ReMix:Mega Man 2 "wily theme" 9:46

Happy 20th Birthday to our friends in VGM fellowship at Dwelling of Duels! If you're a live performer (OR love to arrange for live performers), head over to the DoD community's Discord and put down stakes there. You'll potentially learn a lot and make some life-long friendships! (Just like here. :-D See? We're scene cousins!)

For today's Dwelling of Duels 20th anniversary flood of five mixposts, I knew this was the main event. There's an insanely long set of comments included in the MP3, so for those that download these things, your time will be rewarded with a very extensive set of notes.

One overly-arranged VGM source tune. A n00b title. A befuddling intro followed by... a plot twist? Tons of genres. TWENTY theme cameos.

I'm gonna give you folks TheManPF's OCR submission notes and follow his lead in letting the music speak for itself. Now, enjoy the spirit of DoD embodied in TheManPF's chimerical near-10-minute Mega Man 2 tribute, and we'll see you soon for even more DoD goodness this month to continue the celebration!

"Sending an arrangement of "Dr. Wily's Castle 1" from the classic 1988 video game Mega Man 2.

Hear me out...

This arrangement is the most complex I've ever done, it was originally done as a submission for Free Month in Dwelling of Duels April 2023, where it placed 6th out of 40 total entries. There is so much to talk about this genre non-conforming arrangement, and while I'll share a document that goes very in-depth, I'll also try to keep it short here, because this is a long song.

This is my tribute/love letter to the VGM community. My goal here is try to pick one of, if not, the most covered VGM tune and extrapolating that same motif as much as I possibly can, and sending it on some kind of "genre tour", mostly influenced by all of the lovely people I have met and heard in the VGM community. This is a very, very complicated challenge that I set myself, and one that I like to think I succeeded at.

This song starts as a bait-and-switch. Both the title and the intro are meant to catch the listener off-guard, before going into the whole journey. However, these are more than just mere jokes - the acoustic intro is meant to be a representation of our progress as musicians. This is how we all sound at first, but eventually, we improve, and we get to a point where we can materialize those ideas we have in our heads. The title is simplistic, but it's meant to evoke the simplicity of a VGM cover artist - smart titles are cool, but sometimes we just want to pick a tune we like, and rock as much as we possibly can, without having to worry about anything other than that. I understand both the intro and the title are controversial choices, and while I can concede on changing the title if necessary, the intro is part of the arrangement and I will not budge on that. ;)

As part of this tribute to VGM, I also included in this arrangement a total of 20 references to other VGM classics, in the form of recognizable melodies. These are scattered throughout the whole almost 10-minute runtime. The document provided lists these with timestamps, but I like to encourage everyone to try to listen and find them by themselves. I promise, it's fun.

There is a lot more to talk about, any additional information is provided in the document (which initially I wrote to share with the Dwelling of Duels Discord), in case you're interested in knowing more. However, the gist of it is here, and this is 10 minutes long, and I think the music speaks for itself.

Last, but not least, I want to credit the team:

Zach Chapman - bass
DakotaCityRag - tenor sax and add. organizing, and he also connected me to the other two members
Chocobao (Bao Vuong) - keyboards (piano, Rhodes, synths)
Gamer of the Winds - alto sax and flute
TheManPF - everything else (arrangement, sequencing, mix, electric guitar, classical guitar, and add. percussion)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aqQozapcKurj3bjluA7BwWZgM-FJWBbwv2NgwA8xYxI/edit?usp=sharing"

(Shhhh! Don't tell TheManPF I included his list of source tunes here... ;-P)

"0:00 - Mega Man 2 - "Dr. Wily's Castle 1"
1:53 - Donkey Kong Country - "Aquatic Ambiance"
2:40 - Wii Sports - "Title Theme"
2:47 - Super Mario 64 - "Dire, Dire Docks"
3:05 - Chrono Trigger - "Corridors of Time"
3:37 - Kirby Super Star - "Gourmet Race"
3:43 - GTA: San Andreas - "Theme from San Andreas"
3:57 - Super Mario Bros. - "1-1"
4:29 - Castlevania 2 - "Bloody Tears"
4:58 - Pac-Man - "Theme"
5:12 - Final Fantasy 7 - "One-Winged Angel"
5:27 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - "Dragonborn"
5:36 - Doom - "At Doom's Gate"
5:50 - Mega Man 2 - "Weapon Get"
6:05 - Tetris - "A-Type"
6:30 - DuckTales - "The Moon"
6:43 - Street Fighter 2 - "Guile's Theme"
6:56 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - "Lost Woods"
7:09 - Portal - "Still Alive"
7:32 - Sonic the Hedgehog - "Green Hill Zone"
8:00 - Undertale - "Megalovania""