ReMix:Parodius "Non-Sense Paradise" 4:18

Ganaé (Matthieu Loubiere) had a memorable debut back in June of 2016 with his symphonic arrangement of Street Fighter II, and follows it up here with an epic, inspired take on several themes from Parodius, our first featured ReMix from Konami's lol-em-up:

"You'll find here an orchestral medley of the beginning of Parodius Da SNES version. Parodius was for me a big game. It was absolutely fun and so difficult for gamers. In this track, I tried to mix different themes from the game and keep the main feeling: funny, mess, and enjoyment.

For the first part, I choose to play with different instruments. You noticed that the original introduction ("Parodius Dance") is 10-second long (was a big challenge to make it longer). You can hear different leitmotifs. I tried to mix them as each instrument play each leitmotifs. After the exposition, I go for the player selection theme ("Hello, Paro Chan") and I chose to play it very slow with strings.

In the game, you could choose between 4 characters and the beginning of the song changes between them. For the third part of my track, I chose to mix 2 characters themes (Vic Viper and Pentarou). To finish, there is a reexposition of character selection theme. A lot of fun to make this track. I hope you'll like it and perhaps play the game. Enjoy it.

Made with Logic, Albion, EW instrument, Kontakt 5."

Matthieu's SF2 piece was a creative, well-realized arrangement, and I was looking forward to a follow-up; this certainly doesn't disappoint, with booming brass, twirling woodwinds, soaring strings, and all the dynamism of old Disney scores. Very agile, eloquent, & expressive arranging that channels the playfulness of the source - Gario writes:

"It's a medley, but it's one that makes sense as a stand alone track - each part seems to show progression of a journey, and there are elements of the main theme that tie it together at the beginning and the end. I very much enjoyed this approach.

It was brilliantly orchestrated when I eval'd it, and he took my advice and made it even more phenomenal with some more subtle touches to the humanization. Legitimately great stuff coming from Ganaé, here - hope to hear a whole lot more from him!"

Agreed in full; the artist brings the vibrant, humorous world of Parodius to life and pays a fitting, heartfelt homage - it's taken 18 years to get a ReMix of this game/series on OCR, but what a ReMix it is! Sir_NutS adds:

"This is one of those remixes that can lift one's spirit by listening to it. I have a friend who just loves whimsical orchestral songs, and I know this will be liked by her and many more OC ReMix listeners. So let's get you to the front page."

Beautiful, cohesive, vivacious, and full of the same hot-blooded enthusiasm as that which inspired it, Ganaé's take on Parodius is for me a wonderful, pitch-perfect overture to the game's soundtrack, and a superlative way for that music to debut in arrangement form on OCR - highly recommended!