OCR04399 - *YES* Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island "Back to the Island"

[Emunator]

ReMixer name: Neon X
EMail: 
Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV8NwzoUa9I9HD1YXRIXp3g
UserID: 37046

Name of game: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Name of arrangement: Back To The Island
Name of song: Yoshi's Island / Title theme
Original composer: Koji Kondo

For clarification:
Name of remix: Back To The Island
Name of original song: Yoshi's Island / Title theme

[DarkSim]

Cool sound palette once again. That saw lead is a little vanilla, but it reminds me of old Amiga sounds, particularly from dodgy fast-food tie-in McDonaldland, and it definitely fits with the synthwave/vaporwave style. At first, I thought the lead was a little on the thin side, lacking some low-mid, however when it's doubled at 1:20 it adds emphasis and sounds great.

Arrangement is conservative for the first couple of minutes, sticking close to the source, but once the half-tempo section begins from 2:13, we're treated to a decent solo, before the track winds down. The wind effects for the intro and outro could have had some more care taken on them to make them sound a bit more interesting. At the moment it sounds just like a white noise generator with a bandpass filter applied, and doesn't do much for establishing atmosphere.

Percussion is crunchy, and while I don't have a problem with the sequencing, or the overall cohesiveness of the kit, there's some distortion in the 'kick' sample (whatever's on the beat) from 0:20-0:40 that could be mistaken for clipping if it were louder. It's obviously not clipping, but the level of distortion sounded quite rough on the ears. I like the idea of texturising the percussion though, to offset the clean leads and dreamy pads.

It's a short and sweet remix, which has a few points for improvement, but does enough for me

YES

[Liontamer]

Opens up with a similar structure to the original but very personalized sound palette and some original additive writing. Pretty loud & shrill, but nothing offensive. Nice padding at 1:08. I understand where DarkSim's coming from in terms of some of the sound being vanilla; you do need to get more creative and varied with your sound design.

Changeup at 1:48 was odd; felt like noodling/meandering, but we press on. 2:11 continued on with a mix of melody and comping that spun off from the theme, all over the source's countermelody. Felt more focused for the final few seconds at 2:51, which I dug.

Not my thing personally, but not a problem creatively, and I respect the approach. Let's go, Neon!

YES

[MindWanderer]

Yep, nothing groundbreaking, but pleasant for all that.  The sound palette is vanilla but the spectrum is full.  I didn't have any concerns about it being meandering or distorted.  I'm happy with it.

YES

[Emunator]

This is a pretty fun, bouncy take on the source material. This plays to the same strengths that have been demonstrated in your previous submissions—I’ve always found the most engaging aspect of your submissions to be your liberal use of reharmonization and the liberties you take with the original melodic material, without ever straying too far from the original feel of the source. This features plenty of that, combined with the well-integrated sound effects, fun synth solos, and the tried-and-true synthwave sound pallet you’ve honed over many arrangements.

I’d love to hear you branch out further in terms of sound design, but for what it is, I think this is clearly ready to go!

YES