takes as back-up harmonies or something, 'cause you have a cool punk voice.

I heard the latest WIP. Interesting take on the theme. A couple of critiques: 1) Intro is a bit too long in my opinion. Vocals should come in sooner. 2) Cyril has some nice punk/ska pipes. Reminds me of Billy Talent's lead singer. Lyrics are hilarious. I noticed that you mentioned difficulty with the vocals but I'm going to critique anyway: they're a bit muffled. Some parts need multi-layered vocal harmonies as well. 3) The instrumental at minute 2 needs to include some sort of guitar solo with the trumpets and sax. Other than those, it's sounding good so far. Looking forward to more developments with this one. You should let LuIzA give it a listen since she's the ska expert around here. Not sure if she has the time to join in the fun though.

Nice factoids in Dave's write-up. I'm not familiar with LeeBro's work in OCR, but good for him that he's in the industry...working on a series he apparently loves no less. Wasn't familiar with the source tune before this remix...though I really dug Sonic 2006's main theme, "His World" (can someone tackle that for OCR, please?). Upon listening to Dreams of Absolution on YouTube, I found it to be just as solid. Sonic music always never disappoints, even if the recent games themselves aren't as awesome as the classics. As for this remix, truly excellent stuff. I would totally believe it if someone told me this is a bonus track of the game's actual OST. Love the alternate "unplugged-style" of the track compared to the original's techno. Professional production values indeed. The acoustic guitars are so well-played. Loving the bass. Absolutely loving the "warmth" of the vocals that everyone has been praising. Vocal harmonies are not bad as well...some of the lyrics do indeed sound a bit muffled, but it's still catchy. While I enjoyed the minimalistic feel of the track, it's great that you guys evolved the sound in minute 3 with some nice orchestral ambiance and full-fledged drums...really made the track sound unique and lessened the repetition. This can really suit the game's end credits or something. Great work, guys! Hoping for more collabs from you!

An oldie but goodie. Mad props to LuIzA for her work in general. She's such a talanted musician with many great assets such as her guitar & bass playing, production work, and sweet vocals. While I'd love the latter to be more prominent in game remixes, I won't harass her as long as she's making tracks for us. I'm thankful enough that she asked me to contribute for a few vocal sections in one of her DoD remixes (Dimensional Horizons, which should be submitted btw). Great solos, great playing, catchy groove, nice keyboards, and epic intro/ending. There's nothing about this track that I don't like.

This track is one of my favorites from the Radical Dreamers project...I think I also listened to the updated mix in one of those game music podcasts (the name escapes me right now). Either way, have nothing constructive to say because I love everything about this mix even before the update. Love the orchestral breakdown in the beginning followed by the seamless transition to the guitar riffs. You know something's epic is about to happen each time to listen to this track. Now why hasn't "Thieves of Fate" been submitted? It's one of the catchiest vocal tracks in the site for crying out loud...I still listen to it from time to time and sing along.

Excellent work. Just like everyone here, I love Mario Galaxy's soundtrack because it manages to be just as catchy as 16-bit VG music despite using a full orchestra. On that note, remixing tracks may be a bit intimidating. Such a good job in capturing the mood of the original, jmr. The mixture of orchestral sounds and space synths are just as haunting. We really need more Mario Galaxy remixes for this site, not to mention space music genre. I think this is the first remix to feature the latter.