KogeJoe

Fei Long was always one of my favorite soundtracks. This is a nice re-mix because even though it's an up-beat mix, it still keeps a traditional Asian flavor, with the koto and flute coming out every now and again. The koto opener was quite genius. Also like the 4ths and 5ths adding to the Asian feel. Interesting twists in the elaboration too.

Ah HAH. I KNEW there was reason behind your recent rant in your private message. Can't take criticism unless it's a GOOD review eh? Yeah. What do I mean by write your own musical platform? It means don't ruin good music because you think you can sing and make an already good piece "better" by putting in cheesy lyrics and bad singing. What is this. American Idol? In other words, why don't you write your own music to your own lyrics? You think you're being "creative" when you take an already written piece of music and adding in your own lyrics? How is stealing music to put in your own lyrics "creative" or "original?" There is such a thing as "remixing," and then there is shameless opportunism. Sorry, but I think I'm entitled to write in what I think, seeing as this is a "review" forum, right? Sorry, but that's the way I see it. Maybe there are people on here who wish to hear sappy lyrics mixed in with good videogame music. I'm not one of them. Sorry, this song sounds awful. The voice is awful, the lyrics are awful. Lyrics don't instantly sound good because you're putting them to good videogame music, and sorry, but I'm not too fond of hearing people sing with their nose. You might think this is the best voice in the whole world, sorry but I think it needs improvement. Why are you talking about guitars and symphony? What does this have to do with putting lyrics to other people's music? I can get started on "symphonic" re-mixes, a lot sound boring and unexciting. No, a piece isn't an instant ringer, and it doesn't make a re-mixer sound "creative" or "sophisticated" for pretending to write for a symphony. Not saying that all of them suck, just that most of them do. It's a turn-off to hear a played-out style rehashed. Symphony isn't bad, if you can write for it. What is a "legitimate" reason for not liking something? Why must my reasons for not liking how a piece of music sounds be legitimized by anyone save myself? Just who do you think you are? Releasing a work out into the world, and then crying a river because someone out there doesn't like it is moronic and insulting. "How DARE you not like my piece! Garrr!!!" If you don't want people to say bad things about your work, you shouldn't be releasing them in such a public place as the INTERNET. A person who is "grown up" can take criticism, good or bad and roll with it, instead of demanding people shut up and not speak their minds. It's the whole reason for a "review" forum. You know what you call a place where you can only say "good" things? Communist China. Maybe if we lived there. But we don't. Quit being such a sensitive artist. I've heard your works. You've got some good stuff. I just don't think this is one of them. Get over it!

Like the uniformity of the piece. Nice to hear this melody rendered in a slightly faster beat. Could be listening to this as I zoom out on the Hwy... I can hear hints at other themes in this remix. The arpeggiation in the opening scenes is one of my favorite themes, and I can hear nods to this in the end.

Listened to this the whole way through. LOVE the melodic run at 1:36. Nice repetition of the first half before finally cadencing. Thought the electronic voice monologue at 2:24 was kinda cheesy though. Could have done without it. But on the whole, nice.

The piece was bleh. It was basically a hodge-podge of the main melody played in a bunch of different genres. Some of the renditions sound alright, but it just seems that it was a bunch of different styles smashed together and some of them just sound out of place. Those of you that know me know that I can't stand music with lyrics, unless the musical composition supercedes it. (I have kept a few tracks with singing in there...) But another genre that is beginning to get on my nerves is the so-called "symphonic" or neo-classicist style. Like, so many melodies have been put to this style that it now sounds cheesy to me. I hear something that starts out with this kind of "soundtrack"-y feel and I go "oh brother... not one of these again..." They tend to be long, drawn out, and boring, because you ALREADY know the tune, (we ALL know them, we've played these games in our childhoods), and you just sit there waiting for the rest of the tune to come out. It's almost painful to listen to. That's what I felt like at the beginning of this piece. But I always listen to the whole piece, (sometimes clawing at my ears), just to say that I "heard the whole thing" and so I can give the piece a fair chance. Luckily the genre changed, and I was like, "cool, it was just an intro," but then the genre just kept right on changing. 3 minutes and 52 seconds of "gee, I dunno what I should stick to..." There were some neat things here and there, but on the whole, I felt like I was left with blue-balls at the end. Then again, there's only so much you can do with Flash Man's stage music. In my opinion, even in the original Nintendo rendition, after the introduction it's really quite boring and goes nowhere. I think the tracks I liked the LEAST in MM2 were Clash Man's and Flash Man's stages. MAYBE Heat Man's stage too. Can't stand too much repetition... Don't take it to heart. You can't have ALL good reviews you know. Don't give up!

Actually, HeatMan's stage is kinda hard to remix. Not so much because there isn't already an alright groove going on, but because it's hella repetative, and hella SHORT. There's this long intro that's just basically the same 2 measures repeated 8 times with a twist at the end to cadence, and then the main theme is just 4 measures of the exact same melody repeated 4 times. Entirely too simple. I think the people that decide to undertake this and remix it are geniuses. I like the elaboration made in spite of the repetition. I think this is an alright re-mix.

Not a bad remix at all. Reminds me a whole lot of Dream Theatre.

Somebody's been listening to a lot of Dream Theatre. Great stuff!

First, let me start off by saying how much I dislike symphonic re-makes. No, not all videogame music sounds "cool" when someone takes the main melody and tries to re-mix it using orchestral sounds. I sometimes wonder, what are these people thinking? And then I go, I know what they're thinking. They're thinking that they're somehow genius and "innovative" for trying to remake a videogame track into some sort of movie sound track. Nope... sorry, doesn't always work. Symphonic does not equal automatic hit. So I wish people would refrain from remaking stuff into "symphonic versions." Aside from getting annoying, everybody and their grandma's done one; it gets old. BUT... My, my, I must say what a beautiful conglomeration of styles we have here. I love the square lead intro. You do a great job of incorporating the symphonic style into this piece of music. The square lead is quiet, but then the symphonic part slowly builds up. But then you don't just leave it there, but incorporate a drum set and totally unrelated rhythm! I like how the square lead is a recurring theme. Nice job of tying this through. My absolute favorite part is at 2:06 when you introduce an entirely different rhythmic pattern than the original. Quite marchy and enroute to distruction. Totally gives a new perspective to an old piece. And then you bring in an electric guitar!!! There's nothing wrong with symphonics as long as people can use them RIGHT. EXCELLENT piece.

This is a cute little re-mix... think the title is kind of lame. Harden the duck up? I mean, my duck's hard. Is yours? Nice theme and variations. I thought the ditty at the end was cute! I mean, it appears in the game when you die, but also whenever you were watching Ducktales, it would play whenever the show would cut to a commercial break. Great start, middle and finish. Brought back memories of me playing my NES and watching Ducktales.

I love me my Samba and Bossa Nova, and I've gotta say that this is a cool little mix. I've always had this thing for the Costa del Sol theme, and I've often wondered what it would have been like and someone elaborated on it. Nice work you have done. I ever recognized the Girl from Ipanema intertwined in there.

Pros and cons... Music was nice and mellow... until the lyrics started. Don't take this personally? I just, ME MYSELF, do not like to hear lyrics on tracks that were meant to be lyric-less. It ruins a piece when something that isn't supposed to be there is forced on there by aspiring artists that think they're embellishing something with their own lyrics that don't even appear in the game. And on top of that, I DIDN'T like the pitch bends in the vocals. Can't people sing without the need for electrical enhancements? SOMETIMES it's cool, but like, I thought that was too much, even for lyrics. :tomatoface: Other than that, I liked to hear all the different variations of musical styles. Different instruments, esp. the jazz tremolo organ. My favorite part starts at about 2:05 when it kinda goes into rae-gae/ska and I hear a familiar melody. Mute City is one of my all-time favorite F-Zero tracks. Always brings back memories of playing my SNES after school. The back-ground voices are actually a nice addition. It was a SEXY voice. Mmm hm. 3:27 has a nice relaxing feel to it. Again, could do without the vocals. If there were less vocals, and the cool parts would be longer I'd like this piece more.:<

I thought the track was great. That is, until I heard the lyrics... :tomatoface: It was all going real great. Nice instrumentation, familiar melodies... But why do arrangers/remixers feel they have to ruin a completely good track by adding their corny lyrics? Couldn't they save it for original works? I've already gotten a private message to stop bashing lyricists or I'll get banned. But this is as tame as I'll get. To all those with bruised feelings, take a look at this: http://ljconstantine.com/column9.htm Nothing personal, it's just what I think, OK? Just make good music next time.

It's been a while since I've posted, and those that have read my posts before know that I can get pretty nasty. I could follow the "if you can't say something nice" rule, but then, what would posts and forums like these be if all you heard was praise? You gotta get negative feedback at somepoint. It's the whole point of publishing your works. Take the good with the bad. First, I liked the thought of hearing this piece in actual instrumentation. Love the effects and the improv in this arrangement. Hearing many things at once. One thing I've gotta say is, I'm a stickler for keeping true to the original melody line. Hate to say it, but the guitar is off in more places than one. Maybe problems with accuracy? You can always play it off as "it's my arrangement," but I don't wanna hear that crap. Once you delve into improv, you are free, but at the beginning, when the melody was introduced, I was put off by the ad-lib of some parts. It would be nice to hear the guitarist give me the original melody at least ONCE in the arrangement, and true to the game music. Not to mention a lot of the time the guitar was LATE as hell. Annoys the hell out of me to hear an instrument trying to catch up. The other thing I've gotta complain about at the beginning of the piece is the un-changing base-line. The game is much more elaborate, and again, it just sounds like the player isn't competent enough. (Sorry, he may be a competent player, but this line doesn't change at all. If he/she is a better player, it isn't doing him/her much justice...) Is it that hard to play the root, 5th and root again up top at the same time? And is it really that hard to shift between a i and vii chord on a base? Otherwise, I thought it was an awesome idea. Sunsoft tends to have really good, nostalgic bits of music in its games, and Blaster Master is no exception. I've heard very little at OCRemix that I've liked from Blaster Master, and I actually like this one. Interesting work in the changing meters. And this may be just me, but I swear I can hear some influence from the Doom department. Love the echo effect in the electric guitar at 3:30. Some sharpening of the melody would be nice. It makes the player sound like he/she has a really bad ear, or that he/she is getting a little bit to creative. But overall, good work.

Just throwing it out there... it would be cool to hear a GOOD remix of the Rusty Ruins music in Sonic 3D blast. Perhaps something to the effect of the OCRMX "Marble Madness: Spectacular Kinetics?" Or something original. I just think this music is pretty cool, ind it would be nice to hear a longer, better-sounding rendition of it. Cheers to all you good re-mixers out there. *EDIT* Oh! And another piece of music that I'd like to hear remixed is the Diamond Dust music? Thx!