Kizyr

Honestly, I'm not a fan of this mix. But there are some really good points. For starters, zyko is really good at what he does. So, his rapping in and of itself is great; he's got a good flow and rhythm to the words. Also, I do like it whenever there's another vocal mix added, rap included. But, the lyrics themselves seemed pretty empty. It's like a song with a good melody but meaningless lyrics; this has a good rhythm and sound to it, but no meaning. It may as well be gibberish. (The bad words don't really affect me; I mean I still really liked Asterix - Niggaz 4 Life, though for different reasons). I'm not a big fan of the source tune, but I won't hold that against this mix. I mean, other than the one point above, it's all right. But when it comes to rap, especially, I like the lyrics to have more to them. KF

The album came last Saturday. Man, I'm really glad I got it; I've been listening to it nonstop. The Annihilation of Monsteropolis is till my favorite theme, but Bubbleman's theme comes a close second on account of the lyrics. I really hope The Megas plan to release much more stuff, and maybe submit more remixes, in the future. KF

Here's a suggestion on location... If you exit the Akihabara JR station (the one off the JR Yamanote Line - the 'green' line), then head towards the 'electric town' end, walk up to the main street, and turn left. Along that main street will be Laox, ASO Bit City, and a lot of other major stores. There'll also be small stores on both sides of the street. I've had much better luck going into the small stores for old games--particularly for Mega Drive, Mega CD, Super Famicom, and Saturn. The place is always changing, but I seem to remember more of them being on the opposite end of the street from the JR station. As for games... The only one that comes to mind is Magical School Lunar, for the Saturn. Though, that's only since I've been working on a walkthrough for it. It's worth it if you're already a fan of the Lunar series. KF

Thought I might update this with a couple more recent ones, and others that I don't think were mentioned: DCT & Just Us - Sonic 3 - Memories Frozen in Time PlanetSkill - Sonic 2 - Oil Ocean (WT-40 Mix) Trenthian - Wizards & Warriors - Wizards in my Armor (Warriors in my Long Johns) The Megas - Mega Man 2 - The Annihilation of Monsteropolis There's also the the Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate and FF7 VotL albums, which have a couple of tracks each. KF

"Do you know what it's like to be built this way? With only the power to push others away?" Those two lines make the entire song worthwhile. But yeah, this is an incredible song. I've been listening to it non-stop. Often vocal mixes have something that seems like it could use more work (vocal quality, lyrics, timing, etc.), but this one I think was great all-around. Not to mention the lyrics put a real different spin on Airman. I don't think the song would fall into the emo category, though... unless it'd been about Cutman from MM1. ...too easy, sorry. EDIT: Getting the album now... If their other tracks are even half as good as this one, it'll be well worth it. KF

Oh this game had a really great soundtrack... It's sometimes hard to recall, as Sierra games generally played music only as certain events, and not as BGM, but I still remember a few of the tracks being really good. One in particular, when you fight against the three fairies in the garden (it's either Paladin only, or Paladin and Wizard only, that do this)... I remember that fight had really good music in the background. KF

I'm really loving this album--I can't stop listening to it! Both VotL and now ToF--this has been a great year (er, well, a great last-couple-of-months) for projects here. Though, since the main Distant Promise theme is one of my favorites, I was already looking forward to it. Just some quick comments on a couple of the tracks here... I'm not all that great at reviewing, so these will be brief: Days of Summer V2: really great opening track--love the strings Thieves of Fate: incredible--as good as the first track plus singing. I'll probably be humming this to myself for the next week or so at least. Scar Sealing Girl: thought it started out a bit slow, but around 1:50 it picks up and gets really, really good. Requiem for Another World: another great track, and I really like DragonAvenger's voice here One more thing... This might have already been mentioned, but at least one of the mirrors for the .rar of the full album (mirror 4, I think) is missing Track 6 (Sexy Boy). It's not a huge deal since you can just get the individual tracks, but it's something you might want to take care of. KF

I'm really liking every second of it. And the full-length version of Hajime is really awesome. Can't wait for the next update and samples. ...and the release of the album of course. KF

I can vouch for that method. I've used it before; just get a thin handkerchief or cloth and that should be thin enough (obviously something like a dishrag or hand towel will be too thick). It might not be your specific problem (like if it's an actual hardware issue), but I have cleaned out my SNES this way before and it works rather well. KF

I'm still not sure what I really think about this mix. I'm generally not a fan of spoken quotations inserted into any song, but it sounds ok here, although I don't think they really add anything. The background sounds a little too 'busy' as well, almost like some of it's just random. However, it's one of the more original Radical Dreamers mixes, and I still really like listening to it. The originality is probably the main highlight of the song. KF

I really like what DJP did with this song. Every part of the arrangement sounds great to me. The strings could be toned down a bit in the middle, while everything else is in a crescendo, but it's really a minor issue. Probably my favorite detail is the flute that comes in around 0:47 and stays throughout the rest of the song. Even though this is pretty old by now, it still remains as one of my favorites. KF

The best part of this piece is the percussion, and perhaps the background strings/'humming theme' (sorry, can't quite tell which). The melody is good, but then again that's mostly on account of how closely it fits the source. Main down-sides are that the last 30 seconds seems a little tacked on, and the first 30 seconds I'm kind of waiting for it to get into the main theme or something substantial already, leaving only the one minute in the middle to really enjoy. KF

This works great as an ambient/background track--I mean that in a good way. The jazzy-sounding guitar and piano are really well done, in particular. I don't think the short length is that much a down-side; if it were any longer then it'd just end up sounding repetitive. KF

I was mostly surprised that someone did a remix of any song from this game. It was one of my favorites around that time, and the first menu-based game I ever played. Anyway, as for the song... The main down-side is that the quality isn't that great; it's not really different from your average MIDI. It also doesn't seem to really go anywhere near the end, and so it ends rather abruptly. But, the song itself is good, and the arrangement reflects the quirkiness of the original game. KF

I do really like this mix, but that may be due more to liking the original track than with the arrangement itself. Since the first 30 seconds are about the same as the source, it doesn't get interesting until the guitar and drums come in at 0:32 and repeat for about 30 more seconds. The rest of the song is too short, so it ends up sounding like not a lot was done with the song. But despite the simplicity, I still like this song, I just wouldn't rank it that highly in terms of originality perhaps. KF

It's a pretty interesting take on the original theme. But, something about the mix sounds a bit empty, like it's lacking real substance. I think it might have to do with how the main melody seems overshadowed by the percussion and bass around it, so it comes across as an ambient track without a melody. It's an ok mix, however; but I think AmIEviL's other mixes show a lot more strength. KF

This song is really catchy. It's probably one of my favorites from a game I never even heard of. I normally don't care for percussion that much, but it's done noticeably well here. I think my main complaint is really with clarity, not quality--the bass line for instance could be clearer. Like was mentioned before, though, that appears to be really encoding or EQ issues, so no faults there. Overall, a great mix and a very catchy song. I hope folks don't overlook it on account of unfamiliarity with the original game. KF

I always liked the "B" theme more than the more-familiar "A" theme (GB) that everyone recognizes. So I already liked this mix for that reason. Anyway, the first part of the mix until it hits about 1:20 is all right, nothing too spectacular. But the bit that comes in at 1:23 and, then, when it gets back to the main theme at 2:39, those areas both were done really well. Had more of the song been like that, I would've had almost no complaints, I think. Probably the main drawback is that I thought the bass and percussion were a little heavy and sounded a bit repetitive. But, it's overall a good mix. KF

Er... you have a very interesting voice, DJP. Though, I can't deny that listening to this song does make me smile. KF

Whoa... This is a brilliant piece. I'm most impressed at how it seamlessly blends together the TSS and SSS Meribia themes, and I really like how it ends with the arrangement of Mia's theme (Fairy Rain) at 1:52 to the end. It's really well put together. I'd love to see many more mixes in this vein. KF

Really interesting rearrangement of the sad piano theme here... Sounds like a completely different (and of course really good) song, almost. The original song's really simple, so there's a lot that can be done with it. Some of the things I liked in particular were the piano part that comes in at 1:29 (in the background), the sax coming in at 1:43, and the piano coming in around 2:49 near the end. KF

This is a really great mix of the main theme. It evokes a much different feeling than the original, I think; more relaxing and serene. The quality of the arrangement contributed to that. While overall it's really good, I think the two things that could've been better were the cymbal crashes (they didn't sound quite that clear), and it didn't seem to really go anywhere with the ending. Nevertheless, it's a great mix. And I really would like to see more remixes come from Lunar EB. KF

Hm... the last episode (3) was much better. Pretty much hit on a lot of what I was expecting. I also like how it brought up the contrast between how the government (well, specifically, military) today views video games with how it viewed games a decade ago. That being said, the last episode seemed sponsored more by the US military than by Best Buy. It was almost funny at times how blatant it was. KF

Serious question: have you tried hitting it? My television is relatively new (2½ years) and, rarely, it'll display a vertical white line and shut off when I try to turn it on. If I smack it a few times on the side, it'll get back to working. It hasn't done that in a while now. Although, if it's something majorly wrong with your set, then this obviously isn't going to be a permanent solution. KF

I'm totally up for this. I already have all OCR on my MP3 player, so, it shouldn't take any great effort. I'll probably shoot for at least one a day. EDIT: You know, given what I do and all, I should probably start with the few Lunar remixes on here... KF