Z3120

Thanks for the heads up. Hopefully this won't be canceled like Play! last year in SF.

Saga Frontier 2 and Tales of Legendia.

I wasn't exposed to much mainstream music, but I got my music tastes from watching a bunch of AMVs (Anime Music Videos) when I was young, which featured I think (not sure of the correct genre) a lot of rock, so I grew up on listening to bands like Metallica, Linkin Park, Blink 182, P.O.D., Tantric, Creed and so forth. Unsurprisingly, I suppose by watching those AMVs I grew attach to anime and I still like it today. So when did I grow out of only listening to a genre? Probably during my Junior and Senior year high school. It was after I finished watching an anime called, "Air", and then I became totally engrossed with everything from the captivating visuals to the beautiful music, which contained many piano pieces. Especially the music was very endearing to me. I began to wander around musically, learned to appreciate instrumental pieces, grew tired of songs (still am) and became very addicted to video game and anime music. Perhaps it isn't correct to refer to video game or anime music as a separate genre, but what I do know is because of this lack of distinction, I like a variety of music like from Trance to Classical.

Well, how do you define music? When I hear music from Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes and enter somewhere like the Hall it feels ambient - nothing prominent stands out except it helps instill a sense of the environment like the sound of footsteps, the emptiness of the place and etc. But you wouldn't find me wanting to listen to "room noises": for lack of a better word, sorry. That's one type of immersion music can provide, which I can appreciate, but seldom, if at all, want to listen to solely by itself. What I like to hear and identity as music in games is the other type of immersion music brings similar to a movie experience like others have stated. There's a certain joyous pleasure to me to associate with a character theme or town theme and recall the experience(s) and emotion(s) that happened when I listen to that theme again or hear it repeated later (or in variations). I find music to be integral to the game, but what's your genre of music preference? People have different tastes so one's experience could differ from another how emotionally attach they were to a game. I remember the time I first played Saga Frontier 2. I thought it was such an amazing game. Years later, I realized I was more in love with the music than the game itself. The game wasn't bad but it placed higher on my favorites list than games where I wasn't as connected musically, but still enjoyed, like Grandia 2. However, my friend found nothing remotely interesting to SF2; it was pretty average to him overall and boring in some cases. Music helped me add missing ethereal qualities I can't fathom to say exactly but I'll try to. Like in Chrono Cross, I identified more with Serge as a character rather than an extension of me when I listen to his town theme Arni Village ~ Home. I substituted a story I created musically and placed or replaced a perception I had to connect. I don't really know where I was going with this... perhaps someone might make it clearer. Then again, if the characters are annoying and the story isn't so good either, music can easily take a backseat to everything else if I can't connect to the game's world.

Reuben Kee's - "Ascension to Cosmo Canyon" was the first OCRemix that stood out profoundly to me. I was in a weird rut - a turmoil of sorts - yet here was this beautiful piece playing this enchanting melody, softly telling me to rise up from wherever I was and move forward (Cosmo Canyon was one of my favorite FF7 tracks, if not, my most favorite). Unfortunately, shortly after I heard of Reuben's death, and it also happening a week later when I found out about OCR, I felt a strange, overwhelming sadness welling up inside. I didn't really know the guy yet I was visibly saddened. But then a revelation occurred to me about living life in general, and I was able to mature as an individual in steps Reuben begun for me through his music. So whenever I hear "Ascension to Cosmo Canyon" and reminisce about that period in time, it reminds me how to cherish and value the life I have now as life can take a strange turn in events, for the good or the bad, to anyone. So instead of wallowing around confused, I aim to look ahead and understand myself and my surroundings more.

Anything VGM related eh? Then I'll suggest PS2 Chaos Legion (Obscure) PS2 Shadows of the Colossus PS2 Soul Nomad PS2 Xenosaga 2 Movie Scenes only PSX Final Fantasy Tactics PSX Saga Frontier 2 NDS Subarashiki Kono Sekai DC Shenmue DC Soul Calibur 1 SNES Super Mario RPG PC Civilization 4 (Baba Yetu is a must...)

Yeah, the slowdown can be annoying. I had to clock my phat PSP at 333 mhz to not really notice any significant slowdown, but it's still there unlike the old PSX version where everything was pretty smooth. The PSP FFT was so bad though, despite the overclocking, I felt the need to turn off all those prompts I would have just left on when I played the PSX FFT. The only reason I'd much prefer the PSP port despite the slowdowns is because of the multiplayer aspect just like how the PSP Disgaea has forced me to give up it's PS2 counterpart.

A PS2 JPN exclusive game that never made it to the U.S., also composed by Motoi Sakuraba. Ever since I've listened to Scaredism's ReMix of Valkyrie Profile, it brought back memories of an arranged track found in the Premium OST of the ToDr Director's Cut Premium Box set called Lion (pronounced Leon) ~ Irony of Fate I thought lacked the energy found in its previous counterparts (PSX and PS2) and an inability to represent the duality of Lion's defining moment and tragedy with live instruments. A mixture of vigorously fighting to the very end yet a noticeably deep, underlying sadness was what I was expecting. Also, together with me very recently finishing an anime movie called Sword of the Stranger, I thought a style similar to Sato Naoki's work in that or a song in Eureka Seven (an anime he composed for too) like Sprinting Spirits would be interesting with a live guitar. PS2 version of Lion ~ Irony of Fate Lion ~ Irony of Fate found in the Premium OST Eureka Seven - Sprinting Spirits * Spoilers * Last Fight in Sword of the Stranger, but the song/style I'm specifically referring to http://youtube.com/watch?v=_o1zrCLns4s Thank you in advance to those of you who might be interested.

Some very nostalgic memories here indeed. My only gripe with this was the piano wasn't taken farther, but it's only because it, for some strange reason, reminded me of the piano version of Subarashiki Shin Sekai from Namco X Capcom and I was curious to what could have developed. Overall, good job on getting the first VP mix here.

My condolences goes out to one of my favorite OCRemixers. I wish him well.

Wouldn't Darude's Sandstorm be classified as Trance? Have that song in my trance album so beats me if it isn't or not (don't know much music genres either). By anyway, would this mix apply? It's a trance remix of I believe Bach's Air on a G String And be happy I know the name (I kid). But seriously, it took me a random chance encounter to discovering the name of this song. I knew it sounded very familiar but the trance name was a hell to find... Originally found the Trance song here... from a Tales of combo vid, lol. You have been warned.

A bunch of songs from Shenmue. I feel like crying for the wait I had to go through before game rips came

Some of my personal favorites (no specific genre): Mushishi Hajime No Ippo Honey & Clover Code Geass Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Byousoku 5 Centimeter

I was awestruck that I finally found the piece I listened to at Video Games Live. Strangely, if you want a download of the song, I find mine (better sound quality than the one I had) at wikipedia.

To those that haven't heard yet, the last few minutes of the 3rd episode of Code Geass was leaked along with the preview to the 4th episode by what seems to be by one of the staff members, who's arrested now from what's been said. There are several things Sunrise might do including the worse case scenario of redoing episode 3, which would result in a 2+ week wait in my estimation and the most likely situation considering the nature and presentation of Code Geass imo so far for both this season and last.