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OCR00542 - Final Fantasy "Stronghold of Chaos"


orkybash
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Final Fantasy 'Stronghold of Chaos'

Though this one suffers from very questionable sample quality, and even more questionable transitions, DarkCecil13 shows off some very good arranging skills. There's some real power here, though some better samples would make it even stronger. I could have done without the fade out ending and the last little bit, though - that to me is the weakest part of the mix, and it's never good when the ending is the weakest part. Still, this song is well worth a download.

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  • 10 months later...

This has aged well. ^_^ Two things make this piece for me. The very cool throwback to the past synth strings that start the mix. This has character. The second is in the temple of fiends section with the interplay between the bells and strings. For me, the other three themes in this mix cap off the highlighted portion. The entire mix is just flows nicely from theme to theme. Solid work.

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I must admit that I'm a little biased. DC13 is the younger brother of one of my good friends from high school, and he is the person that introduced me to OCR many years ago. He also holds the absolute best LAN parties around...but I digress.

In any case, this is the only medley on the site (that I can think of -- challenge me please) that I really enjoy. Like Gray Lightning said above years ago, this has aged well. The low production values don't bug me nearly as much as they did with "Saga Prelude" for some reason. The drums are better than most because DC13 actually plays them, btw. I don't know if he recorded himself for this mix or not (it's been too long), but the point is that he knows how to make it work as a result of his playing.

The transition from dungeon scene to battle scene sounds spot on -- others aren't quite as good which is too bad (though the transition from battle scene to victory is better than the original's, which had none at all). I agree with others who say that the last moments could be a little stronger. I do like their inclusion however...it's hard to say how I'd prefer it handled. A good mix overall that I'm still listening to (and should have written a review for the instant I joined...hopefully none of DC13's other stuff is on my Christmas review list).

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A good rendering of a very good theme. I have to say that I like the begining better than the battle theme. Towards the end of the mix, before the fanfare, I find that the edge and definition of the instruments become unclear, which complements the mix quite well. One of my favorite FFI remixes, great job.

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Ha, a DC13 mix!

Samples aside, once the song launches into the main thrust after the slow intro, I feel the song exhibits major medleyitis. It just repeats the same section of the song, and then suddenly transitions to another song. It reminds me a lot of those midis from the late 1990s where people would just do these mega medleys of various songs and not do a great job at transitioning or exploring much of the source material.

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  • 2 years later...

DarkCecil's tracks kinda tore me a bit when I first came across them years ago; when he has ideas, he brings them out well, though there were a few tracks where he kind of had his more awkward moments IMO.

Sadly, this is one of those tracks for me; it's understandable for the choice of samples to show their age, but I thought the trumpet part at the beginning was cool either way. But going past that, the track itself seems to be envisioned as nothing more than a medley, made somehow unclear by a ridiculous amount of release/reverb covering instruments across the entire track. To me it doesn't quite feel like the norm for even 2002, which ends up putting the track at a weak standing point.

So I'm going to have to say though that due to it really showing its age on both the arrangement and production sides, this one didn't really do it for me. I'm sorry man :\

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  • Liontamer changed the title to OCR00542 - Final Fantasy "Stronghold of Chaos"

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