MindWanderer

The main battle themes of Final Fantasy I, IV, and VI. That classic bass line was even called out in the Scott Pilgrim movie. (It's in a bunch of other FF battle music, but I don't expect them to be as well-known.)

I'm a little more on the fence about the medley aspect of it, myself. The transition at 0:55 to LA-MULANA isn't smooth at all. The transition to Fearless Challenger (1:38-2:24) sounds inspired by LA-MULANA but isn't actually from it that I can tell, and sounds to me like filler. Fearless Challenger then ends with a 36-second riff based on a 6-second transitional element from the source, which also feels like unnecessary filler to me. While I did need to reference the source tracks closely to figure out exactly what the transitions were and how they related back to the sources, to me this definitely did feel like a medley of at least three different sources. That said, the "medley-itis" definitely isn't as severe as it could be. The last transition, back to Mr. Explorer, is great, and while I do feel like the transition from Fearless Challenger to Curse of Ocean was lengthy and awkward, it did feel like it connected two parts of the same song and not two different songs. I only feel strongly about the transitions into and out of LA-MULANA, and one source out of four (effectively five, given that Mr. Explorer appears twice and is treated in two different ways) isn't bad. And on the plus side, the presence of LA-MULANA does help with that relentless energy level Sir_NutS mentioned. Production-wise, I personally felt that there could have been better separation between the guitars in places. 1:26-1:35 is the best example; I can barely distinguish the backing guitar here. Most of the mix doesn't have that issue, though--there's lots of beautiful harmony throughout the rest--so it's not a big deal overall. Otherwise, the production is fine and the musicianship is fantastic. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from you, starting with the rest of Shift as soon as I have time! YES

I really liked this arrangement, especially how you took the shortest of the three themes (Gaster's) and made the two longer ones match it in style and mood. Very creative and very enjoyable. Because of the way this was presented, I didn't mind the clutter as much as the other judges did. It gave it a dirty, low-fi feel that I kind of enjoyed. That said, it does sound unintentional and I can see how the pumping from overcompression could be grating to some ears. It definitely would sound better if you could follow the advice that Gario provided. Of greater concern to me is the repetition. Not only does 1:36 retread the introduction very closely, the section from 2:15-3:12 is what sounds like an identical copy of 0:38-1:35. You have a lot of interesting effects going on throughout this arrangement; I think you could keep the same melody and structure as long as you do different, interesting things with the backing instruments the second time around. I definitely want to see this back, so please work on those two things and send it our way! NO (resubmit)

I first heard this without the context that it was in part inspired by the orchestral version of the same piece, and actually thought it sounded similar to the version by the Black Mages. If you came up with this without being familiar with theirs, that says a lot about your arranging skills! I felt like there was enough interpretation here not to call it a "cover" per se. There are a number of novel sections, and the guitar riffs are a lot of fun. It's still too close to the source, though (and the ending, while not in the OST, is taken verbatim from the orchestral version). I'm also on board with the crits about the orchestral instrumentation--the strings sound inhuman, and the brass comes in consistently late. As for the piano, note that in the orchestral version, the piano plays melody only when very few other instruments are also playing. When other instruments come in, the piano just plays a simple repeated chord. That's because even when you're not doing much with it, piano hits all over the spectrum and tends to compete with everything. When there's a lot going on, it's very difficult to EQ a piano so it doesn't sound choked or fake. I'd love to see this reworked to conform to the site standards, though! I feel like the production issue is comparatively minor, and with a more original arrangement, it wouldn't take all that much more to get it posted. NO

I really like this arrangement, and voted for it in the compo based on its creative and smooth integration of the three sources. I think your breathy (breathless?) singing works beautifully in this context, and I'd love to add this to my collection, but that sidechaining that bothered Kris bothered me even more. I felt it more in the introduction than later on, and I actually felt it was just as problematic whether or not it was accompanied by a beat. I personally didn't feel like the lack of dynamism was as big of an issue as the uncomfortable sidechaining, since a lot of professional vocal music is similarly static when you take out the vocals. But I definitely see where the other judges are coming from, and there's room for improvement. Same goes for the supersaw in the breakdown that Larry wasn't a fan of--I could live with it, but replacing it with a more sophisticated synth or another instrument entirely would add a lot. Also, at 2:26 there's an audible cut between vocal takes. You might be able to cross-fade those together to hide it, or else just re-record that part. I really want to see this posted, so please give it some more love and send it back to us! NO (resubmit)

I liked the creative interpretation of this theme a lot, but the fact that it took about two minutes to get there was disappointing. The shrill note at 1:15 and other places did bother me, although I personally felt that sour note was subtle enough that it wasn't a big deal. And as others have said, some more variety in the accompaniment would benefit this arrangement a lot. I don't think this falls very short of the bar, but I do think it falls short. Follow Gario's and Chimpazilla's advice and I'll be happy to add my stamp of approval. NO (borderline)

I don't have much to add that the NO's haven't gone over already in detail. Beyond the fact that this is painfully loud, there are instruments that deserve to be heard, and can't be. The copy-paste of 0:16 - 0:41 to 1:20-1:45, while not a large portion of the mix, was unfortunate especially because the arrangement was promising to build up to something new and exciting there, and then didn't--and it's especially striking given that the second half of the remix has so much creativity in it, clearly you don't need to resort to copying to fill in space. And I feel it's worth reiterating that this could really benefit from more of an ending; right now, it ends with what sounds like a brief riser, which leaves the listener hanging. There's definitely a lot of creative stuff here, though, especially in the second half, and I'm hoping to hear more of it! NO (resubmit)

I get so little console time these days, most of what interests me is mobile and portable games. I already got most of the 3DS games I was eyeing for the last 3 years, but will probably pick up Sun or Moon this year. I'm also looking forward to the rest of Season 2 of Sentinels of the Multiverse, and aLttP Randomizer version 7. As for console, Breath of the Wild, definitely, although I'm waiting to decide which system. Probably some of the other Switch titles shown in the trailer, like Splatoon if it's more than just a Director's Cut of the first game. Otherwise, just older games I haven't gotten around to getting/playing yet.

I got a Froakie from Korea and a level 38 Vibrava from Japan--just one Pidgey when it comes to utter garbage. I kind of feel bad I'm so early in the game (Y) that I don't have much to trade in exchange.

You can check move info in Y, just hold L when you select the move. I wish you could check ability info, though, especially on opponents, and especially especially when I've Traced them. I think shiny's became more common in more recent generations in general. In the course of playing Silver, Ruby twice, and most of Leaf Green, I think I encountered one shiny (an Oddish IIRC), not counting the scripted Red Gyarados. In Y, I already have a shiny Skiddo and I'm only on route 8. That might be in part because I'm trying to complete the pokedex, and with the vastly greater variety of pokemon in this game compared to what I'm used to--7 or 8 in every new area, it seems--I'm doing a lot more grinding. Plus my luck has been extraordinarily poor--in the course of trying to find a Ralts that didn't have a Trait penalty to Special Attack, which happened 3 times in a row, I caught a female Combee (3.75%) and a white-flower Flabebe (1%). As a result, I feel like I'm grossly overleveled, and the only challenge is in catching pokemon without killing them.

OK, so I now have Genesect (thanks tD!), Arceus, and Meloetta. And I guess that's it for Gen 6 event pokemon, probably for good?

Really? I'm just about to start playing Y, having been out of it since Ruby, and I didn't find that to be the case at all back then. TM's were the main problem, since most of them were unique items, so if you used one on the "wrong" pokemon, you'd be out of luck unless you restarted the whole game to get another one. Same deal for moves taught by move tutors. EV training was another issue--sure, you could power-level low-level pokemon up quickly, but they'd be short on EV unless you spent inordinate amounts of money on vitamins. Are these not such major factors in generations 6 and 7?

So, here's the list of everyone who's given me any kind of update at all since I announced the first check-in date: @Tuberz McGee @DarkDjinn @JonnyAtma @WillRock @FlameingDaethFearies @Chernabogue (early WIP submitted) @Steele (early WIP submitted) The following people have been completely MIA, and their claims are being dropped until I hear from them again: @OA (Alucard) @Sbeast (Medusa) @Laarx (Elizabeth Bartley) @Sagnewshreds (Trevor) @Cyril the Wolf (Richter) @Aster (Eric Lecarde) @begoma (Julius)

Yay! Better than a cheap plastic trophy any day!

You probably don't want games that require an online account, like Battlefront or Titanfall. The Nintendo Switch should work out well for you, but until then, I agree that 3DS and retro games+consoles would probably be the most popular. Something like the SupaBoy might be good, since you don't even have to hook it up to a TV.

If it wasn't obvious that was satire, it was satire.

Reminder: The check-in date is this Sunday. I have heard from only a small handful of you and received nothing in the last 2 months. Remember, for now you just have to let me know you're still alive and still interested in doing this to keep your track claim.

Aah, I was planning on spending some time today to come up with a decent poem. Oh well, saves me the time. I'll take a stab at #3, though. After all, it's well-known that DJP is a corrupt industry insider about whom everyone knows everything relevant despite not having any reputable sources of information. So his picks should be easy to predict (although I'm looking only at the early-gen pokemon I'm familiar with). Parasect. DJP is lining his pockets with the hard work of the OC ReMix community, making him close kindred with parasites. Leech Life! Wobbuffet. Clearly DJP doesn't actually do anything around here unless poked, in which case he responds with excessive force. Mewtwo. As a talentless and spineless hack, DJP can only surround himself with the strongest allies and composers he can and let them do all the work. And might as well do #4 as well. I'll pick 30, since I see that's your birthday.

I was stalling on getting a 3DS until after the NX reveal to see if I could get away with skipping a generation. So I'll finally be getting one on Black Friday, the day after these cards expire. Oh well.

Yeah, look for a reverse boss order run sometime, it's pretty fascinating.

Arrangement is great, as always, but... am I the only one bothered by the ping-pong panning on that organ? I know that's a thing they do, but I'm finding it literally disorienting listening to that.

The funny thing is: I think most players would agree with you, but developers will only get on board if they think the system is promising. And that depends on two things: whether the system will sell well enough to have a large enough consumer base to make development worthwhile, and whether the developer thinks they can create games on it that people will buy. Remember what happened with the Wii U: there were several developers on board at the beginning who all jumped ship when Wii U sales were sluggish. It sounds like this time there's more developer buy-in, but I think the big difference is that Switch strikes a balance between innovation and compatibility. I think we'll see a lot of ports, like Skyrim, taking advantage of Unity and Unreal compatibility. And even more interesting is the release of the souped-up Xbox One and PS4 coming out, making this (demi-)generation almost like a 5-way competition--the Switch should have power comparable to the first-run XBOne and PS4, so if there are multiplatform games that come out for all 3, the Switch might have an advantage, but then there are the new ones... and console sales are in a slump, with lots of folks not having bought into the new generation yet at all... I'd hate to be an analyst right now, this is a unique position for this market and I don't have a good prediction for how it could turn out.

It's really good battery life for a controller, you can get a few hours out of it, but as a standalone portable it has to be held to a higher standard. My DS Lite had enough juice to last for a cross-country plane trip, including waiting around at the departure airport and a layover. My PSP... well, when I planned to play my PSP, I also packed my DS. But bear in mind that battery technology hasn't improved dramatically in the last few years, and the Switch has a much more powerful graphics card than the Wii U Gamepad. Rumors are calling the Switch's battery life at 3 hours, but that's probably for a dev kit, which is probably worse than the commercial product will get. I'm also curious whether the Joy-Con's have special batteries that charge off the base station, or use independent AA's or AAA's. I'm just hoping the dock has ethernet, or USB ports for a wired ethernet adapter. If it has USB 3.x, it could support gigabit ethernet. If they're planning on making e-sports a real thing, wired internet would be hugely important--even just 8 players in a crowded area all running on one 802.11 band would create interference, and in the middle of a crowd of people carrying phones, it could be really bad. Oh, and the main unit needs to support 5G wi-fi, not the already-outdated 2.4G the Wii U came out with. I also really hope they remember to make the main unit rechargeable from something other than the base station. I imagine the dock will be similar to the Wii U's (where you can take the power cable out of the dock and plug it into the gamepad directly), but a separate charging cable would be nice (though they'll probably sell it separately).

I can't find that Monster Hunter has been announced for Switch, but it seems likely. I guess both of the last two were on 3DS only? Yeah, I still haven't bought a 3DS because the use case just isn't there for me right now. I don't travel enough that a bulky game system is something I can keep on me often enough (although I did just buy myself an 8Bitdo Zero). At home my wife usually wants to watch what I'm playing, and the big screen is a plus for me, too. Being able to just pick up the whole thing and move with it to another room is something I see myself doing, though, and in the coming years I'm probably going to have to share the screen with my kid. I'll probably buy a 3DS on Black Friday this year, since there are a ton of games I've wanted to play on it, but God knows I have enough DS, PSP, and even GBA games to keep me busy for years. Backwards compatibility--which means Virtual Console for the Switch, since it has no optical drive--was one of my big questions, and it seems pretty clear that 3DS games couldn't possibly work on it. With Pokemon Sun/Moon coming out soon, clearly support for the 3DS will be ongoing for a while yet. They're probably going to see what the market does, since treating the Switch as a "portable" game device is a bit of a stretch considering how big it is. It's tablet-portable, not phone-portable.

It's what the majority of the rumors were suggesting. Some thing I noticed: Games on display included Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which we knew), Mario, Mario Kart, Splatoon, Skyrim (big surprise), and an NBA game. Splatoon is the one I'm most curious about, since it seemed pretty clear that there wouldn't be dual-screen functionality, which means changes to Inkstrike and Super Jump. If it's a launch title, that means less than 2 years between Splatoon 1 and 2, which to be fair isn't unusual for competitive shooters. That's a pretty short time for Mario Kart 8 to be supplanted, too, although that one could be a simple port. The two "Joy-Con" sticks analog and face-button placement are almost identical, but not quite. If a second player uses one of them, they'll find that the joystick and buttons are slightly further down. Probably not a huge deal, since they'll probably center their grip on the joystick, and the distance between joystick and buttons is the same. The other keys (+ and -, Home and some grey thing, and the shoulder and trigger buttons) aren't reflected at all. This could be pretty annoying for anyone who keeps their game consoles in a cabinet. You could probably leave the unit in the dock and keep the controllers outside, but how long will a charge on the controllers last? The blurb mentions "local multiplayer" with multiple units, suggesting ad-hoc wi-fi LAN capability. That's pretty big. In what looks like an editing error, you can see the side of the dock, with -two- HDMI ports, neither of which seems to be hooked up to the TV the guy is playing on. If one of those is an HDMI-in (pass-through), Nintendo could be trying to make a multimedia hub like the Xbox One. Or it could be a second HDMI out, allowing for multiplayer on two independent big screens. I'd bank on the former, though. In other screenshots, you can see the right side, and there are no ports there, so presumably the AC is back there. No idea on other ports, like USB. I'm really hoping for either ethernet, or USB so I can use an ethernet adapter. Wi-fi in my house sucks. Since it has motion controls, it should be able to play Wii games (probably on Virtual Console), although there's nothing like a B button on the second controller. I can't see any way it could be used to play Wii U games, unless you could get an adapter to allow you to use the Switch itself and the Hub at the same time, or a separate controller with a screen. That game cartridge is pretty tiny. I know you can store a lot on flash media these days, but I have a feeling a lot of game content will have to be downloaded and will live in internal memory. Was that an intentional knock on the iPhone 7, showing very clearly that the Switch has a headphone jack?