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OCR01345 - *YES* Ninja Gaiden 2 'Ninjascape'


djpretzel
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ReMixer Name: Ashane

E-mail address: ashane138@gmail.com

Website: http://www.ashane.tk/

userid: Ashane

Name of game being ReMixed: Ninja Gaiden 2 Name of individual song being ReMixed: The Parasprinter

Comments: My first submission...I've been in the Dwelling of Duels scene for over a year now. This was my entry for November-December's theme. It's one of my most solid arrangements. The guitar and bass are live. Hope you like it. Thanks.

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http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ninja_g2.zip - Track 1 [NES version]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ngt.rsn - Fortress (ngt-213.spc) [sNES version]

Accepted or rejected, Ashane, I strongly feel that you and your brother House should both consider submitting to OC in the future. Both of y'all have come out with some strong work that deserves to be heard & appreciated from the community here. Frankly, I think everyone involved in Dwelling of Duels & The Shizz should follow alongside other rock & metal artists like BrainCells, Darangen, CarboHydroM, goat, Ryan8bit and others who have submitted their material here.

I played this mix to help kick off season four of VG Frequency on VGF44.99. This was definitely one of the more enjoyable tracks of the end of last year that I had a chance to check out.

Off the bat, some people may have some issues with the guitar work sounding too delayed and/or distant, but I thought it was fairly emotive. I await the metalheads to kill me over my lack of knowledge, but I thought the backing chords reminded of the tone & feeling of the opening of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" for example, and that was certainly an interesting thing.

Good freestylish arranged work at :15-:42, though I thought the lead guitar could have used a little more sharpness/clarity while the other elements could have stayed as is. Nice segue of the lead into the "Fortress" source tune at :43, along with a second guitar joining in on harmony at 1:00. Good melancholy feel.

Things picked up the pace at 1:23, though the percussion was really (really) boring until we got some cymbal activity briefly in there from 1:50-1:55, followed by some more active drumwork at 1:55, which was very welcome. Make sure the percussion work matches the energy and creativity of other parts of the track.

At 1:56, you went back into the Fortress melody, but the support work changed up, which provided some good variation. Nonetheless, the guitar on support was very low in volume and poorly separated, making its contribution difficult to hear. Making your support guitar work a bit more audible could have helped things before you launched into your huge freestyle section at 2:51.

Good additive stuff at 2:51 that really worked well with the source tune coverage now functioning as the foundation of the track. Nice riffs from 3:29-3:34 that I would have loved to have heard more of. Ah, and there from 3:56-4:22 is exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. I would have loved to have heard some more riffs earlier in the song just to change the flow up a bit. Also, during the last bit of riffing at 3:56, the performance was good, but the panning on your alternating guitars should have been a bit more distinct so they didn't mush together.

I think other Js would have liked more variation for the foundation of the track from 1:22-3:56, and for some the production could be a negative hit for sounding too muffled; there's definitely could be an improved separation of sounds so one could appreciate all of the various instruments. For something like the solo from (2:51-3:34), I'm sure someone else will say that everything just kind of mushes together at times. Part of the problem was that the support instrumentation not having more separation from the lead work made the performance sound less complex than it actually was (drums notwithstanding). I think the production could be cleaner without undermining the feel of the track.

In any case, I thought the arrangement was somewhat conservative and, depending on what you instruments you pay attention to, one may feel it's a bit monotonous. With the middle section going on for so long and retaining the same style, frankly, I almost forget about the introduction being so different in style itself until I listened to the track again.

But the instrumentation and arrangement expanded the theme well and beefed the track up as compared to the original version, and Ashane featured several parts where he rearranged the flow of the original theme (the intro), added original composition on top (e.g. 2:52), and expanded the source's instrumentation (the entire mix). On that level, the track works much more in its intent as an additive type of remix, as opposed to reworking or overhauling the original composition. This one'll probably cause a debate, so I'm certainly interested in what Vigilante & zyko will say on this one. Looking at arrangement, production & performance as whole though, I think it's there.

YES (borderline)

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  • 5 weeks later...

Wow Liontamer has said a lot.

Not being one of the guitar expert judges, I thought the into sounded great. I agree with the comment made about the support guitars, making it more up front or panning them would have given a lot more interest to the section preceding the freestyle bit. Really liked the fadeaway ending.

It was the intro that really grabbed me in this mix, good stuff.

YES

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omg. Guitarbias

I think this is great on all fronts: production value, development, arrangement. Good stuff all around. I'll have defer to Vigilante, who will undoubtedly spout some trite reason why this guitar has no quadra-action-pull or why that chord doesn't have enough fenderbar-strata-lithium. But, aside from technical issues that I am not aware of, I think this is a winner, and a definite keeper.

YES

edit: Um... why is this not a DP? Pretzel, you fat fuck! Post it!

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I liked the first minute a lot, after that part and transition to the second faster parts of the mix, I don't feel the quality was consistently there. The drumwork I feel sounds pretty cliche of this genre and is for me the weakness of the mix. The arrangement as a whole as already noted by Liontamer, is good, but I don't think it's particularly daring. There are several highlights here though, the section at around 3:14 is quite very good. Ending is kind of bland in my opinion. Not a big issue, but more could have been done there.

The performance and guitar skills as a whole is excellent. You obviously have skills, but I wish more went into the conceptual phase of this mix. Conservative arrangement, but still above the bar with great performance and solid production equals a borderline Yes from me. Hope to hear more from you. Nice work.

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