Eino Keskitalo

Deserving of praise. Everything in the arrangement feels very carefully considered, it flows wonderfully.. the nods to secondary source material are embedded in a natural fashion and serve a purpose in the overall piece of music. The sound is good and compliments the emotion within the arrangement. This feels like something that came together on every level. Much enjoyed!

I'm slowly playing through Oracle of Seasons for the first time - I haven't made it this far in the game, but it feels like I recognize the vibe. I tremendously enjoy the unusual acoustic small ensemble. I like the flute bends, though the one at 0:19 feels like an off-key note unless I'm listening very carefully (I mean, I don't really hear the bend very well as it is masked by another note). To comment on the comments about structure, personally I quite often like to-the-point structures that pack their punch, or even ones that feel deliberately "incomplete". In this case.. the arrangement is short enough that it does not need a break for the listener inside it. No intro nor outro either to ease you in or out, it just delivers direct from start to finish. The ending is abrupt, but to me it leaves behind a sense of wondering. Track like this often works in a larger context, where this piece, what comes before, and what comes after, make for a greater than the sum of their parts. For me this track is fine on its own - you can add your own silence before and after, but it probably does not work that well in a random or not-carefully-selected playlist or stream.

That log-in track is really, really cool.

Oh man, FFX....

To me the brilliance of this arrangement is that when you start listening to it, it's like there's this lengthy intro and you (or at least I) expect it to kick into a verse-chorus-verse kind of rock deal ... and it doesn't. Instead it explores some fresh territory. It feels like one of those less conventional album tracks on a rock album.

New version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/us3m4b7ph6wqd1w/OneMustFall2064-20180418.mp3?dl=0

Timely: The Retro Hour podcast has a worthy, worthy interview from the man in their episode #113. I find it fascinating that he didn't really come from gaming into game music composition, the story about how he got fired was pretty funny too. Worth a listen! He is also in episode 107's UK game composer panel from All Your Bass festival, alongside Rob Hubbard and Graeme Norgate.

Cool track that is at the same time atmospheric and has a hard-hitting edge. The main melody is very memorable and it's well used in the arrangement. The transition calls a lot of attention to itself, it's not like a smooth seamless transition, but I like djp's description of it, to me it feels like it achieves what it sets out to do and sections the song into parts very definitely, and I liked it. The guitar sound itself sounded a bit 'contained' to me, instead of being impressively aggressive, but at the same time I suppose it's more part of the style that was gone for and it sits fine in the mix once it's less exposed after the transition.

Not going to participate (though I'd sure like to), but I was inspired to pick up and play the game for a couple of more levels. It's a good one!

Sadly it turns out I have no time for this this time around..

From the point of view of a patron of this site, I would personally say OCR should definitely be open to posting long-form pieces as long as they fit into submission guidelines. There's a strong recommendation of length between 2-7 minutes, but that's still just a recommendation! Longer stretches of music are more difficult to pull off, but there's a ton of value there if it succeeds.

Love the style. Very effective transformation of the source, the union of the beat, the atmosphere and the synths with the original tune works both ways. I do like the simple source, so I'm quite happy to hear a version that retains some of its feel, is very recognizable and yet covers plenty of new territory. One good example is how the bass moves to introduce harmonic variation that briefly changes the 'emotion' of the tune, and then returns back to the solemn single note bass. I also liked the ending, it feels like a transition out of the tune, which works nicely in album context.

Planning to participate. It's been a year ...

Classic Mazedude goodness. Cool interpretation, even literally, it's a good point that this transforms the soundscape to something quite a bit more chilling. I'm playing the game right now, I remembered Mazedude made an arrangement so had to seek it out and give it a fresh listen.

The transparency is appreciated. I don't really see any potential problem with the non-profit separate entity stuff now in effect (mega-yay for that!).

I've been boring people in creative fields by going on and on about OCR and that's pretty much their comment.

Very nice, very pleasant. I see the point about harp and violin competing for the same sonic space, though I kind of perceive them as the same part rather than different parts I was needing to hear separately. Overall the mixing was impeccably balanced, background instruments in the background and leads alternating with clarity and variation. The bass sound is surprisingly treble-y, it kind of calls for attention to itself and made me expect it making some more active movements, like fills and what not here and there. That was a slightly missed opportunity I felt. Can't really think of anything else to criticize here. I like the fake string section taking lead in places, it's a mushy instrument but the rest of the arrangement ducks away to give it the space it needs. Violin sounds lovely, the (subdued) trumpet sounds lovely. Lots of participants in this mix but everyone is following the same shared vision. Nice game/series/platform pick as well for sure.

I like this, super-effective, punchy and funky. I only listened after reading the write-up, but the piano does sound exactly on point with the style. Being less mechanical might even make it less effective. I did play Chip's Challenge back in the day, but didn't actually have a soundcard then, so the music is still unfamiliar to me!

This is a cool, light-footed take on the fantastic original, and it fits very well, yet is surprising. I like the combination of chip-style instruments, particularly the drums with the rest of the instrumentation, it's very effective and fun. Some dissonance that didn't work at 2:05, the final guitar note feels very unresolved and sorely sticks out. The pacing is a little steady for the length perhaps, but I enjoy the duration, and I liked the ending to wrap things up.

This is powerful and effective, there's nothing here that doesn't need to be here. I could spot a few places where I could tell it was sequenced guitar (after reading about the fact in the write-up), but only a few, and to me it all sounds good anyway. The solo around 1:30 is super sweet.

Just to break Brad's posting streak, I'll mention I've updated my track based on judges' (+ Jorito's) feedback and I'd like to say it is much improved.

I've missed this announcement - and I welcome the information!

Great jazz, cool rapping. I like how the chord change / dissonance thing at 1:03 etc has a huge, huge pull begging towards resolving. I think the harmony is a bit different from the source? In a way that emphasizes the pull even more. I don't think there's really a conflict between rapping and jazz here, but it's more of a case of having a long stretch of instrumental sections and then just a couple of verses at the end (not the only OCR with vocals that does this). The spoken word bit at the beginning helps a bit by foreshadowing it, but I still feel the balance is off structurally. Regardless, a mighty fine arrangement of the source, it's genuinely funny (I find the mild crassness amusing for the source material too) and arrangement fits the music and the game very well.

FWIW Fire Pro Wrestling World seems to now have the functionality and the mod tools to do this, judging from a distance: https://retronauts.com/article/504/fire-pros-journey-through-early-access-continues-with-new-update A mod with the characters as wrestlers + the tunes as the intro music for them, you guys should have that as part of the release.