ReMix:Undertale "A Little Bit of Mercy" 3:40

One of the great things about reaching our 25th anniversary has been long-time community members reappearing to celebrate! We had an awesome 6 1/2-hour audio hangout in our Discord and BadAss album series director David L. Puga joined in for quite a while to catch up! Besides also showing me strong original music he's put together lately, part of our chatting since then had him bringing up the need to submit again, and David's come through for the holiday season with a perfect winter tribute to Undertale:

"This is a Christmas-themed remix to Undertale, because it just makes sense. It was originally made for An OverClocked Christmas XIV back in 2020. I wanted to submit it back then, but it was so close to Christmas that I just didn't... for some reason. I was in the mood to make something pretty and chill, something more hopeful and uplifting. You could say this a spiritual sequel to my old Zelda remix, "Solace". I released it as the first track off of my winter EP back in 2020, Winter Pixels.

It's a little looser and more lo-fi than my usual stuff. Hopefully, it fits the new guidelines!"

We don't even have new guidelines (they haven't changed), just a new and hopefully more streamlined way to submit tracks, so everyone go forth and send your VGM arrangements our way! Our birthday isn't our only milestone this month -- the community's An OverClocked Christmas album series just hit it's 18th year (Adult! All grown up!), so it's apropos we highlight something from the collection for Christmas. :-) Judge prophetik music found this to be a nice balance of familiar writing with a different feel, a successfully subversion through subtlety:

"opens with some detuned synths and a generally nostalgic feel. similar to the original, the beat subverts where the downbeat is initially and makes you realize you had the wrong feel in your mind, which is a fun throwback. the melodic content is pretty subdued and overall this is a very slow, loose rendition of the original. there's a break at 1:30 and that builds up from there for a while. the beat comes back in at 2:27 and it goes through the melody a bit more, and then there's some surprisingly ambivalent chords that play us off.

this is a really low-energy track. i think that some of the j's will complain about the lack of forward drive, but i feel like this fits the feel really well. it's very patient and intentionally doesn't lean into the energy of the original, which i actually like quite a bit."

Not sure why proph thought other Js may ding it for not having forward momentum; it's lo-fi (by the way, not even our first lo-fi rodeo for this specific theme this YEAR). Not that the genre particularly matters for me; there's lots of ways to approach an arrangement and this has enough dynamic contrast, so I don't mind the mellower approach and more low-key energy. :-) It took a while for the theme to overtly kick in, but it was there in full force at 1:30 (earlier around :45 during the buildup). Fellow judge Gario is also a tobyfox-gaming enthusiast, so we've got sincere appreciation for Puga's serene subtractiveness:

"My favorite track from Undertale getting a chill arrangement? Don't mind if I do! Not that this impacts its place on OCR, but it's funny how this arrangement does the opposite of what the source does and makes it sound more like the other tracks in the game, whereas the original takes the style everyone is used to and turns it on its head with that loose live acoustic guitar. It's like you transformed the source back into an Undertale arrangement. Really neat.

On to the arrangement itself, it's subtle in the beginning, but the way the source is implied by the synth textures is a great way to ease the listener into the meat of the arrangement. A great example of subtractive arranging - taking the source and removing elements, making it sound similar yet very different all at once. I appreciate good subtractive arranging when it's done well, like it's done here. It's shorter than the source so it doesn't get everything, but it doesn't have to; it's your arrangement, after all. Nice touch bringing up "Hopes and Dreams" at the end there (at 2:49), considering how closely related the "Undertale" track is to "His Theme". It's a solid arrangement.

The production is great, for what it is. It's extra warm, as lo-fi should be. Just the right temperature to warm you up this holiday season, I'd say. Hope we don't keep folk waiting on this one, it's great."

Moody, snowy, lo-fi, sleigh bells... we're digging it, we're loving it. :-) And the secret to super-fast ReMix postage remains sending in holiday-appropriate tunage. We're glad you sent this in, David, it's tranquility in musical form!

We wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and a Far-Out Festivus to all fellow VGM fans who celebrate, from all of us cold, cold hearts here at OCR. :-D