Kat

Ok, so I did a thing. Here you go: Mario's Mission: C64E-0000-0033-D963 I sincerely hope you hate it as much as I do.

I haven't had a chance to really make anything yet(Thank you, graveyard shifts) but I'll probably get started and try some of these out later!

Not too familiar with Slicex, but wouldn't the File--->Export Regions function do that?

Oh, another I might recommend would be Way of the Samurai for the PS2. It's not strictly an action RPG. It's a somewhat short story-driven game that takes place in a small area. It's got real-time combat with a wide variety of melee weapons(primarily various asian-themed blades, but a few bludgeoning weapons and the like). All of the weapons have a different style and unlock moves based on how you fight with them. Trying things like jumping and attacking might unlock a new aerial themed attack, while blocking and attacking with good timing might unlock a counter type move. In addition, your blade has a "Heat" meter that goes up by attacking or blocking(and down when doing nothing), along with a durability meter divided into 1-5 bars. Whenever the Heat meter hits max you lose a durability bar, and if you have no durability the weapon breaks completely. You can have the local blacksmith appraise a weapon ahead of time(before it breaks) to sort of save a copy, but outside of that you're screwed if you aren't careful. No levels or stats. It's all about reflexes. Story-wise it's very short and takes place over the course of a few days, but has a large amount of endings based on almost everything you do. At the start of the game you can even decide to just turn and leave the area to it's own problems. You can respond to dialogues by attacking, or you can even stay silent by not choosing a reply for a period of time. It has a very ambient environment. There's also Way of the Samurai 2(PS2) and 3(PS3), but I haven't played them and I've heard they don't quite match up. WotS4 is available on Steam, but I have yet to play that either.

Hmm...Got a few ideas already. This is a pretty awesome source.

Totally forgot about that, but it's an awesome game and very heavy on the tactics.

The Might & Magic: Heroes series is pretty good, though it doesn't quite fit into the tactical RPG genre. The main portion of the game is exploring the map, capturing resources and artifacts and the like and upgrading your army and strongholds. It's more along the lines of a standard turn-based strategy game. When you get into the actual combat, it plays something like Fire Emblem or FFT, but with stacks of units instead. You play as a hero and move your units across a grid-based map, using your hero's tactical abilities and spells to help. Relies a lot on positioning and the type of units you brought. And also your starting faction's units, which often have unique effects or abilities. But again, it's probably not quite what you want. For more of a standard RPG, I'd really really really suggest Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for PS1. It's a fairly straightforward RPG and a remake of Lunar: The Silver Star. The battle system is somewhat unique though. It's turn based and at first glance looks like your typical JRPG system, but your characters actively move around the field during combat. If you command them to attack an enemy, they'll run up and attack but won't move back. You can also manually command them to move if you need to get them out of range of an attack. In typical RPG fashion it does rely a lot on stats and equipment, but still requires a little more thought. I'd highly recommend it regardless. The only issue is that it's somewhat hard to find now. There's also Lunar Legend(a GBA remake) and [i]Lunar: Silver Star Harmony(a PSP remake), but I haven't played either of them and can't say how well they stand up.

"In reality there are as many chili dogs as there are individuals." ~Ghandi, 1908

At first glance they do indeed look like (radioactive) chili dogs, but I'm conflicted. On one hand I think they're just poorly drawn bumpers, but on the other everything else looks pretty clear-cut and obvious. Those bumpers are somewhat sloppily drawn and vague compared to the rest, and the colors contrast in a way that reinforces the chili dog look. I see plenty of colors available in the palette that would have made it look suitably hotdog looking, but they went with neon green and black? At this point I would have to conclude that they were intended to be chili dogs, but recolored in order to stand out from the rest of the background to better fulfill their purpose as bumpers. As the comics(in which the chili dogs were prominently featured) began in 1992 and Sonic Spinball debuted in '93(and again in '95), it's plausible that they got the idea of chili dogs from there.

Alright, bumping this up as mod review now.

Glad you liked it, I had to whip out the midi keyboard and play practically all of it(especially the solo towards the end) to get the sound. I actually had a mallet ensemble playing in that area at first, but I decided to try a violin trio leading into a sax solo, which led to the sax having a more integral part in the piece. Trism: Really loved what you did with it, especially the percussion elements. The extra bass really gave it a dash of epic. My only complaint is that the brass staccatos felt overpowering, but that could just be my speakers.

Spitfire Audio is discontinuing Albion Volume #1 and selling it for £149/$230. Not sure why they're discontinuing it, but it's a steal right now. http://www.spitfireaudio.com/albion

These are awesome and exactly what I needed. Got an email about em earlier yesterday and picked them up on sight, and they don't disappoint!

A bit of everything, really. Sometimes I need a very booming cinematic sound, while other times I just need something light to decorate the song a bit. I have a pretty good selection of snare and timpani samples so I'm good there, but I'm really lacking when it comes to bass drums and especially cymbals.

Thanks for all the recent suggestions. At the moment, I now have Kontakt 5(which has a usable selection of orchestral samples), along with Peter Siedlaczek's Complete Orchestral Collection. Combined it ran me about $400 and gave me a really solid selection of instruments and ensembles. I've supplemented it with a lot of single instruments(Embertone's Friedlander Violin, for example). I'm still looking around, though - In particular I'm looking for some decent orchestral percussion, which is what I'm really lacking. Any suggestions there? Spitfire Percussion looks like my best(albeit a bit spendy) option there, but I haven't properly looked around.

http://impactsoundworks.com/optimizing-your-kontakt-workflow-part-2/ This is a good guide from ISW that might help out a bit. In particular, the section on DFD(Direct From Disk) streaming might help out if RAM seems to be the issue, as long as you've got a CPU that can handle it.

The track used is "Searing Scissors", from For Everlasting Peace. Unless I'm mistaken, that was both a commercial album and collaboration with Capcom. They likely have the right to use any song from that album as they see fit. Don't quote me on that, though.

Unpacked my lootcrate and was surprised to see a Los Pollos Hermanos apron. I work in a grocery store and we can dress up on Halloween. Three guesses what I'm doing this year. I've been getting back into the Might & Magic Heroes series too, so that's fun. Music-related, I've just been improving my various arranging and mixing skills all around. I think I've improved quite a bit.

Audacity is free and runs on mac http://audacityteam.org/download/mac And you'll need to grab the lame encoders to convert to MP3. There's a mac version here: http://lame.buanzo.org After that you can convert to MP3 to your heart's content. Just import the audio, and then export it and choose MP3. EDIT: Beaten to the punch.

Updated. I've adjusted a bit of the dynamics and reverb to better blend the mix together. I've also touched up the ending(which was a little too abrupt) and a few transitions, alongside some minor instrumentation changes. Still looking for any sort of feedback before I jump the gun and mark it as mod review.

I did enjoy some of the sounds going on in the most recent version, but I do have a few issues with the arrangement: First off, the tambourine(?) that starts at about 0:37 came across as way too loud compared to the rest of the mix. It made it hard for me to focus on the rest of the mix. I feel like it should be toned down quite a bit, or even removed - I don't think it would be missed. Secondly, the arrangement from start up until the 3:00 mark felt very cut/paste, with only a few elements being added in over time but no real change to the mix itself. Even after 3:00 it felt more like a few simple instrument changes/dropouts. I did enjoy the flute at 4:21 though, but afterwards I was treated to more of the same. The guitar at 5:25 was, once again, a nice break from the repetition, along with the electric guitar segment and the short flute segment following it. It all went back to more of the same, though. Overall I'd have to agree with Timaeus on a lot of his previous points: I think you have a nice potential soundscape set up - very chill and relaxing up until the electric guitar comes in - but it's just the same thing over and over with different instruments. At 9:55 you had a nice(despite simple) counter-melody come in, and I think you should expand on those throughout the song. Change it up a bit. Maybe use some of the better instruments at your disposal and add in some original material to it. At 11:00 you actually set up a very nice and rich soundscape and what could of led to a wonderful ending...except it went back to more of the same before abruptly cutting out. I think a major problem is that although you removed all compresses and remastered it to EBU R 128 standards in order to "push the dynamic values to the maximum", your arrangement doesn't have a lot of dynamic variation to begin with. If I may be so bold, I would suggest you shorten it by quite a bit and try to make every segment meaningful in some way. Like I said, it had an enjoyable opening and what could have been a great ending - it's all that stuff in between that just feels tedious and a bit lazy.