MindWanderer

Definitely achieved that epic feel you were looking for, nice job! The guitar chugs and energy level are very static, though, and I wish they let up from time to time. Also, the middle section is a little too busy once the vocals join in (2:30-2:51), there's especially conflict in the highs. I can live with it, though, with the rest of this as solid as it is. YES

Well, this is certainly interesting and creative. For all the wacky stuff in it, though, it's a very static arrangement. The percussion and the squeaky arp are pretty much on autopilot the whole time. The growling bass isn't quite as static, but close. It's also pretty repetitive on the larger scale: 2:14-3:04 is very close to a copy of 0:40-1:28--I think there are some slight differences, but they're very subtle--and the intro is 30 seconds of very small variations on a 2-second pattern. I think this needs more variety in terms of accompanying instrumentation at least, and more change-ups in the lead for the second pass wouldn't hurt either. NO

Normally, that's certainly true--they make the game and then shoehorn it into the timeline because they feel they have to for some reason. But in interviews about BotW they've said that this time they've put thought into it, it's definitely part of the timeline somewhere after Ocarina. That being said, they probably came up with that fairly late in the process and there may be logical inconsistencies. But I doubt very much that there's some master plan here. In other news, anyone having any trouble using amiibo? I don't have any BotW ones, but I used another to make a pile of random gear. Now I can't do it again, several real-world and in-game days later. I use the Amiibo rune and get the targeting circle, but my only option is B-Cancel.

It's a little light on the low end for 80's dark synths, but otherwise it definitely nails the era. Highs get a little crowded at moments, especially during the sweeps, but it's not a huge issue. The one huge issue I do have is with the original content. Other than some of the percussion synths, it's like a completely different song. It adds a guitar and completely changes the energy level. It even has its own introduction. If I were listening to this on an album, I would assume it was the next track and would have been completely surprised that it returned to the original melody afterwards. It's pretty good stuff as a standalone song, but it doesn't belong in this one. And it's a shame, because I really like everything else, and I like that one section by itself, but even though this only uses one game music source, I feel like this is a standards violation on sounding like "multiple songs pasted together." I'd actually recommend taking that original section, setting it aside to use for another piece of music in the future, and writing something new that's more compatible with the rest of this arrangement to put in its place. If you can do that, I think the result would be a great addition to the site. NO (resubmit)

I referenced Music for Airports myself, specifically to look into the low-end issue that Gario mentioned. There's one particular instrument, a sort of bass celesta, that first hits an awkward pitch at 1:13, that's deeply resonant, creating a loud and distracting hum. It's also panned left, which makes it even more distracting. I actually kind of liked the extra bass presence in this over Eno's version, like that deep note at 0:05, but that one instrument I found to be extremely problematic. Otherwise, this arrangement absolutely nails it and I'm totally on board. I think a fairly quick EQ pass can cut out the offending frequency--it might take slightly longer than the 5 minutes we use as a guideline for "conditional yes" votes, but pretty close. YES-Conditional

This sounds like it's been improved since the last album eval, but it still sounds overly wet and crowded. 1:44-1:57 is still too crowded to make out the individual instruments, especially the lead; 2:59-3:30 is also still too crowded and is also overcompressed; 4:09-5:07 is also a little crowded and overcompressed. I'm also still not a fan of the lead synth that comes in at 1:04, which sounds like microphone feedback. That might just be personal preference, though. I like the arrangement a lot--the creativity and energy are fantastic. But the production still needs some work. I'd start by killing your reverb and delay entirely, then add them back in gradually until it's just enough to achieve the depth of sound you want. Maybe lower the volume on the pads and sweeps as well; I feel like they're adding a lot of the muddiness, too. NO (resubmit)

Really nice, mellow arrangement, with some stellar guitar work from ilp0 as usual. Nice job keeping a fairly short source fresh for over 4 minutes. My once complaint would be about the acoustic piano in the middle section (1:52-3:01). It's tough to use piano in a busy section like this, the result being that it conflicts with nearly everything and, in this case, gets muffled and occasionally distorted. However, since the piano is solidly in the background here, it's not a big deal when it gets covered up, and it never covers up the other instruments. I think it would have worked better with one or two less sonically greedy instruments instead, preferably something above or below the range of the guitars, but it's far from a dealbreaker. Otherwise, this is solid and I'm glad you finally finished it up. YES

There's a lot here I like: a nice, high-energy beat, some fun original bass work (0:57-1:10 was a highlight), and you did a great job keeping such a short, repetitive source interesting. However, it's skewed very high on the frequency spectrum, with very little low end, and a lot competing for the high end, even the bass and kick. Much of it is pretty clear regardless, but there are some points--0:45-0:56, 1:11-1:22, and 2:02-2:40--where the highs crowd each other out. Also, 1:23-1:35 has that beep that's pretty piercing, and 2:27-2:48 had one synth that was very high and so loud I had to turn my volume down. I don't know if the vocoded voice was supposed to be comprehensible, but I couldn't make out anything it was saying. If you can improve the frequency spread by adding some bass presence, and either spreading out or EQ'ing those conflicting synths, I think you'll be in a pretty good position to get this passed. NO (resubmit)

It's a pretty little soundscape, but it's a one-trick pony. The piano and strings take turns as the lead, but all the other instruments are static throughout the whole thing, save the lack of percussion in the intro. It's also very repetitive: 1:11 sounds like a loop back to 0:12, and then 2:10 would have been the start of a third loop but it then fades out. There's also a lack of humanization in the strings at least, with the same articulation used for each note. There are some nice ideas here, but at the very least those ideas need to be developed into something more. I'd start again from 1:11 with some new instrumentation, a different take on arranging the source, etc. You can revisit the original style later on but it needs to be broken up a little. NO

Please try to avoid spoilers. You don't learn about the other tribes' existence until possibly several hours into the game. It's really early, but some people might still be upset. I'm spoilerblocking everything we haven't learned from the demos already.

Well, two small pieces of good news: Nintendo has said that Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon will be coming to Switch at some point in the future. Also, Friend Codes are a little less onerous than they were on 3DS: If someone adds you using your friend code, you get a notification you can just accept. You don't have to get their friend code and add them back manually.

I hear the framerate issue is less severe on Wii U. I noticed it on Switch but it wasn't enough to bother me even then. Odd about the quest log. It should show the map marker as soon as you get the quest. If you have multiple quests, it will only show one, but you should have had only one at that point. I got the marker before I figured out how to use the quest log. Funny that you had problems accidentally climbing trees. I accidentally climb walls a lot, but I have a hard time climbing trees for some reason. Every apple tree I encounter is left with one apple on it because I just can't get to it. (Although if you're lazy, you can whack the tree with a club or sledgehammer and the apples will fall off.) I still haven't found any bomb arrows yet--my next stop is actually going back to the Great Plateau to pick up stuff I missed--but I have a funny story about my first blue bokoblin, too: it was one of the ones hanging out in a giant skull head with the exploding barrels that invites you to shoot down the lamps through the eyes and watch everything blow up. Except, while I had two bows by then, I had no arrows. So I climbed up around the side of the skull and down into the eye socket, and threw a tree branch at it. This worked beautifully except that it also set Link on fire. I'll say this for BotW Link: he's very stoic about pain. He just sort of stood there and burned, losing half of his hearts, and I didn't hear so much as a grunt of complaint from him. Also when I jumped down to finish the heavily injured blue bokoblin off, it seems I'd gifted him with a flaming tree branch to use against me, but fortunately I got him anyway.

Never even heard of this game before, but I'm glad I have now! Nice to see some more love for the Amiga, and this is a solid arrangement. Really nice blend of retro synths and guitar. Arrangement starts off on the conservative side, running through the source closely once, but then branches off and has fun with it. It is, however, very busy. There are lots of instruments here that you can barely hear at all. For instance, at 0:53 you can hear a C64-ish bass arp that sounds really nice, but it only cuts through for that one moment. Listening for it, I think it's playing during the busy sections, but you can't hear it until 1:21. I can hear hints of other instruments with the same issue; it seems like each time I listen to it, I pick out one or two more. And it's all great stuff, but it's nearly inaudible. The louder sections--0:49-1:21, 2:14-2:58, 3:44-4:02, and 5:06-5:34, and to a lesser extent 4:02-4:20 and 4:41-5:06, are also somewhat overcompressed. Some more headroom there would also help your instruments stand out from each other. I like this arrangement a lot, but the production isn't quite where I think it needs to be. Spend some time on EQ and volume levels so the listener can better appreciate all the good stuff you've got going on here, and I think you'll have a much better piece that absolutely deserves to be on our front page. NO (resubmit)

This is a really pretty arrangement, with some great instrumentation choices here. I really like the approach, and Jaka did a great job with the humanization and dynamics as promised. However, it's all very crowded in the mid-lows, such that the woodwind leads are conflicting with the piano and the strings and getting smothered. In 2:10-2:54, there's been some EQ work so that the flute lead soars somewhat above the accompaniment (though could still be improved), but the strings, piano, choir, and reed all in the same range and are turning to mush. In the other busy flute-led sections (0:36-1:20 and 3:22-3:46), many of the flute notes are lost almost entirely, and the same in 1:21-2:07 with the reed-led section. In 4:08-4:48, the flute and the brass are at outright war with each other, where minor humanization fluctuations are causing them to drown each other out alternately, and it's actually quite distracting. There's an odd little hiccup in the flute at 3:50 that jumps out at me every time I hear it, too. You could make that sound with an actual instrument, but it sounds a little like an audio glitch. I think this needs another EQ/volume pass to help those instruments pop out from each other a little more. Some stereo separation may help a little, too. Be especially careful with the piano, as it's such a greedy instrument frequency-wise; I generally notice that piano and busy instrumentation don't mix well together at all. Other than that, I really do like this arrangement, so please send it back to us! NO (resubmit)

I loved this in the album eval and I still love it now. It gets tons of mileage out of very little source, and the arrangement is incredibly creative. Voice clips are classic Sonic goodness, used tastefully. Great musicianship and a fantastic start to the album! The one big beef I have is that there are some squeaks in the violin playing: one each at 1:08 and 1:52, and three from 1:58-2:01. It's a fairly minor issue in the grand scope of the piece, but it's extremely grating and it really has to go. Do some surgical excising on this and this will be a solid pass. YES-CONDITIONAL (on removing violin squeaks)

Not just you, I have the same issue.

That opening bass FM synth isn't a great start. In the intro, its slight detuning makes it sound unpleasant on top of the main gritty bass. When it plays alongside the pulse wave later on (e.g. 0:19-0:28), they conflict heavily and the FM bass gets smothered. I definitely think it's enough interpretation. If it were just rapping over the original source, no, but even though the melody is carried by the same lead instrument as the source, all the other instruments are different, as is the general arrangement. I don't agree with Gario that a clean square wave would be an improvement here, since it would make it maybe a bit too close to the original, but I do agree that it's too wet and should be altered in some other way to clean it up. The main bass hook that plays throughout most of the arrangement is also a little a little too gritty, and I find myself identifying it as part of the source more because I know what it's supposed to sound like and my imagination is making the connection than actually being able to hear the notes. The lyrics, while not to my personal taste, are clever and very well-executed, perfect for the genre. I love how little repetition there is, and how effectively that repetition is used in the context of the narrative. Ultimately, I don't think any of these synths except the percussion are good choices. Clean them up a little so that each one can shine on its own and this will make a great addition to the site. But right now I think this has to be a NO (resubmit)

I could check, but I doubt very much that you can modify how often it checks for updates. Besides, the Wii U checks while it's asleep and doesn't disrupt anything. As for the latter, HA HA HA, they don't have any non-game software for the Switch yet. They haven't even said if they will. They've never released a console with both a Mario and a Zelda at launch, but you're right, only the Gamecube had neither, and that's their second-least successful console ever (not counting the Virtual Boy).

I think it's the other way around--Zelda's been ready for a year or more, but the Switch wasn't. But the Wii U was such a flop they wanted to release the Switch ASAP, so they stalled Zelda for it. We'll see how it goes. They did need Zelda as a launch title to get the Switch off the ground--if it was a port 2 years after the Wii U release, I don't think it would have helped as much. But they clearly rushed the Switch out the door. I think strategically they probably made the best move they could under the circumstances, but I admit the Switch's shortcomings are pretty severe. Oh, and I found another problem: While sleeping, the Switch apparently "wakes up" very briefly once every 5 minutes or so. I use an HDMI switch that detects active input, and every time this happens, it switches over. My wife was trying to watch Netflix and couldn't because the input would get taken away every few minutes and she couldn't figure out why. I had to fully power off the Switch to fix the issue, which is annoying since we keep our consoles in a locked entertainment cabinet (except when I actually play the Switch since I need line-of-sight). Fortunately--and this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere--you can hold the power button down for I think 12 seconds to power it off rather than holding it for 4 seconds and using the menu (since that would require me to pull out the joy-cons to use it). So now my needed solution is to both buy a Pro controller (out of stock everywhere) and for them to add a power off option to the Home menu.

I was totally in agreement with Gario on all points until 1:59-2:32, which is significantly louder than the rest, and overcompressed to boot. That section is really hard to listen to, and I feel that, combined with the severe wetness Gario mentioned, it's enough to push this over into a NO (resubmit)

I'm not sure I'd call this EDM. I'd have a hard time dancing to it, for sure. I normally don't have an issue with what genre a remixer chooses to identify their song as, but in this case, we have a chirpy, happy, laid-back song that's desperately trying to be EDM by including a few instruments--the supersaw, the FX samples, the acid bass, the sweeps, the claps, and the 808--that don't go with anything else. It works really well at being EDM from 1:53-2:15, and pretty well from 0:45-1:07, and really well at not being EDM from 0:00-0:17 and 2:15-end. The rest is a mish-mash that doesn't create a cohesive atmosphere. To phrase things a different way, without using genre labels, if this had simply been a happy, Yoshi-like arrangement that used a supersaw prominently at one point, it would get dinged for using a bland, generic synth for no apparent reason. I feel like this suffers from the same issue, but in a larger scale. Normally I wouldn't say that violating genre conventions would be a reason to send something back, but I don't think it works at all in this case. I don't have any other concerns, but that one issue is substantial. I'll think about this one and see what others have to say. Edit: Although he didn't agree with the way I expressed the issue, ultimately Gario did feel the same way I did about the supersaw and how it was used. I didn't pick up on the humanization issue, because of course EDM articulation and timing would be rigid, and that relates to the same thing: those instruments, used this way, in a piece like this, is just a mismatch all around. NO

I think the Japanese voice-acting is better, but the English isn't bad at all. Then again, I remember the PS1 voice-acting era, which was torture. I've reached three major areas in the game other than the Great Plateau, and I believe I've encountered 4 or 5 other characters with voice-acting in cutscenes. No one has voice-acting when just talking to them, other than the usual Zelda grunts and whatnot. I do think the music is maybe a little too minimalistic, but it's fine, and I don't miss it. Helps me hear the crickets and birds and things. And the major sequences are fully scored.

Mine is 5961-6763-3987. Not that it's good for anything right now. I have to admit that so far, I'm actually pretty disappointed with the Switch. The controller disconnect issue is very real, and severe. I was playing all weekend, about 7 feet away from the console, with clear line-of-sight to it, and I had drop-outs of about a second once every few minutes, and about one total disconnect every two or three hours. One caused my death (auto-walked off a tower), and several caused me to restart puzzles or take unnecessary damage. It wasn't just the left joy-con, either, but the left was worse. This is pretty ridiculous--a 2017 console shouldn't be having a problem that the PS3 (2006) and even the Wii U didn't. I may end up having to buy a Pro Controller, which I'd actually be pretty ticked off about given its cost. If it's a mandatory purchase, that makes the console $370, which is absurd in this day and age. Otherwise I thought the Grip was perfectly adequate, though the trigger buttons are a little small. You also can't power off the console remotely. You have to physically hold down the button on the console. Presumably they thought you'd never want to power it off while connected to the dock, but I don't like power vampires. In handheld mode, the screen isn't very well lit and is highly reflective, so I have a hard time seeing under less-than-ideal conditions. So everyone who's waiting, good idea. Keep waiting until the joy-con issue gets fixed and the OS gets more features. Edit: Apparently, someone modded their left joy-con and substantially improved its performance, increasing its range to double that of the right joy-con! So it's definitely a hardware issue, and Nintendo would have to look at a recall rather than a software fix. In related news, the Pro Controller is still sold out everywhere, so I don't even have that option.

Man, that title is considerably darker in light of the explanation.... Beautiful arrangement. I definitely think you achieved what you set out to do. I only have a handful of minor critiques. First, it's very quiet--I see over 2.3 dB of headroom on it, and I had to turn up my volume almost to maximum to hear it well. As a melancholy lullaby, it doesn't have to be super loud, but it should be louder than this. It's much quieter than anything on Esther's Dreams, for instance. Second, there's a backing flute-like instrument from 2:03-2:17 with a vibrato on it that sounds very strong, fast, and mechanical, which doesn't sound very good. During the climax at 2:34-3:10, it gets just a little bit muddy in the highs. There's a tiny bit of distortion, really negligible but it's there. Finally, the end is just a little abrupt. It's not terrible, it's just very quick, simple, and cliche. All of those except the volume are really minor, though, and that's an easy fix. Otherwise, this is lovely and evocative. YES-CONDITIONAL (on increased volume)

Also, only Huey has a hat. Their "hair" is different, too.