ReMix:One Must Fall 2097 "One Must Fall 2064" 3:38

Eino Keskitalo hits us up with a funky, chipped-out, retro-EDM take on One Must Fall 2097:

"This mix was started in 13th anniversary of People's Remixing Competition in December 2016. It was a free round, so I did something unusual for my ReMixing work and rearranged music from a game I know and love. I usually manage to finish things I'm not as attached to!

What to say about One Must Fall 2097? It's DOS fighting game from 1994, and the fact that it's a good, satisfying package should not be taken for granted. It's a playable fighting game, full of content, with top-notch audiovisual presentation. In 1994, on the PC! Of course, we should highlight the soundtrack. It's an excellent tracker music sound track on its own! But it's worth highlighting how it fits soooo well in the overall aesthetic of the game. That's worth a specific mention. The atmosphere is much enhanced, I would say completed, by the music -- I remember, I didn't have a soundcard in my PC at the time, but my friend had.

How about this rearrangement then? Well, it's a fairly straightforward homage, really. Since I like the original so much, I wanted to transcribe it pretty closely. I did change the harmony of the bass part a bit at points. I used my earlier Shining Force II track ("Sixty Force Techno") as a basis, so this one has some Commodore 64 sounds going on as well, hence the title. This is four-to-the-floor stuff, like the original, though the rhythmic feel is different. And there's some solo-like lead writing towards the end.

Big thanks to Jorito and DarkSim in particular for providing constructive feedback!"

I gotta be honest, with the way 2020 is going, I feel like in 77 years, there'll be no one *left* to fall... but fingers crossed, right? Eino's absolutely right - in addition to most early fighting games sucking in general, the DOS platform wasn't exactly a breeding ground for genre excellence, so OMF2097 did stand out, and its soundtrack still slaps. This funky jam has various chip textures that one could qualify as more NES or more C64, but blends them all quite well & lays them out across the stereo spectrum in a way that's satisfying; Eino has taken the tracker-style aesthetic & morphed it into funkier chips, basically. Liontamer evaluated & sums it up nicely:

"Cool stuff from Eino, with a nice mixture of robotic, electronic, and funky sounds! (And a nice nod to the C64 sounds peppered in throughout.) It has such a different character than Kenny Chow's original all while holding fairly fast to the melodies, expertly demonstrating how an artist can lay down their own unique marker on how to present a theme. Eino showing how it's done. :-) I've always been a big fan of the original piece, so any chance to feature it on OCR is a welcome one!"

I once made the mistake of describing one of Eino's mixes as being "outside his wheelhouse" and, to his credit, he questioned the remark; I stood corrected, and indeed, mixes like this show that he can do funky, synthetic, & chiptastic just as adeptly as quirky, experimental, & organic. Fun, catchy, infectious chip take on a veritable DOS/PC VGM classic - enjoy!