Jump to content

OCR01366 - Mega Man 6 "Flurry of Frozen Fury"


djpretzel
 Share

Recommended Posts

Awesome, a Mega Man 6 remix. I've been waiting for this. I hardly recognize the Blizzard Man theme, but after listening a little more carefully, I heard it. It has such a great feeling to it. It could be great background or foreground music.

Overall, I enjoy this piece and its awesome atmosphere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome, I had this mix on my hard drive for a while now and it's still cool to take in. :) Vurez has been able to take the source material, maintain the atmosphere that it held and showcase his own unique incarnation of it. In fact, much of his stylistic approaches to the Mega Man 6 score was of a very powerful interest to me and it's good to be able to see some of which come over here too. Neat-o.

This mix was lucky enough to receive my last ever review at VGMix before my strike over there, so it's best to quote it back here again:

Production techniques

Vurez has taken a lot of Mega Man 6 stage themes in the past and developed ethnical variations on the source material, so with Blizzard Man he had to go with a chillout/new-age/orchestral arrangement to reflect on the sub-zero stage itself. The panning is well thought in terms of spacious effects as well as much of the textures and individual sound positions; in terms of developing ambiance I really appreciate much of the tendencies taken here, so well done on that. As is the usual with his works we have a mix that is drenched with reverb, although for an atmospheric piece like this I'm sure it can be lifted; added to that that I think the melody is a little bit clearer than what I have witnessed in his Ys backlog and I think we're in for a cleaner setting to take on cue. One thing that I should mention here though is to try and increase the release time on the acoustic guitar to make the melodic progressions on that instrument sound a bit clearer instead of being rather harsh in terms of dynamics; outside from there I can tell I'm firm with much of the decisions in enhancing much of the instrumentation when taken. The sound balance is firm for what it was; can be argued that the percussion made things feel a little bit one-sided, but there's been a good range of EQs and dynamics to help emphasize on the overall volume here. Overall I think this is a better setting than what I've witnessed in his past incorporations, and for that I can say that I'm rather impressed; hopefully some of these foundations could be kept for future creations as well as being kept at enhancing some of the minor hindrances too.

Compositional structure

The track started off with the opening genre aspects that the song was claimed to be looking for, given some strong use of orchestrated strings and the use of pads and chimes to help add towards the wintry atmosphere the mix was looking for. The piece was then given a piano melody line as well as some light playing around on some fiddle instrumentation by 0:38 before continuing on with the basic structures of the source; I found much of those aspects to be rather peaceful and fitting for what they were, and they have done well to be able to catch much of the reflective setting that has been searched for here. I don't know about you but I thought it seemed to be a bit early to deviate from the original, but somehow I think it has managed to work out well enough to catch the audience's attention.

The moods then became a bit more relaxed by 1:45, allowing the orchestrated strings and acoustic guitar - with a following saxophone improvisation at 2:03 - to come in and add to the general climax here. I found the programming on the latter instrument to be very skilled and well thought out; much of the swells and manipulation have worked out well to easily aid towards the instrument's broad tendencies, and with much thought also taken towards the overall composition we're in for an area that's barely flawless. If there's something that I was hoping down the line I was hoping for a broader range of attacks on the orchestrated string background to make them feel a bit more realistic, but they still sound nice to help add some light tension to this otherwise subtle portion.

The melody was then incorporated in at 2:41, and it's here that the user then made it feel more to the point in terms of structure. However, he has managed to shake up a lot of the backing instrumentation to be able to aid in a lot of involvement towards his target audience, so that can be seen to be as a solid addition towards the piece structure. Looking back to the start of the mix I was sure that in terms of structure this part would have been more suited for it and a lot of the climatic playing around could have been incorporated here to better add to the dynamic feel on the ending, although that might have been me on that front; nonetheless this has worked well to keep the arrangement going.

And then at 3:50 there came a reprise of the final part of the source material before bringing the track into a climatic ending procedure. I saw some added liberties taken in with the additions of a backing string melody and a vocal soprano taken in, so that's firm to know on that side. However, what I think the ending was missing though was dynamics; I thought they could have been given a light increase getting towards the end to make it showcase a bit more of an energetic punch towards the target audience. Preferences aside, I appreciate a firm amount of what came around on this.

I can admit that the judges' commentary was an amusement to me; Darkesword may have thought we were of a "chill bias" but the adaptation of the theme was firm enough to make it stand its position on the site in a very firm stance. Comparing it to the mixes i've heard from Vurez so far (mainly his Ys stuff and some of his other Mega Man material) I found it to be one of his better produced efforts as well as being much broader on theme scope than a good chunk of his Ys-based material on offer. I understand that he likes using an acoustic guitar in every mix, but I feel the attack could have been a bit more subtle to make it fit in a bit more, likewise with some stronger attention to dynamics at the end.

but otherwise, I realy dig what managed to come around of all this and therefore it's a well deserved welcome onto the site for Vurez. Way to go, hermano :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This mix sounds very, very beautiful. But I didn't expect anything less than this from Vurez. I just recently heard his works on VGmix, and I'm surprised he doesn't already have any of his mixes over here- Flaming Desert Sand is a very, very cool song.

Looking at the ID3 tags, I see that they take a bit too much space to be put on here.

Anyway, I really enjoyed listening to Frozen Fury. It was a great take on that theme, though I have to agree with one of the guys up above about the guitar. It just suddenly appeared without a reason to really be there. That may be the only real flaw I've found with the song.

Good work Vurez. I hope to hear more of yours! 9/10

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This works pretty damn well as a standalone piece, seeing as I am completely oblivious to Mega Man 6's OST.

Ok, first off, This is really well produced. The EQ sounds completely full, and the resulting sound is very satisfying. In fact, I think I would have been turned off to this mix on the first listen if it weren't for the excellent sound achieved in the first few seconds. I don't like the solo violin that much (sounds really fake), and I like the solo sax a little more, but it's still a bit lame. I think it would have worked better in a higher octave, but I can't be sure without hearing it.

Dug the solo vox, too. :nicework:

EDIT: I'm going to start encoding all of my songs in VBR to be exactly 6,291,456 bytes. Seriously.

-chth

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really like this mix a lot. The violin makes it, in my opinion. It bobs in and out screaming Mega Man at me the entire time. Which I really find odd since usually I prefer brass to strings. *shrug*

My only complaint about the mix is that in the beginning portion there is a lot of chaos. It's hard to listen to all of the parts and separate them because they seem to entwine themselves by all using a different beat or something. Maybe it's just me, but I really like the last 3/4 of the mix... and not so much the beginning. If I could just chop off the first 1:09 of the song it would sound a lot better.

Kudos on the cave drip sound fx ^^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why make winter themed music in the summer!? :gonk:

The southern hemisphere? Where Tango came from and this song sounds pretty tangoish so it's very apropiate. ;)

And yes, it's a very good one. After getting my Megaman Anniversary collection game I got to play the "other" megaman games and appart from the SNES and PSX ones they're all good. Yes, they are and they have neat music. Love Chargeman and Waveman's theme plus Flameman but we already have a good remix for that one.

Gooood

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 5 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

WOW amazing remix it is so beautiful. I simply can't understand how can you guys possibly give it an 8 when this and ALL of his songs earn clearly a 10 or even more. I can't get it off my mind and honestly I dont want to. Vurez you are so talented man please delight us with much more songs like this that many will surely enjoy even if they don't post a thank you as I do... thumbs up!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 years later...
  • 3 months later...

Pretty nice blend of styles to create something pretty great sounding. I like how it has the deep atmosphere of new age music with a more attention-getting mix on the leads. The sax was fakey but serviceable, but the guitars and strings sounded really nice, and the synth at the beginning was so cold sounding. Awesome work on the soundscape.

The melody was personalized but still recognizable, and overall I enjoyed the track. Good stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...