Reviewz0rz!
Barrett vs. Amarant: Both sources are characterized by a sort of meandering melody with a lot of "white space" in between, which means they go well together but picking out individual pieces of melody is tricky, especially when they're at all liberally arranged. I usually treat source usage as the most important factor in these things, but this time that's hard.
The Only Uncertain Thing is I worked as hard as anyone!: Nice soundscape, good epic buildup. Balance is off, the melody is sometimes buried. Good effort at trying to make the brass sound decent, but it's hard and this isn't there. Pretty good job of making use of those minimalist-ish melodies.
Gun-Armed Bandit:Soundscape is lacking in the low end, and the instruments are kind of crummy. An exposed solo instrument in the intro needs to be really, really strong to work, and this isn't. Horse-clopping transition from ethnic to 9-bit kind of comes out of nowhere. However, the arrangement under all those production issues is actually pretty good.
[*]Kain vs. Beatrix: I thought these two sources would go together really nicely, having similar scale and melody usage (if different time signatures), and a catchy hook, but clearly both remixers had a hard time.
Skies aren't for Us: There are a few dissonant notes that really leap out at me. Interpretation of Kain's theme is pretty liberal, I have a hard time hearing it even knowing that it's there. Beatrix's theme underruns it really well, though. Overall a little repetitive. Great production, though.
Loss of Sorrow: Fun noodling with Beatrix's theme in 4/4. Accompaniment and bass sound oddly incompatible with the melody, which is quiet at times. Once again, Kain's theme is hard to hear--the notes are there, the first loop through, but the beat is heavily modified to the point where even listening for it, it took me two tries to catch it. And then the second time through it's arranged and even harder to pick out. I always advise people to put in one "straight" use of a theme somewhere in their mix, preferably early on, so people can train their ears as to what to listen for to catch the more liberal runs through.
[*]Freya vs. Sazh: Sazh's theme is a bitch.
Side Effects of Afro Include Memory Loss: Very quiet. Using Freya's theme as a bridge worked reasonably well, and I can't say I blame you for not integrating the two themes any better than that. Really long into and outro. Also very monotonous, no change-ups to be found; these two facts combined make for an unfortunately boring remix.
SazhaFreyaSazh: Good integration, better sound quality. That sax is really horrible, though, sounds synthetic and grainy. Overall sounds really low-fi--I don't know if that's intentional, to sound like an old jazz recording, but without tape or record hiss it just sounds bad. The arrangement is actually pretty good given Sazh to work with.
[*]Basch vs. Vivi: Once you pick out Basch's melody, it's actually pretty similar to Vivi's. Lots of possibilities here.
Fulminating Darkness: Interesting stringed instrument in the intro, I can't place it. In the intro it sounds great, but when it returns it has a terrible EQ problem. Beautiful rock ballad thing going on. Good use of the sources, they really do sound like they belong together.
Unfinished Wizardry: Wow, this is loud, especially that bass. Sounds like a hell of a lot of clipping. I don't really hear any melody. And... yeah, that's about it.
[*]Locke vs. Lenna: Really similar melodies here, if different energy levels, and it helps that they for once are on the same console with similar instrumentation.
LOCKEDUPLENNA: I'm... really just not sure what to make of this. Some interesting and creative, if unpleasant, sound usage, but is there supposed to be a melody here somewhere?
She Stole His Heart... Then His Wallet: Lead viola sounds pretty artificial, and really brings down an otherwise solid mix. Interesting in a good way twists on the melodies, right in that sweet spot where recognizable meets novel. I'm guessing this is Lenna multiclassing into "Treasure Hunter" rather than "Thief?" Good transitions between the low- and high-energy sections, much better than my attempts to do the same.