MindWanderer

Just adding chords, drums, etc. isn't enough to make something a remix by OCR standards, more like a cover. If you're lousy at transcription, 1) practice, but 2) it's OK to start with the MIDI as long as you plan to chop it up and shift things around like crazy. I strongly recommend keeping only the melody; if you keep both the melody and bass and/or other accompaniment, it'll be too directly obvious. I strongly recommend competitions for both aspects. MnP allows straight MIDI rips, though they're not OCR-legal, so you can do exactly what you're describing here. But the mashup competitions (like the currently-recruiting rRPC) force you to not use a MIDI straight out of the box and get practice being more creative. And since there's a time crunch, many of your competitors will be starting with MIDIs as well.

If you don't have functional matchmaking, then the issue with beta testers having a huge skill advantage is the same issue as someone trying to get into the game a year after launch. If you shut out new players, you're in trouble, regardless of what the launch date was. If you use progressive stats for matchmaking, great, but as Brushfire said, you have to not reset them. But then you have to not be affected by grinding, either. My only experience with online matchmaking is Splatoon: Level (which you gain over time) is a lousy matchmaking metric, as I've seen lousy high-level players who just play a lot, but Rank (which goes up and down) is much better. It's not perfect, since you can save scum your rank or power-level with friends up to S rank, but then you're only hurting yourself; if you play normally, you'll usually not end up against people better than you in Ranked mode. And even if you start a new game in Splatoon and restart from rank C-, you'll rocket up through the ranks and very quickly end up about where you were before.

Heh, also a lack of divas (women) on both sides, but I'll take it! Also putting you down for acoustic and electric guitar per your PM.

It is if you ever tried to play that game without cheesing it. I did. It resulted in essentially no stat gains at all until you ran into enemies you just couldn't get past. And since they were in a dungeon instead of near a town, the process consisted of trudging through the wilderness beating trivial encounters and gaining literally nothing, then doing two or three fights in the dungeon, improving a tiny bit but getting your butt kicked, then returning to town (slowly) to repeat. Horrible. Also, cancel/select still worked in the GBA re-release (Dawn of Souls, I think?), which is what I finally finished it on.

I figured out some junction cheese the first time through FFVIII, no guide or anything. Not quite as optimized as what Thin Crust described, but I still found pretty much the whole game trivially easy, except for the endgame sequence in which that all goes away. I thought it was an awful system. Leveling had essentially no effect since all the enemies scaled, and in fact, since all your strength came from junctions, gaining levels actually made battles harder. Encounter a new enemy and spend the next 10 minutes sitting there and drawing up to 99 out of it for all 3 characters. Or spend ages playing the card game and mulching the cards into spells. You couldn't ever actually cast spells because your stats would take a hit and you'd have to hunt down the enemy that provided the spell you used up to max out again. Characters who didn't have a junction for a given stat were basically useless (e.g. characters with no Strength junction might as well just not attack). And then when you get a full set near the end, you need to sit down and make a chart to make sure everyone can junction every stat. Just awful. The only worse progression system in a Final Fantasy game was FFII, in which you built up your stats by beating up your own party members, and your skills by repeatedly selecting and canceling attacks. To answer the original question: Part of it depends on when you're expected to be 100% done with the game, and part depends on what you get for leveling. If it's a pure story game (e.g. Grandia II), and you mainly just gain stat increases for leveling, maxing out right about at the end of the game works well. If there's postgame content, you should have to do some extra steps to get there, and you should probably have to be at or near max level to beat the hardest optional boss. If there's an NG+, then I'd say you should get there at about the end of the second playthrough. That being said, you should definitely have some time to play around with the best toys. You shouldn't earn some powerful, interesting ability when you hit max level in most games. Unless the whole point of leveling is to earn new abilities, not stats. Zelda has a good model for this, usually giving you about 1 1/2 dungeons to use all the stuff you've gathered throughout the game, and at that point you're not gaining anything but maybe a heart or two. I don't think grinding should be substantially rewarding. If the player finds it boring, it's rewarding the player for not having fun. If they enjoy the grinding, they'll do it without being rewarded. Many games actually penalize you for grinding--if you hit level 99 at the beginning of FFVIII, it's a substantial penalty, since enemies have scaled up and you still have crappy junctions. FF Tactics was worse, since your gear would be underpowered. Tactics Ogre had a huge problem with this, since enemies would scale to your highest-level party member, and one or two levels made a huge difference.

It's a fascinating contrast to Nintendo. Big N comes out with Mario Maker and starts taking all romhacks off Youtube and going DMCA on as much as they can find. Sega just encourages people to mod to their hearts' content but gives them no tools whatsoever. It's good for loyalty but I don't know if it'll do much for them revenue-wise--but on the other hand, this costs them next to nothing to implement. And Mario Maker is both problematic in many ways and impossible to compete with.

All right, CCoI is all wrapped up, so let's kick this up a notch. First, I'm closing signups for Faces for the time being. I'll reopen it if we're still accepting new claims when the Heels are all caught up. Second, I'm setting July 31, 2016 as the first check-in date. I'd like to see at least a proof-of-concept, preferably a full WIP by that date. Remember, if you have a concept that requires skills you don't have (especially guitar or vocals), post in the thread and I'll try to hook you up with someone if no one volunteers.

Also this is just plain wrong. If you're remixing something that's copyrighted, there are copyright laws, and there's licensing issues to be considered.

And I, II, IV, VI, VII, and IX are already done, as is 40% of FFV. Apparently there's an FFX mini-album, but certainly it could use the full treatment. That leaves only XI of Uematsu's work, and it's not nearly as well-known as the others. I'd actually throw in strongly for Mystic Quest, even though it's not a "mainline" Final Fantasy game (it's based more closely on the SaGa series), and it's not done by Uematsu. But it has a fantastic and underrated rock-driven soundtrack.

I dunno, there's something here that just doesn't sit right with me, and I normally love violin/rock music. I don't feel like they play well together here at all, but rather feels like the backing guitar and violin are just doing their own thing. In contrast, the violin does a lovely job accompanying the lead guitar, but it's way too quiet--I didn't even hear it the first time. I think if this had been sent back to just make that overdriven guitar less overpowering, this would be a vastly better song--I really enjoyed the parts where it wasn't there at all (e.g. 0:21-0:42). I also felt like the violin was a little too squeaky in parts--that opening at 0:05 is really jarring. Also, "Ahead on Our Way" needs to be credited as a source.

Mostly I felt this was a nice ambient update to the original, capturing its essence while building a much fuller atmosphere. The section from 2:16-3:05, however, was really beautiful, much more cheerful and interpreted, and I got one of those goosebump moments when it started up, even listening for the second and third times. I don't feel like the section right after it fit at all with the rest of the mix, though.

Sorry for the delay, I was sick yesterday. By a single vote, Jorito is the winner! Simon succumbs to the curse, and, though Dracula is defeated, he'll be back far sooner than his usual 100-year cycle... perhaps for CCoI-2! A huge thank you to everyone who participated, especially those who stuck it out until the end. I don't think I'll be following through on the plan to make an album out of this--there were several great remixes, which I'd love to see polished up and submitted to the site, but I didn't get the sense that enough folks were sufficiently stoked about doing so to make an album out of it. However, I am doing CastleMania, so if anyone has any ideas for making pro wrestling theme songs out of Castlevania music, check out the project thread!

I'm not far enough through to say, I'm only on chapter 4 of 8. Certainly the corresponding parts of both FFIII and FFXIII were vastly better, but those fell apart at the end. In fact, comparing the first 40% or so of all the FF games I've played (which is nearly all of them), it's the worst. Even FFII, with its horribly flawed core advancement mechanics, was less messed up than Type-0.

24 hours left to vote on the final battle! Will Dracula go down quietly into the grave, or will Simon succumb to the curse? You decide!

Playing through Final Fantasy Type-0 HD right now. It starts off the most confusing clusterfuck of a game I've ever played, both plot and gameplay. It starts you off with 3 "introductory" characters, two of which have abilities that aren't straightforward and aren't documented at all, then promptly gives you a 14-character party, each of which behaves completely differently. But my wife wanted me to play it, so I stuck with it. It's no longer confusing, but there are still dozens of gameplay decisions that boggle the mind. Invisible skill trees, suicidal AI, Eidolons that have to be leveled but that you have to commit suicide to summon, a completely opaque system for determining the "special" spell you get (which ranges from the most useful spell in the game, to one you'll never use), unclear goals that literally result in instant death if you don't figure them out fast enough, difficulty levels that are all over the place (with some things you're not intended to be able to achieve on the first playthrough), etc., etc. But even with all that, it's still a vast improvement over where it started. Diablo II was interesting. I got into it late, and one of the patches that came out right then (1.11 I think?) completely rebalanced the game and changed a lot of the leveling strategy to be more... well, strategic. Splatoon has had some nice balance patches already; I didn't buy it right at launch, but I did get it early enough to appreciate how much has been added to make it much more entertaining. Mario Maker, too (checkpoints, most notably). I think I've played more games that went the other way, though: Games that start off really well but quickly get repetitive, or ones where the developers clearly lost their sense of direction halfway through, or ones that change abruptly in the endgame to try to "open things up." The Deponia trilogy just stabbed me in the back, dropping constantly in quality the further I got. Never finished FFIII, FFXIII, Breath of Fire 2, or Xenogears, because of a huge and painful end dungeon.

Castlevania: Cacophony of Incarnation 2016 Voting for the Final Battle is open until Wednesday, April 27 at 12:00 PM PDT. See the competitions calendar for your timezone. Vote for your single favorite ReMix of the two. Participants, you may vote as you like; if in doubt, vote for yourself. Download the remixes! The download file includes a submission for the Epilogue, which is not part of this vote. Participants were instructed to use their own source, at least two Dracula battle sources, and optionally their opponent's source. The eligible sources were: OA: Entrance, 1797 (Dracula's Castle) Jorito: Crumbling Tower, 1691 (Wicked Child) Castlevania: Black Night (https://youtu.be/E-OC2iDwMT4) Castlevania II: Simon's Quest: Last Boss (https://youtu.be/Qdb0B2XbM_Q) Castlevania: The Adventure: Evil Devil (https://youtu.be/M0Mjf5-2qXU) Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge: Sons of Satan (https://youtu.be/NHDIIme-Vdw) Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse: Big Battle (https://youtu.be/-Zmb2KGJcow) Castlevania Chronicles: You Goddamn Bathead (https://youtu.be/WZ9OsWNLUOg) Castlevania: Rondo of Blood: Illusionary Dance (https://youtu.be/Jpizm9ZYYZc) Castlevania Bloodlines: The Vampire's Stomach (https://youtu.be/HFbUgpwxRaw) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Black Banquet (https://youtu.be/GXcJ80jueM8) Castlevania Legends: Count Dracula Battle (https://youtu.be/fZxzOOk_EXU) Castlevania Legends: Vampire Killer (https://youtu.be/PgmkCme5wLg) Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness: Concert of Another Dimension (https://youtu.be/54p86oi2xgg) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon: Proof of Blood (https://youtu.be/1UezwYEC6uI) Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance: Old Enemy (https://youtu.be/PZ2Go8EkLNY) Castlevania: Curse of Darkness: Metamorphosis to the Black Abyss of Death (https://youtu.be/HJ5-jOtBbJ4) Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: Banquet of Madness (https://youtu.be/9qcOtuw7qBI) Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: Order of the Demon (https://youtu.be/y5HD1Onj0qw)

Download the Final Battle & Epilogue! (With correct spelling.) Voting thread up in a few minutes.

"At the mercy of each music owner" is the correct answer. Many won't care. SquareEnix will shut you down hard, even if you release the game for free. Others run the range. You might want to consider using the samples not-quite out of the box. For instance, you can use the VST C700 to load up the .spc file for a specific SNES game you want to sample, but then use the VST settings and tweak the parameters so that it's not quite an exact copy anymore. If you're intentionally using the original samples as an homage, that's dangerous territory, especially for a commercial game, and it's definitely not a good idea to do it without permission. You might be OK but you really don't want to get nailed for it.

24 hours left! I have Jorito's entry, so at least we'll have something.

It sounds like the video driver's kernel might be corrupted, and an update might not fix that if it doesn't make changes to the kernel itself. I'd try completely uninstalling the video driver, rebooting, then reinstalling it. Make sure you use the one from the vendor's website, not the automatic Windows one. Toolbars frequently go wonky after BSOD's. Specifically the sound icon disappearing is probably not related by my guess. It's possible, though, since modern computers pipe audio through the video connection (HDMI and whatnot).

If you're that close to being done, it seems like it would be silly to rethink it so much at this point. Another option, if you both agree, is for OA to collaborate with another one of the fallen, at least to get some ideas and get out of the writer's block. Chernabogue expressed interest in continuing to participate but hasn't spoken up recently. Gario and Wildfire are the runner-ups in the Dracula bracket, although they've expressed at best disinterest in continuing. War Machine might be intrigued, given the circumstances.

Dude, you still have over 5 1/2 days left. Most of these tournaments only give you a week to begin with. I'm sure you could still think of something good. Put the sources on a playlist and listen to it while doing other things, maybe something will click. Happens to me all the time, even with VGM I've heard a hundred times.

One week left! Everything on track? Anyone other than Jorito and OA planning on submitting anything for the Epilogue round?

There's practically no melody to that. Lots of ambience, with the occasional 5-note motif (which is just a 3-note scale, up and down). One could probably find dozens of movie and game scores with extremely similar segments. Funny thing is, Brandon's example is similar again. Sure, a small section of it is similar to a small section of the FF1 battle theme, but again, it's 3 notes up and back down, in a standard scale. And yes, the FF soundtracks really are that good. My wife has played hardly any of the games, but loves the soundtracks. I loved the soundtracks to FF 2, 3, and 5 as soon as I heard them, before they were localized even in fan translations; I loved playing the Sky Gardens and Fantasia tracks in Chocobo Racing because of the music, despite never having heard them in any other context. Many of my favorite games, when I listen to the soundtracks by themselves, I'm just not that impressed--I actually enjoyed FFX-2 quite a bit but wondered the whole way through why the soundtrack was such garbage, all of a sudden for the series. Although interesting fact, Uematsu has been quoted as saying that he didn't feel his own music was that interesting. He felt he was writing the same sort of things over and over again, and didn't understand why people loved it so much. Probably because he did use such simple, though evocative, techniques.

Yeah, I thought it would link through NNID, considering you can link your My Nintendo account to it, but apparently it doesn't. Or so I understand; I don't actually have any Wii U friends to try it out on. Nor any Twitter or IRL friends on it, so I haven't been able to do a whole lot with the app thus far. If anyone wants to friend me in Miitomo, just follow me on Twitter (@MindWandererB).