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patella femoral syndrome

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Posts posted by patella femoral syndrome

  1. This is quite a surprise. I haven't been around OCR for quite a while, but I always try to check out the SoR mixes that have cropped up while I've been gone. Of all the slower-paced tracks in games out there, this is one of my absolute favorites, and it's always nice to see it (well, anything Yuzo Koshiro or Sega in general) get some love.

    "The Last Soul" makes me think of a slow, brooding intensity, like cooking with a crockpot instead of a blowtorch, and that seems to give the song both a sense of delicacy and strength that seem to be at odds with each other. It makes me feel anxious, nervous, like there's something big and important and scary coming but I'm not sure what.

    You've copied that over into your remix really well, and in that sense, you've captured the spirit of the track, which is wonderful. I think you've done a great job in recreating most of the elements of the song, and I'm really enjoying listening to it, but there are two issues that stand out to me as bit problematic, and I'll try to go over them as clearly as I can here. Unfortunately I'm not too knowledgeable about the technical aspects of music, so my comments won't run too deep and may not be very helpful at all.

    The first thing that I look for in remixes of this track is usually how well it is able to build the same feelings of the original. The progression of your song--the gradual introduction of the various different parts of the song--is excellent, bringing all of the elements of the song in a manner that flows... except for at the beginning. I think it feels a bit slow there, and if I heard it on the radio, I would pop out of whatever I doing mentally and probably ask myself what this song was doing before it had started to take off.

    For comparison, the soundtrack version of "The Last Soul" that I have and "Souled Out" are both a little bit over three minutes long (3:07 and 3:16), but while the original starts the rubber band-like bassline at 0:10 and the intro to the melody at 0:30, your rubber band bassline doesn't pop in until 0:38, and the melody follows at about 0:48. If your mix were significantly longer than the orginial, that'd be fine, but as it is, I'd like to see the stuff you have starting at 0:10 maybe fade in from the very beginning to shave off a bit of the time it takes for the song to build.

    That rubber band bassline is part of the second issue I want to point out. I love how you've matched the original feeling, but the instruments and sounds seem much too similar to the source sounds. I had to go back and double check just to make sure that the rubber band wasn't the exact same one, as I couldn't tell just from hearing it. I really would love to see that bassline rubber band instrument replaced with something else, and, if possible, do a few more variations with it. Your variations on the melody are fantastically unique while still managing to evoke the original in style. Play around with the bass in that manner, and try tinkering with the arrangement so that some different-sounding things show up.

    I'm focusing here on the negatives, but I really do love this track, and your mix has some great things going for it that I would hate to just see disappear. This song is a very difficult one, but you're doing a great job so far with everything.

  2. Glitzy. The track is completely transformed--I barely even recognize it. The elevator music was always the weakest and most (only) forgettable track in the game (perhaps intentionally true to the style of elevator music?), but this mix is fabulous and probably the best piece of music I've discovered this week. My love to the two who made this--it's rarity and a gem to see Yuzo's music built upon like this.

  3. I wasn't expecting to comment on this, as I don't really comment on that many songs, but I loved it so much that I got up from my homework to come back and write just how great it is. It's not overdone, not too divergent from the original, nor is it too flashy. It feels like a great, fun version of the original song, and I don't know how long it's been since I heard something this great. It reminds me of djp's older mixes--and I mean that in the good stylistic way, not that the mix sounds old, which it certainly doesn't.

  4. It's a great track, really--my favorite VG song (from my favorite VGM composer on my favorite VG on my favorite console...). There's lots of fun stuff going on at the end, but something doesn't feel right. I think a lot of the added stuff just got out of hand and buried the soul Yuzo infused the track with. The latter half of the song gets close, but it it just doesn't inspire goosebumps the way the original did.

    Metaphorically, a person is a good person. Then they get cyberpunk-esque cyborgish enhancements to their body. They have flashy gears and tools on their arms as well as night vision and whatnot, but the technologically enhanced body does not make them a better person. In some cases (such as the Borg), they aren't even able to call themselves a (good) person anymore.

    The original track was brilliant, especially considering Yuzo did it on the Genesis' sound card. The technical stuff here is all nice and fancy, but it drains the track of that something special that the original had. Perhaps you should ask Gecko Yamori for advice on how to get the soul back, as his is the only mix I've ever heard that was able to capture (and improve on) that non-technical dimension of the song.

    and I'm not just trying to spread hate here. I luurrrvve tefnek's work and bought zircon's first two albums each within a month of their releases, but while they both excel in the mixing and technical aspects of the song, they took the feel of Sonic 2's Chemical Plant Zone and are trying to apply it to a much more dream-like grandeur that the original song has.

  5. Maybe I just need to listen to more, but most people I go to school with love indie rock, and they play it all the time on MTVU (which plays 24/7 in our cafeteria) - and it all sounds the same to me. Really nothing impressive. Maybe I am just not listening with a critical ear, but there seem to be very few stylistic distinctions from one group to the next, and the compositions are not all that different either.

    MTVU is MTV in disguise. You're still hearing MTV,

    and it is still bland and unwilling to try anything new.

    also: Komeda is the love of my life.

  6. I think it's just a case of my mediocre reading comprehension, but did you just refer to the original Legend of Zelda as "okay?"

    You kids these days scare the shit out of me.

    Yes, but fear not, as I've never actually played the game for more than 15 minutes past starting it. I merely included it for humorous purposes--specifically so I could post the screenshot of it in Meka, the world's greatest 8-bit Sega system emulator. Oh, and there's the ancient OverClocked skin that djp made some long time ago. I may include the game next time I make an NES rom disc for my <3Dreamcast<3.

    also: Flicky!

  7. Graphics are really important. They're called video games for a reason. Bad graphics (art direction, technical implementation, etc.) can really ruin the experience a game delivers.

    Agreed. Those Zork games and the other infocom classics were all godawful.

    And roguelikes such as NetHack clearly aren't worth a consideration.

    Being an ass aside, I think I see your point. I think it's more important that the interface--whether graphic or not--is adequate enough to deliver what the game requires. An annoyingly bad camera, as the 3D Sonic games are renowned for having, can screw a game up, no matter how pretty it may be. I'd also say that Alex Kidd games had better graphics than FF8. Square tried to milk too much out of the PS1's abilities when they made the game, so it looks grainy and ugly a lot of the time, but Alex Kidd's graphics are perfect and clearly show everything they're supposed to.

    There's also the dimension of artistic quality that tends to be overlooked in threads like this. When arguing the Streets of Rage vs Final Fight, the FF fans kept on talking about how FF's graphics were better than SoR's--which is primarily because of the system. A few others and I thought that SoR had better graphics because they were not the bland, stereotypical beat-em-up settings that have been used and reused dating back to Double Dragon.

    EDIT: Far better than I said it:

    I would argue that gameplay is basically the sum of all the elements involved and graphics are simply part of it.

    Please, good sir, you must post more often!

  8. But who will buy it all now that the unmodders are gone?

    EDIT: Especially the shot glasses. How many drunk threads have you seen in GD?

    EDIT2: Furthermore, I think selling those would denigrate OCR's image as a family-friendly site.

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