*NO* Last Battle 'The Futile Victory'

[Liontamer]

Info:

Remixer Name: Xitiger

UserID: 39654

Name of game remixed: Last Battle: Legend of Final Hero

Name of songs remixed: Boss, Labyrinth

Additional Info: Year: 1988

Console: Sega Genesis

Composer: Unknown

Comments: Although a lackluster game, Last Battle had one thing about it that struck me as incredible. Even when I was a young kid playing this game almost two decades ago, I was still hit by the dire, desperate sound of the boss music. I found the melody wonderful. I'd try to fight all of the bosses, even the notoriously difficult optional ones, just to hear that song. I also never beat the game.

Now that I've actually acquired a way to record something like this, I've taken the opportunity to do just that. I've made it into a piano arrangement because I felt that this best conveyed the hopelessness in the song. It speaks of a melancholy outcome after a struggle, no matter if you win or lose. Hence its name, "The Futile Victory". Just as the piece starts to pick up momentum and carry to a climax, it ends. It intentionally fails to deliver that emotional sense of satisfaction, as if a long slow descent into death finally took someone just as a cure was discovered.

.....Now that sounded melodramatic!

To add flavor to the song I included the Labyrinth theme, from the same game, in the bridge. There isn't any Rachmaninoff-like acrobatics in this song. It's intended to be somber and deliberate.

Please let me know your opinion of this piece, and what can be done to improve it. I'm not expecting it to make it through, but I would like some helpful criticism if (more appropriately, when) it fails to ascend to the front pages, so that I could further work on it and resubmit. Criticism would be appreciated since very few people were commenting on it when I had it up in the WIP section. I suppose its because the song is from an obscure game.

Thank you for your time.

P.S. Pardon my attachment of the file. I cannot find a good hosting website. Zircon had hosted the first version of the song for me but that did not have the specified ID3 tags. I also fixed up the mix in this version. I also didn't want to bother Zircon about it since he did offer to help me that once and I didn't want to overstay my welcome, so to speak.

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http://project2612.org/download.php?id=297 - Tracks 5 & 8

Piano performance isn't poor, but sparse and rigid in the timing of the left-hand chords. Gotta flesh out the sounds and work on refining the flow of the performance. Atmosphere also sounds rather lo-fi. Some areas that were supposed to sound more emotive, such as 1:25-1:52, really didn't posses much intensity or feeling.

Decent dynamics here though, moving onward into a really delicate reiteration of the first section at 1:52 to create some contrast. The left-hand stuff from 2:42-2:46 sounded really fake and exposed.

Arrangement could stand to be more interpretative in places. Decent arrangement, but poorly produced. Lurk around the ReMixing forum and see what you can do to help boost the quality of a solo piano performance such as this one.

NO

[Malcos]

Most of the issues here imo are related to performance, although it isn't dire by any means. The left hand doesn't do much a lot of the time, making the mix sound very empty. In addition, the reverb used doesn't suit the sparse style, so sections like the one starting at 1.53 sound very dead. Perhaps some sustain would have made some parts of this mix flow better and inject a little atmosphere and emotion. Not bad, but doesn't quite reach the bar. Keep working on it.

NO

[zircon]

I don't think the production here is particularly bad. Sonically, it's fine. There are a few parts where it sounds overly mechanical but I really think that's due to something else. The problem is really in the arrangement/performance. The right hand's melodic parts are often very simplistic in terms of voicing (monophonic, usually) with very little rhythmic or melodic variation. The left hand accompaniment is sparse and somewhat plodding. Even when it changes up periodically, it's still not interesting. Overall, the range of the piece is quite small, and definitely doesn't take advantage of the full range of the piano.

If you're going to do a solo piano ReMix you gotta really use more contrast in terms of pitches, dynamics, and rhythms. Not to say that you gotta densify things beyond belief, but just listen to some of Dhsu's work as a point of reference. Even the quiet, minimal songs of his have a lot of expression and change. That's what you should be trying to do here.

NO