ReMix:Castlevania II: Simon's Quest "Dark Madness Resurrection" 4:20

By goat

Arranging the music of one song...

"Within these Castle Walls (Castle BGM)"

Primary Game: Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (Konami , 1988, NES), music by Kenichi Matsubara, Satoe Terashima

Posted 2003-01-30, evaluated by djpretzel


goat is good. Not only as chevon in a number of tasty Greek recipes (love that feta cheese), but also as a guitar-based ReMixer who's given us some great Castlevania 2 metal mixage before and does so again with his latest ode to the men and women of Club Kukeiha via shredded frets and slugger drums. The first minute here is actually rather mellow, with a clean, undistorted electric playing pleasant arpeggiated chord patterns (some of the changes in which reminded me of the music towards the end of the wonderful Truman's Show soundtrack), but things get decisively more menacing and ominous as screeches enter in, the volumes builds, and the guitar gets some teeth with thick metal distortion, accompanied by mucho-tom-fill drums, the classic Kukeiha goth organ, and a deep, picked electric bass. There's a section following the initial hits that rests on rapid-fire shred runs upward that does go on a little longer than I'd have liked, and if there's one downside it's that this is definitely a pattern-based ReMix, with arpeggios, trills, and repeated riffs dominating. But the intro and outro, with lovely solo melody, balance this aspect out and serve nicely as variant bookends. This isn't one of my favorite CV2 tracks, but goat's given it some bite and vitality with his arrangement. Definitely great listening for the many established fans of CV metal or 8-bit metal in general, featuring some very blistering riffs and clean mixing. Cool.

djpretzel

Discussion

Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
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tweex
on 2010-09-14 20:14:34

Awesome intro. The guitar sound is clean and super crisp. The performance is spot on. Hello Metallica :). The heavily filtered guitar SFX were really nice underneath the organ. This is epic. Something you would hear as the opening number to an old heavy metal show. My goodness, his hands are flying on those power chords. I'm impressed with the precision of it. The soundscape feels a little empt in this one during that section, but then the high lead busts in and takes center stage. I'm diggin' it for sure. The drums are still a little thin, but they are definitely better from his first mix. God, I love the clean guitar sound. The transition into the clean section was a little awkward, but for how sexy they are, I can forgive it. I can also forgive the fade out :). However, the FO actually works pretty well. Very good second mix here!

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Sir_Downunder
on 2009-12-02 23:40:37

Another golden oldie from Goat.

The intro for this was surprisingly mellow and I thought this was going to be a rather stripped-back track... BEFORE MY MIND WAS RIPPED TO SHREDS BY EPIC SHREDDING!! *Cough* Ahem... Back to what I was saying before, once the shredding came in, it kicked the whole track up another gear. The mixture of both the intro/outro and the beefy middle made this a very memorable track for me and one of my ultimate favorites.

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OA
on 2009-03-24 12:11:13

Great intro, I love it.

Once the metalz comes in it works pretty well too, with some cool riffing and good rhythms. Lot of parts that I don't specifically recognize as castlevania melodies, but it certainly had the feel, so if it was original material, nice work. If not, I need to brush up on my CV listening. :-)

Nice playing, decent production, and a good flow. Rock fans have been requesting Goat since 2004, and with good reason. I'd love to hear what he's been up to recently. :-)

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bladiator
on 2008-06-10 16:14:28

Really nice piece. The break around the 1:00 mark made me think something was going wrong with my car and freaked me out. The electric guitar shredding is the same stuff you've used throughout your mixing career and that's A-OK in my books. The classical guitar intro and outtro were really tasteful, but that transition back in the outtro at about 3:49 made me want to poke my eye out.

But seeing as how I know the way you've grown, I don't mind it too much.

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Taffin
on 2005-08-30 10:22:49

This track couldn't be much better (and kudos for picking a neglected CV2 song). The darker side of CV is well captured and features my favorite use of gothic organ in a metal song outside of Avenged Sevenfold's "Eternal Rest." OCR has but a small sampling of goat's work. If you love his particular brand of CV Metal as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to check out http://www.powergoat.com. I didn't notice the link on his remixer page for a while, so I'm pointing it out for those who may have missed it.

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Zebceponaf
on 2005-06-14 00:09:51

Awesome! I want more! download this now if you haven't

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Gnam
on 2003-07-24 14:17:27

I don't really recognize the original tune (but then I never played very much CV2, hated that "wander around the towns aimlessly" 8bit RPG format) but this mix rocks anyway. The mood has a lot of range, going from solemn to desperate with the guitars, then the hauntin organs, then the agressive rage of the distorted electric guitars, and back again. Unique, interesting, and rockin.

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PhantomMagi
on 2003-02-12 18:21:56

Excellent work. Quite nostalgic, actually.

Anyway, I love the transition at 0:50.

All in all, a very good piece.

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danny B
on 2003-02-10 16:09:35

This song is gorgeous.

I've never heard a song on OC that so strongly expresses emotion.

The intro and outro are simply beautiful, and the innards are very-well produced metal chuggage.

Could have stood a longer ending, but still excellent overall.

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Valhalla_Steed
on 2003-02-09 05:36:07

WOW. I like. I was always a fan of the theme from Drac's castle in CV2. I think this piece did a wonderful job of remixing it. I'm not much of a remixer, though I do enjoy playing guitar. I basically don't bother figuring out entire songs, but just riffs that I like. I must say, after listening to the intro to this tune, I almost instinctively reached for my guitar to figure it out. Other's have mentioned the abrupt transitions from section to section, especially at 3:47, but I thought it worked quite well. I do think that it would have been an interesting idea to have the abrupt dropoff and then the fade in of that intro riff again as was mentioned in a previous post. But overall, I am thoroughly impressed and am looking forward to future submissions. Oh yeah, NoFleshAllowed also rocks, but that's a whole other post. Keep up the good work.

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k-wix
on 2003-02-08 14:54:11

Hey Goat.. Beautiful Stuff here, i dig the guitar work. A Few very minor things a don't like, but overall, an excellent piece of work, my Detailed review follows :P Worth the Download everyone, Especially fans of Castlevania music.. as everyone is.

0:01 - Excellent work here.. I love the introduction..Sounds Reallly good.

0:46 - Don't know about this part, but the title reaffirms my faith, this part fits it rather nicely.. The organ sounds Really good.

1:20 - Sounds like it needs something more in through this part.. I love what im hearing..i just think something else could push it even farther.

2:11 - Cool guitar work.

2:36 - Really Cool guitar work.

3:01 - Goood stuff here, A Very professional quality surrounding the entire thing, I love this part.

3:20 - A Few Shakey things here, but you quickly recover.

3:45 - Don't like the sudden change, It sounds like you just threw it right on top. Id prefer a nice ease out, or a Sudden drop..then this to kick back in slow and mellow-like..but its like an instant transversion which i don't like ..(is Transversion a word?)

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neostormx
on 2003-02-03 20:40:01

2 reasons why i like this remix a lot. One, it screams professionalism and two, the remixer's name is Goat. my only gripe is the uneasy transition at 3:44

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M.P. Reyart
on 2003-02-02 23:21:17

...are easily clear in this mix. Reminds me of when I whooped the crap outta this game, long, long ago.

CV2 is still one of my favorite games to this day, and this track is a beautiful reminder of that. The guitar riffs are well laid out and make a fine accompaniment.

Excellent.

-M.P. Reyart

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Gman
on 2003-02-02 18:05:36

WOW, that was some WONDER F'in TASTIC MOTHER F'n GUITAR WORK! like Dale said, little touchups and you got yourself some album matirial...PMM Heavy Metal tribut maybe?!?!? PLZ!! I'd write more...but I have to listen to it some more!!!

Gman

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Snowman
on 2003-02-01 16:52:23

To bad that at the ending of CastleVania 2 they didnt have an FMV of Dracula and Belmont busting out on gutars and one of thoses swamp guys on the drums playing that song.

Sources Arranged (1 Song)


Primary Game:
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (Konami , 1988, NES)
Music by Kenichi Matsubara,Satoe Terashima
Songs:
"Within these Castle Walls (Castle BGM)"

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File Information


Name:
Castlevania_2_Dark_Madness_Resurrection_OC_ReMix.mp3
Size:
5,277,566 bytes
MD5:
9a0afb13cfe8dd82a60b99bd95497dff
Bitrate:
160Kbps
Duration:
4:20

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