*NO* Lufia 2 "Gate to Gades"

[Hemophiliac ⚖️]

(Project Track for the Lufia 2 Album)

It's been a while, no time like the present to submit this track (along with one other contribution to the Lufia project of mine). This is one of my oldest arrangements to post on OCR (with only the Bionic Commando track I contributed being older by a few months), having started work on it in... 2009. Yes, this is an old one, but it's still to this day one of my favorites, and honestly I can hardly wait to finally show this one off to folk.

Got the idea from one of Tyler Heath & Zircon's old Chrono Trigger arrangements (When All Hope has Faded), thought the blend of Orchestra and synths was an idea worth expanding on. Today that's not exactly novel, but back then I didn't hear too many folk blending it like that so I wanted to take a crack at it myself, using synth mixing techniques like gating to samples folk more often try to make as realistic as they can. The arrangement was finished well over a decade ago, but it took a long time for my production skills to catch up with the idea. Samples probably didn't age all that well (Reason heads may recognize Orkester's supremacy in this arrangement), but they work plenty well enough for this arrangement's purpose. In fact outside of the Triangle wave being pulled from Super Audio Kart and the kick being created in Vital most of the instruments are from what was freely available in Reason 5, just remixed (in the traditional sense of the word) and polished to a shine over a decade.

There really is something lost when someone gains experience, learning what works and what doesn't, since this arrangement goes places that I probably wouldn't go today that I still really enjoy. I do hope to unlearn some of my tendancies to play it safe someday to get back to some of my weirder, more experimental roots, but in the meantime we've got this ReMix to enjoy!

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Games & Sources

Game: Lufia 2

Source: Theme of Tower

Edited 1 hour ago by Chimpazilla
closed decision

[prophetik music ⚖️]

On 9/29/2025 at 10:50 PM, Hemophiliac said:

There really is something lost when someone gains experience, learning what works and what doesn't, since this arrangement goes places that I probably wouldn't go today that I still really enjoy

boy, do i feel this. some of the stuff i did in high school is far more creative than anything i have done recently.

samples in the opening definitely are not as good as most of what we interact with nowadays. i'd argue they're not even as good as what we heard in Chrono Symphonic, and that was almost two decades ago. so that's a concern. there's some heavy panning used as well which is very noticeable on headphones.

arrangement of the opening section is cinematic and approachable. i got a little confused with what was going on around 0:38 with the rippling, before i realized what was going on. interesting transition concept! the beat and where it settles is pretty dull-sounding - there isn't much body in the upper ranges like i'd expect to hear - and the strings especially sound so oofy that it's hard to tell what pitches they're playing most of this section. the lead that comes in after this is much more forward and easier to understand.

there's a chippy break at 1:55 before we get the spurs again, and the approach for this section is similar to the first. the soaring string line at 2:38 is really nice - this is imo what these strings would be best for, not the active movement that was used earlier where it was tough to hear the pitches. by the 3:00 mark we're back to more traditional orchestra (trad-orch?) for the scoring, and the pitched snare is immediately recognizable from Reason. i like the transition back to more synth elements that comes in over the next minute.

3:49 is a recap of the earlier melodic material with the brass leading the way - the trumpet sample really works well with the gating effects you're using here. there's a fake ending before one last blow, one last bit of chips, and then it's done after a final hit. 

this is a neat idea, and i definitely see what you're going for around the concept of using electronic techniques with classical framing. and i think there's a lot to like about this track. however - both the orchestral instruments and the beat (kick/snare) sound extremely dated. i'd go so far as to say that we could never pass a track with such extended sections of orchestral instrumentation that's so far below 'free sample' range of what's available today. there are some times it works - like the soaring brass and string lines in the electronic sections, which don't rely on clear attacks - but the rest of the time it's so rough it's hard to hear what it's trying to play. additionally, the kick lacks body and tone and the electronic snare used is just static - there's no verve to the samples used nor the mixing of it. this is probably a lesser concern to me than the quality of the orchestral samples. along those lines, the mix itself (once it gets into the electro sections) has a lot of sub-20hz content that's making it hard to make out the bass instruments most of the time.

i recognize that the orchestral instruments aren't dealbreakers across the board, and i also recognize that there's a lot of places that they're not an issue. but i don't see a way for the big blocks from 0:00-0:40, 0:56-1:25 and 2:50-3:20 to be passable given the expectations around classical instrument usage. i love the concept! so this is a bummer. but i think it'd need some real reinforcement before it'd get posted in 2025 as opposed to 2007.

 

 

NO

[jnWake ⚖️]

It feels extremely odd to me to be judging a Gario track but here we go!

We begin very similar to the source with some orchestral samples that definitely show their age, remind me of the sound of the Final Fantasy Tactics or zircon's games. At 0:38 we get some glitches and I thought my PC was malfunctioning for a bit but it all made sense a few seconds later! What a fun way to do that transition from orchestra music to, basically, the genre named Gario. Now we have the orchestral instruments playing on top of a fun electronic/chippy backing. I feel the melodies have a bit of a hard time standing out sadly, mainly since the orchestral samples are a tad wet. At 1:31 a synth lead takes the lead and the music takes more shape immediately. Being nitpicky, the lead sample is a bit static, I'd love to hear some vibratto or something of the sort. I do love how the strings on the background are treated here, with the glitch effects and such, it sounds great. Somewhat abrupt transition to chiptune at 1:55 but at 2:00 we're back on the orchestra/Gario mix, here the brass sounds more clear. At 2:25 there's a quick break and we then continue on a slightly more chill vibe before a full orchestral break at 2:49. I like the upbeat timpani rhytm and the soft electronic elements present on this section. At 3:38 we transition back into the orchestra/Gario soundscape, fun transition and this whole section sounds great. There's a string ensemble "solo" at 4:13, interesting idea. After that there's a couple more upbeat sections with trumpet as lead and we close with a quick chiptune to orchestra moment.

Arrangement is a ton of fun! I love the idea behind the soundscape, although you claim the synth+orchestra concept isn't as novel as it was back then it's definitely not something I hear frequently in the cover space and much less in your particular brand of sound. Structure of the arrangement is great, with a large amount of variations and breaks to keep it interesting. I'm fairly sure the arrangement could be trimmed down to be shorter but there's no section that jumps at me like something to be cut completely. Source usage is evident and present in basically the entire track, every melody is directly from the source. No doubts about eligibility.

Production is where I'm torn. On one hand, the classic Gario electronic elements sound great, percussion is punchy and the trademark glitchy chiptunes and synths sound excellent, although I found the chiptune solos sounded a little dull. The main issue is, as you'd expect, the orchestral samples. They're definitely quite retro sounding, my main issue with them is they lack definition, sounding very airy and wet, which is a big contrast with the electronic sounds. In sections like the combination at 1:01 you can feel the struggle of the brass trying to stand out on top of the other instruments, and it becomes worse with other samples like the flute that comes later.

Overall, I'm feeling very torn here. Despite the retro sound of the ensemble I like how it sounds (since it gives me PS1/PS2 vibes) but I understand if any judge rejects just on that. My main issue, however, is that the lack of definition on the samples makes the orchestral samples hard to hear on top of the electronic ones. I'm not 100% on my vote because there's definitely a lot to love here but I feel this would benefit a ton from layering some samples with more clarity on top of the current stuff or simply replacing the orchestral samples with more modern ones.

NO

[Chimpazilla ⚖️]

I wish I didn't have to concur, but I do.  This is a dynamite arrangement and superduper fun idea.  But the samples are not even close to good enough or working here, the fast runs on strings and brass in particular sound so unnatural.  I love the idea of mixing the orchestral with electro, but the electro samples are sounding super dated as proph mentioned. 

The drum kit sounds not only dated but weak and unfitting as well.  I also hear zero sidechaining... that's not a dealbreaker, but sidechaining at least the bass and a few low-mid and electro elements would add so much groove to the piece and also let the kick be heard.

I'm not sold on the glitching, as with the samples I love the idea but not the execution.  To me, this glitching sounds more like rendering errors than something purposeful.  I don't know what technique you used for it, or what plugin, but this one just doesn't work for me.  Each time it kicks in I think something is wrong with the render or my Cubase.

So yeah, I concur with proph and Wake, awesome concept and very strong arrangement and good instrument choices, but all of it just sounds way too weak and dated sample-wise for prime time in 2025.

NO