How about an Fighting Game Music & Art Tribute?

[Reinhold Hoffmann]

Hello, I am Reinhold from the Game-Art-HQ community. Back in 2015 we collaborated with OCR already and members from GA-HQ drew illustrations for the excellent Final Fantasy IX: Worlds Apart OCR Album.

We are creating a couple of video game art tributes / collaborations per year and I thought it could result in something quite awesome if we can do another "Music & Visual Art" Project.

I am writing this post because I myself am searching

- Enthusiastic remixers that love the music of fighting games of the past and today

- People that know what is important in a music piece and can basically do the judge part. I myself am a vgm addict since at least 1992 when I heard the timeless Guile theme for the first time in the SNES port of Street Fighter II but I believe that if we can do another collaboration, I leave the music part completely in the arms of the guys that are actually musicans.

 

My idea for a Fighting Game Music & Art Project by OCR and Game-Art-HQ would be relative challenging and unorthodox for an OCR Album I guess. 

 

Fighting games are all about the fighting obviously. There are usually two characters beating the shit out of each other, and my idea would be to move this element into music tracks. In short, mashups.

Ryu vs. Chun Li with elements of both characters themes in one track like they are basically fighting each other. 

Game-Art-HQ's Artists would come into play by creating illustrations of exactly those character matches. Including crossovers. Like if one of OCR's remixers has an excellent vision of creating a remix with Geese Howards theme with the one of M.Bison instead of another Fatal Fury or King of Fighters character, one of our artists would illustrate a fight between Geese and M.Bison.

I think such a project should start relative small with a goal of 10 tracks. Ideal might be a mix of popular characters and games as well as to cover a few of the rarely remixed games. Each character should be a part of only one track, personally I would love to have 20 character themes of different games there. If you are familiar with fighting games, you know that a ton of them have excellent soundtracks, even if we go back to games like TMNT Tournament fighters or the earliest of the SNK fighting games like the first Fatal Fury or Art of Fighting. 

 

Here is a small selection of artworks that were created for Game-Art-HQ Art Collaborations in the past, we have a ton of very talanted artists in our community that love video games and just as much as everyone here:

These are artworks made for our Legend of Zelda Bestiary Project, our Fighting Game Boss Tribute and the Nintendo 64 Anniversary we celebrated last year with games like DK 64.

 

Would be awesome to get a new music and art collaboration together, I am open to support other OCR projects as well ^^

 

Greets and happy easter days everyone,

Reinhold Hoffmann

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Reinhold Hoffmann

[Jorito]

That's a pretty intriguing concept you have there, I rather like it. My fighting game history is pretty limited, mostly bits of Tekken, and I'm currently pretty much occupied with a lot of other things, but I'm interested to see what others think of the concept and I might even be able to chip in if it kicks off and my schedule has cleared.

[Thirdkoopa]

I'm down yo. Fantastic artists! Maybe I'll sign up to brush up my art skills...

[Reinhold Hoffmann]

Thanks for the positive feedback you two ^^

@Jorito  Tekken had and still has an amazing history of soundtracks. From the character themes in the first 3 games that were almost completely fitting every character or at least the sceneries of the background stages. (Remember the desert stages from Tekken 1 and 2?) to the more modern electronic beats in the recent games. There is a lot to cover from that series. 

This project  - if it kicks off would be a "its done when its done" idea and while I am used to organize art collaborations mostly with deadlines of a few weeks because we try to honor an anniversary and release something exactly 20 years later, this might take a long while and thats okay. What matters is that everyone has fun and the motivation to create such a pretty challenging album & art idea.

 

@thirdkoopa Heh I did not expect to see someone getting interest in the visual art part of the idea here   You might be interested to join or watch http://game-art-hq.deviantart.com/ . We have art collaborations, challenges and sometimes contests ongoing there with very various themes. Would you be interested to claim a remix slot if this project kicks off too?

 

 

 

[Thirdkoopa]

12 minutes ago, Reinhold Hoffmann said:

Thanks for the positive feedback you two ^^

Would you be interested to claim a remix slot if this project kicks off too?

Oh for sure! I assume we'd each be working with an artist? Could be really amazing stuff.

[Reinhold Hoffmann]

I would organize it like:

Remixer I wants to claim a track, has a good idea for two fighting game character themes. In the best case he can describe if one of the two character themes would "dominate" the remix. It could be like in a fighting game where one character wins,

 

Take an example that starts with the melody of Iori Yagami's (KOF) Arashi No Saxophone and there is a back and forth with Guiles Theme, also featured with Saxophone sounds. The theme that is mostly heard in the remix and in the best case also ending it, decides the "winner" of the track.

The illustration(s) for it could show Guile beating up Iori with his Flash Kick or one of his normal moves. The best stage background for this case would also be Guile's stage from SF II. 

 

I would post the character theme mashup (Iori vs. Guile) idea there on GA-HQ or directly ask one of the artists that are a lot into fighting games and would most likely love the idea and describe the idea of the song OR provide the contact between the remixer and the artist so both can exchange their ideas and work out something together.

 

Some ideas that are total shots into the blue for maybe nice mashups:

Killer Instinct Eyedol Theme vs. Mortal Kombat II, Shao Kahn's Arena / Shao Kahn 

Ky Kiske Holy Orders from Guilty Gear XX vs. Jin Kisaragi  Lust SIN Theme from BlazBlue Calamity Trigger

Zangief's classic Street Fighter II Theme vs. King Tekken 2 (Arcade) Theme

Kilik's stage theme "New Legend" from the classic SoulCalibur vs. Captain America's Marvel Super Heroes /Marvel vs. Capcom theme

 

[Thirdkoopa]

38 minutes ago, Reinhold Hoffmann said:

I would organize it like:

Remixer I wants to claim a track, has a good idea for two fighting game character themes. In the best case he can describe if one of the two character themes would "dominate" the remix. It could be like in a fighting game where one character wins,

 

Take an example that starts with the melody of Iori Yagami's (KOF) Arashi No Saxophone and there is a back and forth with Guiles Theme, also featured with Saxophone sounds. The theme that is mostly heard in the remix and in the best case also ending it, decides the "winner" of the track.

The illustration(s) for it could show Guile beating up Iori with his Flash Kick or one of his normal moves. The best stage background for this case would also be Guile's stage from SF II. 

 

I would post the character theme mashup (Iori vs. Guile) idea there on GA-HQ or directly ask one of the artists that are a lot into fighting games and would most likely love the idea and describe the idea of the song OR provide the contact between the remixer and the artist so both can exchange their ideas and work out something together.

 

Some ideas that are total shots into the blue for maybe nice mashups:

Killer Instinct Eyedol Theme vs. Mortal Kombat II, Shao Kahn's Arena / Shao Kahn 

Ky Kiske Holy Orders from Guilty Gear XX vs. Jin Kisaragi  Lust SIN Theme from BlazBlue Calamity Trigger

Zangief's classic Street Fighter II Theme vs. King Tekken 2 (Arcade) Theme

Kilik's stage theme "New Legend" from the classic SoulCalibur vs. Captain America's Marvel Super Heroes /Marvel vs. Capcom theme

 

I like this idea a lot. It gives a lot of room for composers and artists to work with each other which we usually don't get a lot of opportunities to do. Good stuff!

also can't join the group D:

[Siolfor the Jackal]

This is a pretty cool idea, I hope it goes well, dude.

[Ronald Poe]

I love this concept (it's very clever). I've got an idea of a possible matchup that I could do. How about Hazama (Blazblue) vs. Shao Kahn (Mortal Kombat). It'd be a mixture of "Kahn's Arena" (MK2) and "Gluttony Fang". 

[Reinhold Hoffmann]

Thirdkoopa Please just watch the group and I can invite you, its a closed one there.

Ronald Poe  Every "Match" is possible as long as the two themes work together in one piece. What I need to know later is which theme will "dominate" the match so I can talk with the artists and describe the track, maybe it would be ideal if I had a demo or the whole track already. It might work as idea-giver to the artist(s) that illustrate the match

 

[Ronald Poe]

I've been trying to remix the two together and I think "Kahn's Arena" is a rather weak track (the bass pattern is only a measure long and relies on a single note in addition to the lackluster midi I found). "Gluttony Fang" would obviously dominate (even though Shao Kahn would probably win an actual fight). Maybe we could set Hazama against a different opponent with a stronger theme (any ideas). I'll show you what I come up with for the 2. 

Hazama (Blazblue) is an arrogant and insane troll who pretends to be a decent leader but is closer to the Joker. This is "Gluttony Fang".

 

[Reinhold Hoffmann]

There are a good couple of fighting game characters that would be cool matches for Hazama but their music tracks might be really difficult to use.

 

One that comes to mind is Sho from the classic Battle Arena Toshinden 2 to me, an also rather arrogant fighter, who had a pretty strong - I think -  theme

 

 

Another pretty cool pairing might by Hazama vs. I-No since both are arrogant boss characters from Arc System Works

 

A Hazama vs. I-No illustration would also work of course

 

[The Nikanoru]

This is a very cool concept. I would love to claim something but I am too busy myself these days. 

Just to ask the question: I have played a ton of fighting games in the past; is this concept just for 'popular' games or can we delve into relative obscurity with titles like Samurai Showdown, Ranma 1/2, or Doomsday Warriors?

EDIT:

Quote

Ideal might be a mix of popular characters and games as well as to cover a few of the rarely remixed games.

Missed this line in the intro. I consider my question answered.

[Mak Eightman]

Hello.

I'd like to join.

How much tracks allowed to remixer?

Any info about deadlines or genre?