ReMix:Final Fantasy IV "Salut Voisin!" 3:55

Talk about things you didn't know you needed or even could exist... A jazzy French café-worthy arrangement of Final Fantasy IV and IX with inspiration from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is definitely that, yet that's exactly what we've got, courtesy of colorado weeks with debuting Canadian ReMixer Aeroprism performing friendly French vocals! This neighborly rejoinder was a round 3 entry in the inaugural Game Set Mash!! compo pitting two Final Fantasy arrangement teams, SNES vs. PSX, in an arrangement mash-up battle! The second Game Set Mash!! compo with Metroid vs. Castlevania just kicked off last night, so GSM1 contestant Hemophiliac recommend we post something from the first GSM to celebrate! There's no way GMS2 will have anything like this in the upcoming compo, yet how can you pass it up when the potential for uniqueness is exemplified so perfectly by this piece? colorado weeks took the town theme inspiration of the primary source tune to a highly logical yet unexpected direction:

"Salut, mes voisins! This was our entry for the final round of Game Set Mash!! 1. This piece was a mashup of "Welcome to Our Town" from FFIV and "Not Alone" from FFIX. Because one of the sources was a town theme, we decided to pay tribute to Fred Rogers' and Johnny Costa's work on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Prior to the beginning of the round, colorado initially had their heart set on writing a "joke" track. As the round and the song continued to progress, we found that what we had written went in a completely different (sincere) direction. colorado weeks did the arrangement and Aeroprism performed the vocals. The lyrics were initially written in English by colorado, but Aeroprism graciously translated them into French for some chansonnier flair. We hope you enjoy! :)"

Those music box notes followed by the introductory piano until :25 are so on brand for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, you can't help but love the stylistic send-up. And if you read those lyrics, oh my god, are they ever innocent and quaint, and completely befitting a Final Fantasy arrangement. It's not female vocals, yet I could absolutely see an endearing concept like this working in an old 90s Final Fantasy Vocal Collections album. The Js had smaller critiques that nonetheless didn't hold this back, and I think we all collectively should have just kept looping this, because this has a tremendously likeable sincerity to it, as colorado mentioned. Judge MindWanderer was ready to kick back and slowly enjoy a Parisian coffee while watching people go about their day:

"I really like the French café feel to this, which I got even before the vocals kicked in. That combined with interleaving You Are Not Alone in as a bridge made this sufficiently transformative to me. It's smooth enough that if you don't know the sources, the addition is mostly seamless [...] Overall this was well-realized and creative."

To me, the flow's jaunty, the arrangement's transformative, and the vocal performance is solid, along with the production and mixing. The shifts from sung vocals to spoken do provide low-key contrast as well. Nice to have bass writing with some presense as well; it was more just boomy without much attack, but it still helps fill out the soundfield well, so I'm cool with it. Would have loved an extension to the quick ending; just fashioning a more definitive conclusion with a few more seconds -- for example, with the mallet percussion -- would have capped this well. That said, we've got charm for days with this cheerful, earnest team-up by Colorado & Sébastien! Mark my words, one day, some dear neighbor's gonna cite this as a personal favorite OC ReMix!