OCR04449 - *YES* Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons "Forgotten Ruins"

[Emunator]

Hi.

 

The »Tarm Ruins«-theme is a song I always wanted to remix. But after I wrote the first two minutes of it it didn’t evolved further. And so it stayed for quite some time on my hard drive. Some weeks ago I discovered that it fits quite well to another theme from »Oracle Of Seasons« and so I could finish it, finally.

 

You could listen to it here:

 

Contact Information

Your ReMixer name: Gaspode

Your real name: Peter Köller

Your email address: 

Your website: –

Your userid: 26608

 

Submission Information

Name of game(s) arranged:

»The Legend Of Zelda – Oracle Of Seasons«

 

Name of arrangement:

Forgotten Ruins

 

Name of individual song(s) arranged:

»Tarm Ruins« & »Temple Remains« from »The Legend Of Zelda – Oracle Of Seasons«

 

Additional information:

The Legend Of Zelda – Oracle Of Seasons, Game Boy Color, Music by Minako Adachi & Kyohiro Sada

 

Bye, Peter

 

[MindWanderer]

This has a great tone to it, and I found myself struck with a lot of great sections with catchy riffs or rich harmonies.

But just as often, there were weird arrangement decisions that took me out of the flow.  The moments that disrupted my enjoyment were:

• 1:16: This is a subtractive section, but there's so much resonance that it doesn't sound clean and pure like a solo should, it just sounds incomplete.
• 1:30: Just a missing note for some reason?
• 1:38: Momentary genre change.  It's supposed to sound striking, but just sounds strange.
• 2:08: Sounds like a wrong note in this brief scale.
• 2:59: A riff that just doesn't sit right with me.
• 3:28: Same, this just doesn't sound right to me.  An inappropriate key change, maybe? Maybe another judge can articulate better.
• 3:44: There's that odd-sounding scale again.

I'm on the fence about this.  There's a lot here that I really love, but there are so many sections that either don't sound right to me or that just break the flow of the piece in jarring ways.  I'm hard-pressed to say whether those moments are objectively incorrect, though, or just personal preference.  I'm going to hold off to see what other judges have to say.  Maybe one of them can articulate the problems I have in a more precise way.

Edit: With proph's analysis, below, I'll chalk up my dislike to personal preference and give this my

YES

Edited January 2, 2023 by MindWanderer

[prophetik music]

i am not overly familiar with the Oracle of Seasons soundtracks. some interesting ideas.

the initial intro has a lot of verb and is pretty evocative. the beat at 0:19 is great-sounding, and there's some fun buzz in the synths that comes in once and a while - love the wider tone. first melody comes in at 0:38. immediately recognizable. there's a breakdown with lots of off-beats at 1:16, and i liked the variety this provided. there's a new lead at 1:35, and this leads through to a bell-led section at 1:56 that is a fun cameo. there's some interesting chord choices in here that aren't wrong but do sound a bit different, notably in the harmonies - there's a D# in the harmony part as part of a B7 chord, and that immediately goes to something with B and D (maybe Bmin), so the D# to D sounds weird.

slick transition at 2:33 with the glide lead and the guitar-adjacent sustains in the background. there's a lot of verb on every instrument, and a few chord changes sound spicy due to sustains, but there's again nothing wrong here specifically. this groove goes through to about 3:30 and then it starts to tone down to the end.

to address MW's thoughts: the first subtractive section at 1:16 didn't sound problematic to me. the brass blats actually reminded me a bit of the Pyre soundtrack. i didn't hear anything at 1:30. 1:38's timing syncopation i actually liked as it mixed up the groove a bit. the note you hear at 2:08 isn't wrong, but the chord change immediately after it is poorly handled. the chord at 2:59 is fully diminished (something that's used a ton in the Link's Awakening soundtrack, actually) and so the riff sounds tight but is fine. i really liked that transition there actually. at 3:28 the note you're hearing is the flat 7 of the chord (it's an A), and it is within the chord structure but again handled weirdly and not supported in the rest of the backing part.

i think the track sounds good throughout, and the arrangement is fun. there's a bunch of choices i'd not have made in the harmony and chords (primarily sounds like the artist is using more pentatonic scales than traditional major/minor), but they aren't 'wrong' notes, just odd tonalities. i can understand someone voting no on this, but i think that what's here is acceptable. i'd certainly prefer some of those flat 7s and maj/min adjacent chords being cleaned up but this is over the bar.

 

 

YES

[DarkSim]

I like this a lot. There's great sound design throughout, and chunky beats with a decent groove to back up the instrumentation. The beats aren't chopped too heavily, and when they are, it's very tastefully done.

I like how the melody is presented softly at 0:39 with the synth flute, and the piece circles back to it at the end for a final run-through with that gorgeous saw lead. In the middle of the arrangement, we have the temple ruins theme, which sounds very Zelda. The source definitely has a nod to Link's Awakening there, and the Game Boy Zeldas have always had harmonically-challenging source tunes, so those odd-sounding scales are in keeping with that.

I like the more ethnic percussion and Japanese-sounding timbre of the instrumentation in the break at 1:56. When the beat comes back in at 2:16, it's got even more of a groove to it, and the piece builds to its climax, before a nice ending section to resolve things.

Not a lot to criticise here for me, although if I'm being picky I think some of the transitions could have been telegraphed better, particularly moving between unusual scales and harmonies, and perhaps it would have been nice to vary up the beats/fills a tiny bit more. But I'm really reaching for suggestions there! Top stuff, and I enjoyed listening over and over again picking out extra details.

YES

[Liontamer]

Gotta be honest, Gaspode's always solid based on my previous experiences, so with his stuff -- barring some sort of massive & unexpected curveball -- it's more about diving into another cool track rather than wondering whether or not it'll meet our arrangement and production standards, which he's always done.

And indeed, creative arrangement ideas that blend the pair of themes well and show off cool instrumentation choices. The lead at 1:35 should have cut through more. Nothing struck me as out of place with any of the notes or transitions. A pleasure to listen to!

YES