Eino Keskitalo

I don't see the voting extension.

Pretty cool acoustic jam overall. There's nice warmth in the strumming which really grounds this piece. I like how sparse the instrumentation is, and how it gets a bit filled up towards the end, but not too much. There's a lot of reverb, which is an interesting stylistic choice with such a sparse instrumentation. I ultimately think I would've personally preferred a more intimate room sound. The acoustic solo is quite meandering and a bit sloppy. I wasn't really able to get into it, that part feels like just a bunch of notes stuffed together to me. The electric lead was a nice addition to the tone. Some noises in the recording but that's ok. Adding voice to the end was a really nice move. The tune has a warm, cozy & intimate feel and the little singing parts, especially doubling the melody really emphasizes that. The shaker is great too, as is the ending part overall!

This is a real mellow synthelectric song. I like the bells. Nice timesignature trickery in the intro. I like the room given to the vocals in the first verse. This could’ve been a legitimate song arrangement/structure by the three minute mark already. The extended middle section is nice to have though, with some smart arranging, a good wind-down and build-up that feels unobvious as well. Love the little pauses in the bit with just one synth. Very powerful. The prog nerd in me wished that the time signature thing was repeated in the middle section, but that pausing thing is much more appropriate and quite engaging emotionally actually. The processing of the vocals sits a bit in the uncanny valley for me: the autotuning is very apparent, while the voice itself is very organic for the most part. I feel like going to a more processed OR a less apparent pitch correction might have felt more engaging. The vocals feel mixed a little low and especially the verses feel a little timid. Choruses on the other hand are pretty good on all these accounts, rising the energy like a good chorus should. The organic/processed ratio also feels good. All in all, these are clearly amateur vocals, but pulled off certainly well enough to be enjoyable, I would say they are quite palpable. Lyrics are all right too, they flow well and are easy to follow. Bits feel stretched (“cru-el”, “chi-ild”) and one part feels a little crammed in (“lost hope”) but most bits with lots of words in small space sound good rhythmically. Gets stuck in the head like a stake in the heart too.

You guys should just make some Kickle Cubicle and Yoshi's Safari remixes already.

I'm not staff but I think this is extremely relevant. ::seriousface:: Anyhow, it'd be so cool to catch this sometime, though being awake in the middle of the night implies pain, but then the stream would soothe the pain. Yes.

That looks good, that there on the front page. There's an album's length of finished tracks already, but I sure hope the rest of it is going to get done too! On minor point: the correct way to spell my track's title is "Siilin melankolia", i.e. the second word isn't capitalized. That's a difference how titles are spelled in Finnish vs. (at least) English.

I just turned my WAV in!

Looking pretty good! It's retro, but it's a less usual style of retro graphics.

Fantastic mood and mood-supporting and -building structure in this arrangement. Really liking the combination of sounds. But oh man, the tuning of that guitar in the A-part of the piece, it's seriously making it hard for me to fully appreciate this tune. I get band rehearsal flashbacks. Rest of the thing sounds so pro. I think I'll live though. Good work & looking forward for more!

A treat of instrument prowess for sure! I thought the first movement was very pretty, and the rest of the arrangement was very fun, with occasional very pretty moments. I did feel like my ears could've appreciated more reference to the intro later on. The whole structure was full of fast twists and turns, but that first transition was the only one that didn't click 100% for me. The abrupt ending felt appropriate to me. The sound/production was 100% appropriate for the music, I thought. The dry and immediate mixing really brings the music close to the listener. There are some stretches where the violin playing was a little out of tune and didn't sound 100% confident, but the rest of it more than makes up for it. There's just so much packed into this arrangement yet it doesn't overstay it's welcome (feels a lot shorter than five minutes!) - it's immediately enjoyable but there are a full ton of details to take in and appreciate on multiple listens. Finally I must say - I dug the UGH!

Concise and candy-coated. I like the clarity in the mix, you can hear everything quite clearly and the sounds are kind of straightforwardly 80s synthy in a very good way. Some of the synths (perhaps the "chord synth") feels like it could have a bit less delay/reverb (or shorter decay? or just little less volume?), as I get a strange feeling like it spills a little over its sweet spot in the mix, if that makes sense. I like the origin story of the mix, it's cool that judging tunes on OCR can lead to inspiration. Thumbs up for the vox and lyrics as well

Japanese RPG designers definitely took a lot of inspiration from early Ultimas & Wizardrys, those games were big hits over there. It's interesting (the Wikipedia article says) that the Famicom/NES version was tweaked quite a bit in gameplay, and also the music is new. I'm not a huge Ultima buff, I've played Ultima IV maybe halfway through on the PC. Still I feel like trying out the NES version of this game, just to see how much it differs from the western Ultima experience (that I'm no expert of). It might be an interesting link between early western RPGs and JRPGs.

Very nice tune, and interesting game/port to pick.

The tunes are up on bandcamp: https://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/vgmcast-vol-6 Videos are forthcoming as well I believe. I caught a bit before going to bed, great to have VGMCAST back! Need to give the latest set a little more focused listen, but I liked what I was hearing (no surprise).

I didn't sign up, @DarkeSword, I just voiced my appreciation. Sorry I wasn't more clear about that! I truly wish I had the time! It sounds like it's going to be a blast.

Here's the Final Fantasy source on Youtube:

Don't forget to take my claim off.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to touch the project file (no time). I'll get to it as soon as I can. There's not that much to do, so I should be able to finish it before the final deadline. But I'll try to get an iteration out for feedback sooner.

It's not a waste if it adds value for you. I don't think I've ever sold or let go of any game I bought, apart from a bunch of DOS games, since the boxes are so big it's a storage problem. Most of those I'm now bummed I threw away (but I really didn't and don't have space for them, so..). I've started messing around with the old 486 and there's just something about it compared to messing around with DOSBox that's quite pleasing. It'll be interesting to see if any of the floppies for my remaining DOS games still work and I can install them from there. This is fun to gush about when you do have friends that care about the same stuff (plus there's Twitter and stuff online), social context for this sort of thing is quite good to have.

I meant to post a recommendation for Pixelated Audio, but noticed they have a new episode up and instead started listening to it. Not really what you're asking for, but everybody else is recommending VGM-related stuff too.

Very nice take on the well-trodden themes! It's creative, but kind of not in-your-face. For instance, I was appreciating the subtle melody alteration of the SMB1 main theme once I saw it pointed out by DaMonz but I didn't notice it casually. Similarly, the fireball sound usage is fantastic! It's like a ska/reggae guitar chord on the upbeat. But if Sir_NutS hadn't pointed it out in the judging, I probably wouldn't have noticed right now. The mastering is a bit loud for my tastes, and I felt the arrangement was a bit on the short side actually. Perhaps I also agree with the nutty one about SFX usage in the sense that a little reprieve from it before the final bits would've been nice at one point or another, but I thought the musical integration was really well done, even the "it's-a-me" at the beginning with the rhythmic stuttering done to it. I thought the choice of the beat was good as well, it was an element that transformed the sources on its own as well. Good job!

I remember this from the WIP boards and I'm so glad just to see it up posted. The live takes really did end up sounding so much better. It's a warm and fun track, and I'm heavily appreciative of the story behind the arrangement as well. Good work and hoping to hear many more!

Oh man. I remember seeing this arcade game in the wild back in the day. I don't think I played it, but it's very memorable. Some Matt Furniss goodness here! (If you like his stuff you should check out this Pixelated Audio episode!) Sounds like this tune is exclusive to the Atari ST version ... he seems to have written a different intro tune for Atari ST, Amiga, DOS (groovy monophonic bass riff there!), Commodore 64, plus one that's shared between ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. That's crazy! Crazy awesome, I mean.

That's good news @pu_freak of you joining as a director! On a bluesier note.. I think I'll better drop the claim for Mystic Invasion. I have ridiculously little time for music recently and too many project claims just waiting forever to be finished.. but I also had this really clear, inspired vision of the way I would arrange the track, and now later I have no idea if I'd have what it takes to realize it. So I think it's better to not take up the space, so someone else can grab the tune and do something great with it. Good luck with the album!