ReMix:Akumajo Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight "Bloody Mayhem" 4:15

BONKERS. Metal. Castlevania. It's happened before, back in Halloween of 2012, and now it's happening again, for our 15th anniversary. Of his relatively conservative but still inspired, personalized, & shreddified arrangement, Mr. Perry writes:

"I don't expect this to pass based on the fact that this interprets some things too literally from the original, but I thought I'd try anyway. The Sega Saturn "hard rock" remix of "Bloody Tears" has always been a favorite of mine. But the in-game versions don't really do the arrangement justice, I think. (Well, not like there are any remixes of this version anyway.)

So I started this last year and a friend convinced me to enter it unfinished for MAGFest Dwelling of Duels. I wish I had waited. I struggled real hard with not having a sub to mix with, did the best I could with my speakers. To check the mix with a sub in the car, I have to burn it to a CD first! And I'm low on those, so you can imagine I go through them quickly. (I don't have an iPod, and I'm not sure I can trust a tape adapter to accurately replay the mix.) Trying to balance it all was truly an arduous task.

Anywho, I hope this doesn't hurt or fatigue your ears. It's pretty rockical - in the solos, I managed to sneak some references to "Awake" and "Bloodlines" in there (Even A.P.J.'s version of "Bloody Tears" at the end). Kudos if you notice them! Also: Sorry about the intonation issues. No matter what I've tried, I can never get perfect intonation. It frustrates me to no end to the point where I feel like giving up almost!"

I know many of us have gone through all sorts of machinations while testing a mix and trying to get levels right - playing your master in a car is actually a pretty common way of hearing how it sounds in less-than-ideal circumstances, and I've seen some professional engineers recommend it as a final form of QA. Nick might be a little too humble/self-deprecating, though, as I'm thinking most folks will be digging this quite a bit, regardless of the trials & tribulations involved in its production. Larry writes:

"If there's anything I've learned in my decade-plus as a judge, it's that there are some talented arrangers out there who wrongly come to the conclusion that covers can never be a good fit for OCR. In this case, Nick thought this treatment was too conservative, but that's not the case when you look at all the ways this version's personalized. I believe the arrangement standards are pretty open-ended yet clear on how a combination of arrangement techniques add up for the win.

This is a really cool take on an arranged version of "Bloody Tears" that's exclusively on the JP-only Saturn release of the game, hence labeling it as a Nocture in the Moonlight mix rather than Symphony of the Night. Beyond dressing this arrangement up with expansive part-writing and personalized spices, I've also got to give a big thanks to Nicholas, by way of his conclusion at 3:58, for introducing me to A.P.J. Their 2002 version of "Bloody Tears" is smooth jazz VGM at its finest, so it was a nice touch to refer to the rhythmic changes to "Bloody Tears" used by that group!"

Larry said it well; diehard Castlevania fans will appreciate the specificity of the alternate version being arranged here, and the nod to the wonderfully subdued jazz arrangement from A.P.J. was a nice touch. The energy's relentless, the shreddage is face-melting, and while I think Nick could have thrown in an original solo or mixed it up a bit more, it's still very much HIS take on the theme, and that's what counts; great stuff.