SwordBreaker

Very nice job with this, Nicole. Sounds much, much better than the last WIP I heard. Glad you're re-working this. Can't wait for those vocals!

Very contemporary. I love how you kept the style of the original intact with the machinery sounds and tempo. In the same time, the use of various sci-fi, classical, orchestral, and rock sounds is simply excellent. They all mesh together very well. Samples are of course great. Extremely catchy drums, very nice keyboards and variety in melody, guitars are great but the rock bias in me wishes they would've sounded more prominent compared to the other stuff, and finally the sci-fi sounds remind me of what Mahito Yakota did with the Mario Galaxy soundtrack. The progressive nature of this track reminds me of Monstrous Turtles a lot...the way you integrated a bit of Kafka in there reminds me of the Forest of Illusion cameo in Monstrous Turtles. Like everyone said, the fadeout is probably the most disappointing aspect about this grandiose remix, because its just too typical for the likes of zircon. But I can understand working under time constraints, so it's no biggie with me. The possibility of a new ending entices me, though. I still haven't listened to the other entries of the contest to compare, but you've definitely put a lot of love into this remix, Andy. Congrats on the win and keep everyone posted with your experience in Distant Worlds! The possibility of meeting Uematsu and handing him a copy of Voices of the Lifestream is so cool. I wonder how he'll react?

New teaser video up, guys. They hint that TBM are actually going to SING in one of the remixes. Hopefully they do well 'cause I'm not a fan of the vocal stuff in the previous album. Also, they're planning for digital distribution in the US/UK. Hell yes.

Very often. Just about every day actually. Videogame remixes in general are something that's in my rotation when I sit down on my laptop. That was not the case a couple of years ago.

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSL1627196120080216 It's over! All we need is an official press release. Rejoice!

Hell yes. Planet Earth is the greatest documentary I've ever seen and it's my very first blu-ray purchase outside of games. Even if you guys aren't into the whole animal/wild thing, you'll be amazed by what's shown in this series.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3166165 Excellent interview. Lengthy, personal, and informative. You'll be surprised by a couple of factoids here and there. No signs of Voices of the Lifestream, though. I still need to watch the videos.

Been hyped about this game ever since it was announced in Japan. Level 5 is one of the developers I truly respect, so I'll be getting this game even if it's not an epic RPG. Glad Nintendo of America are publishing this game.

Just the blood. Looks cool and flashy to me, but I would get the game even if there were no blood. Doesn't really make much of a difference because of how stylish the game is. I suggest you get it.

I've started playing this awesome Wii game two days ago. Wow. The style and vibe are so wacky. You save by going to the bathroom...how f-ed up is that? 8 bit icons and interfaces incredibly work well and remind me a lot of Contact DS, a previous Grasshopper game. The cel-shaded visuals are so cool, although it's unfortunate that the city itself looks so outdated compared to everything else. Gameplay kicks ass. It's like Twilight Princess on crack...only the motion controls are implemented in a smart way unlike TP. It's so satisfying to pull off those wrestling moves. Although the city gives me this GTA vibe, it isn't as deep as you think. There could of been a lot more interactivity in that regard. The music is incredibly cool. Lots of rock and techno. I especially love the "now loading" transition guitar riff. Most stylish Wii game ever...and one of the most stylish games overall. It actually reminds me of when Devil May Cry first got released on the PS2.

You guys need to watch the video that accompanies the interview, too. It's over at GameVideos. Videos shows his studio and Mr. Mitsuda playing what I believe is a mandolin. Love the background music of the video...from the game Shadow Hearts II..."Town of Twilight", one of his compositions. One of my favorite tracks, actually.

http://www.dogearrecords.com/tbm3_eg/index.htm English site and new movie uploaded. There's a fuller version of Bombing Mission playing in the background of the interview, and towards the end there's another teaser song playing. Additionally, the final screen lists the Japanese and *GASP* North American/UK release dates of the album, although the latter is TBA obviously. Nonetheless, it seems that they're planning to release this album in a broader scope. Nice.

Thanks for those songs, Eulogic. Loving: Angel Island: rockin' guitars! Thanks, Jun! Waluigi Pinball: sounds even catchier than the original! Wonder who remixed this? Bramble Breeze: this one is just too good to be true. Excellent arrangement. I'm very curious on who's responsible for this masterpiece.

Nice line-up there. Lots of Shizz and VGMix love. Only one who's OCR dominant is Sixto, which I'm happy for. Can't wait for the arrangements to the Waterfall and Harbor tracks 'cause those two are my favorites so far. I wonder what's so secret about who's remixing Harbor, though? Glad you were able to bring virt in for the credits. Good luck, everyone.

Glad the development of this game is finally finished. I'm sure I'll have a really fun time with this game once it reaches shores outside of Japan. There will be a few nitpicks, however, especially regarding some of the roster picks and whether or not they control like clones. I really wanted each character to play differently from the other, Ganondorf in particular. Anyway, I'm kind of surprised that nobody is talking about the developer of this game. Mr. Sakurai revealed who the team is through the "Iwata Asks" special feature over at us.wii.com. GameArts. Yeah, the same dudes who are responsible for the Grandia RPG series. Pretty weird, right? There's also the fact that FFVII's scenario writer worked on the Adventure mode.

Yup, yup. Snapple and norg's version of the battle theme wipes the floor with the The Black Mages version. One Winged Angel is right down the middle between the huge OCR collab and the Advent Children TBM remix...both versions are cool in their own unique ways.

Just pimped this project in the making along with Radical Dreamers and the relaunch of vgmix in a recent podcast I did with my fellow staff members on our game site. http://www.projectcoe.com

Been a fan of them ever since I heard of their existence a couple of years back. I think the appeal of The Black Mages is that these are real game composers who got together and did something like this. Anything that's official catches on with us Final Fantasy fans. No offense to the super-awesome videogame rock bands we all know and love, though. But yeah...some of their arrangements are pretty hit or miss, especially with people like us who constantly check out the videogame music remix community. We can immediately compare some of the awesome fan arrangements and cover bands to the official ones. Still, though, I cannot wait for this album despite being pretty disappointed by the "Bombing Mission" teaser they have on their site. While the intro (which plays in the teaser video) sounds excellent, the mp3 teaser sounds low quality and the arrangement isn't that exciting. I'm sure that they've pumped up some awesome tracks nonetheless...makes me wonder of the final tracklist they have planned. Any predictions on that font, anyone? I, for one, would love to see FF1's town theme arranged in a similar manner to the Matoya's Cave remix in their second album.

It's not just 2D platforming that's dying, seems that Mario Galaxy and Ratchet are the only 3D platformers which actually have some work put into them. Nonetheless, I don't think 2D platforming is dead quite yet. Thanks to the DS and PSP, we've been getting some pretty hardcore stuff. Yoshi's Island DS surprised the hell out of me because it's extremely challenging. New Super Mario Bros. was so much fun to play even though it's easy. Mega Man ZX kicks ass. Sonic Rush kicks ass. The Mega Man remakes for the PSP were excellent, and it's unfortunate that they didn't sell well. Lots of fans are pleased by Dracula X Chronicles as well. I'm sure that the PSN and WiiWare services will over a lot of 2D platforming titles once they get the ball really rolling. Classic shooters and puzzlers have been revived thanks to the online services (especially Xbox LIVE which started the whole trend)...and I'm sure Nintendo's WiiWare will revive 2D platforming in some way. After all, we've just heard of the Bionic Commando remake for XBL and PSN and that's a nice start to say the least.

Ah, anime. Grendizer was perhaps the first anime I was hooked into. It has a very strong fanbase here in Saudi Arabia because the Arabic dub was excellent stuff. Additionally, Captain Tsubusa (called Captain Majed in Arabic) was another strong anime here because of the dub and its all about soccer, which is a huge sport here. Back in the day, those two series were really addicting, and I never even realized that they were Japanese anime dubbed into Arabic until I looked around the internet. Other than those, I was mostly into classic American cartoons, particularly TMNT. Dragon Ball Z was another anime I really got into for a short while when I used to spend my summers in the US. Didn't get back into the anime scene until a couple of years ago when my friends raved about Naruto. I didn't see what the big deal was until I watched it and fell in love with it...although I can understand why people would think its overrated because of its DBZ-like nature. Since then, I've been dabbling here in there with series my friends recommend. Full Metal Alchemist was something I've been hyped about myself because Square-Enix was behind it. Then there's GetBackers, Bleach, dothack sign because I liked the first dothack game I played, One Piece, Gundam SEED, and a few others. Like some of you said, Death Note was spectacular. FLCL was also another series I was VERY surprised about; stylish animation with an AWESOME soundtrack. Finally, Read or Die isn't get enough love here...that was one hell of a series. I LOVE Miyazaki's movies, but I've gotten into them somewhat late. Spirited Away was the first one I watched, and it really moved me. While not quite an anime, Little Nemo is one of my all-time favorites...I read somewhere that it's a co-production involving American and Japanese animation studios. Definitely going to check out some of the stuff you guys recommended. Been reading on some of them in Wikipedia...Mushishi and Code Geass sound really interesting. I recently bought an anime collection titled "Serial Experiments" or something of that sort. I need to watch that.

Man...this is surprisingly a tough choice. So many cool game announcers come to mind. The Perfect Dark Zero dude never grows old. KILLTASTIC!

Yeah, I know what you mean; the template-style composition. It's a love it/hate it style, but I personally love different takes on the same melody. Koji Kondo and Mr. Uematsu use this style occasionally. I'm currently SO addicted to "Wandering on a Sunny Afternoon", "Under the Apple Tree", and the arrangement to Areith's theme. Loving some of those aggressive, gritty guitar tracks too, like "The Face of Lost Pride" and "Last Order Crisis Mix". Fulfilled Desire is a pretty cool arrangement of the original FF7 overworld theme. I like it. Same with that One-Winged Angel arrangement.

Man, I've been recently listening to the soundtrack of Crisis Core. Fucking awesome. Was very surprised by the quality and diversity of the soundtrack since Dirge did not impress me musically. But this new dude, Mr. Ishimoto...wow, impressive debut, indeed. The live guitar work is especially AWEOSME. I read that he does all the playing himself. There are a couple of arrangement to FFVII tunes in there. Nice stuff. But I'm WAY into the original tracks more.

I've never been able to get into the Fire Emblem series for some reason. Like most non-Japanese Nintendo fans, Smash Brothers Melee was my first exposure to the series. Bought FE for GBA, played it a bit, then lost interest. The strategy formula didn't really sink to my head as much as Final Fantasy Tactics. And being the fanboy that I am, I always compare any turn-based stratagy game to FF Tactics. Anyway, I've been hearing that Radiant Dawn doesn't really show that it's a Wii game. I'm wondering if this bothers anyone. Personally, it's fine with me. Unfortunately, I've not played the GC one yet so this will have to wait.

A very surprising announcement, indeed. Wish I can contribute in some way, but I'm not quite there in terms of the "Snapple-bar" *coughinstigatingwhisperscough* Regardless, can't wait to see the progress with this. Would love it if we get previews of the tracks, demos, WIPs and stuff like that. Don't like it when projects are hush-hush in what's going on. Also, it would be REALLY interesting if you can get Jake himself on this bandwagon, Snapple. I'm pretty sure no one can top his own work except for himself.