ReMix:Octopath Traveler II "Forgotten Shrines" 4:00

Now for the other option in our Octopath fork in the road, courtesy of Pixel Mixers' new Octopath Traveler II tribute album, Crossed Paths! (Full album right here!) Pixel Mixers' founder himself, Hashel, makes his long-awaited OCR debut with The Good Ice's Ridley Snipes courtesy their mellow expansion of "Ruins Immemorial". Hashel's objective -- just chill:

"This track was originally made for the Pixel Mixers' Crossed Paths album, a tribute to the Octopath Traveler 2 OST.

I had the pleasure to work with Ridley Snipes, an OCR veteran, who produced the percussions and some extra pad layers.

My goal with the arrangement was to keep the "ethereal" vibe of the track and try to go for some "electro chill" mood, both relaxing while keeping some groove."

Nice job by the duo in giving this theme different surrounding textures to personalize the sound. Building beats and a bassline around it wasn't a direction I necessarily expected, but everything's airy & stylish while feeling low-key. My fellow judge Chimpazilla quoted me in her vote, which means I managed to get something right one of these times (:-D):

""Building beats and bassline around it" count me in for this, it's a great concept and it works! The source seems to be asking for that treatment. This is definitely a low-key chill vibe, I would not call it "lo-fi" though. The "fi" is high. Very relaxing groove, good arrangement and instrumentation, nicely produced."

Nothing wrong with being on the higher side of fi. :-) And of course, Chimpa was on board with the rest of us in saying Hashel's mission of chillaxation was successful, co-signed by prophetik music in his play-by-play

"always loved dorian when it's not just used as 'weird minor'.

starts with piano and sfx, and the ascending scale comes in after a bit. the beat comes in alongside the initial melodic content at 0:37. it's a nice groove, i think 'electro chill' is a good term. the leads used in this section (both the first one and the one at 1:03) remind me a lot of FFX's remastered soundtrack. 1:29 is a bit of a shift, and the detuned lead does some more agile stuff [...] before the beat comes back at 1:53.

2:19's a big shift. [...] the vocal pads are nice, and i like the percussive elements used when they come in. the track is a pretty straightforward adaptation of the melodic material overall, and that especially shows up here. after this we get an extended outro and it's done. [...]

this is straightforward but solid. the arrangement is more in the vibe and instrumentation than the notes [...] what's here sounds good. i particularly like the different pad elements used throughout."

Speaking of vibes, the warm tones introduced at :08 and the melodic lead arriving 1:02 gave me significant Phantasy Star Online vibes, one of my absolute favorite Dreamcast soundtracks -- never, ever a bad stylistic comparison (and I'd love to hear Hashel & Ridley take on PSO if only to hear their sound palette applied to it). Besides tibonev's haunting work, if you need a great reason to try the rest of the Crossed Paths album, you've got it right here. :-) Quite the mood enhancer this is, extremely loopable and smoove!