ReMix:Wii Sports "Sportsball" 3:07

The Wii was a business masterstroke of Nintendo's then-president Satoru Iwata; rather than compete with the PS3 and Xbox 360 on graphics & computing power, Iwata chose to focus on accessibility & gameplay, a sophisticated 4D chess move. This eventually led to Nintendo Force's editor-in-chief, Lucas M. Thomas, writing his own sophisticated book that goes in depth (Chapter 12) on Iwata and the success of the Wii, The Impact of Iwata! Therefore, for our partnered album of the same name, judge Hemophiliac went sophisticated with a Wii Sports theme arrangement featuring the refinement of four live players:

• Hemophiliac: arrangement, mixing
• Gamer of the Winds: flute
• TSori: trumpet 1 & 2
• Lucas Guimaraes: tenor sax 1 & 2
• Travis Kindred: acoustic bass

Hemo initially envisioned a big band piece, yet end up going a jauntier route:

"In a weird way, the origin of this goes back to the FF8 album, SeeDs of Pandora. Lucas Guimaraes had a track on there that was in the style of bebop. I recall talking to him and he said something along the lines of, "There's not enough bebop in the VGM communities". Fast forward to the start of this album months later.

So when the project launched, I looked at the listing of all of the chapters to see what I might be interested in tackling. I saw in the project thread for chapter 12: "Source: Any of the Wii system or DS system music. Wii Sports is also eligible." TSori claims that they weren't trying to steer people towards Wii Sports with that sentence but I feel otherwise. XD

Anyways, I started out this track with the intention of making it more of a big band feel. I was sketching the track out on piano and it was apparent to me that this would be a good opportunity to make this feel kinda bebop-like. So, instead, I whittled down to a smaller jazz combo rather than big band, with a bebop feel for the 1st half.

This track would have not been possible without the tremendous contributions from the performers and features: Gamer of the Winds on flute, TSori on trumpet 1 and 2, Lucas Guimaraes on tenor sax 1 and 2, and Travis Kindred on acoustic bass. Thank you very much for your contributions! Without them the track would not be possible.

The Wii Sports theme is very memorable and probably very well loved by many people. I'm very happy with the final result. I hope I did it justice and people enjoy it!"

Lucas himself had joked about the myriad of inadvertently thrown Wiimotes back in the day, so I'm just hoping people genuinely DO enjoy this piece -- fingers crossed that we don't have too many Wii players with PTSD about TVs they broke. :-D Judge Emunator's confident this track'll find its audience and then some, in a good way, of course:

"How the hell have we not had a proper Wii remix until now? I can almost guarantee that this is destined to pop off with our casual listening audience, regardless of the quality of the piece itself. The youth loves their Wii music.

Luckily, the quality is there regardless! This is a very intimate ensemble that enters as a mere whisper, and although I was admittedly expecting it to really blow up and go full Big Band at any moment, I think the approach you took works even better. Even when the energy level picks up around the 2 minute mark with some bigger brass chords, which are delightfully arranged and performed, it still feels extremely intimate. Greg's lead winds, unsurprisingly, are another star of the show. Really, there's not a weak link in the arrangement [...] the piano tone and writing itself fits like a glove.

You're destined for greatness, kid!"

Kazumi Totaka's got a ton of memorable melodies, so as soon as that famous 7-note introduction kicks things off, the nostalgia's unlocked! Agreed on how Hemo pulled off something even more fitting than a big band approach, so respect for the direction he and the performers ended up taking. What a nice, understated jazzy vibe applied to the source. The bass and flute were my personal highlights in the live lineup as everyone cruised to greatness. A stylish yet playful tribute to Satoru Iwata, whose vision still shows us the way. Classy job, gentlemen! Every track from our new album isn't as jaunty as what Hemo, GotW, TSori, Lucas, and Travis put together, yet variety's the spice of life; be sure to get the full Impact of Iwata experience through the insightful book, our corresponding album, AND combining both with the audiobook! :-)