Undertale "Waterfall (Sin City Mix)" 3:55

A legend extends his stay in Sin City with a trip down Royal Guard Boulevard... or does he?! MkVaff adds some groove to Toby Fox's "Waterfall" from low-key indie sleeper hit [sic] Undertale! Mike explains how he failed to lock into the game itself, yet found the determination to arrange Fox's standout score:

"There are few games as small and strange as Undertale that I remember having as much hype surrounding them. Undertale was one of those insanely popular games that captured the zeitgeist a few years ago. When the game came out, it seemed like an instant phenomenon that everyone in the gaming space was talking about. A few years after it came out, I tried to actually sit down and play it on Game Pass and, regrettably, it failed to fully get a hold on me.

So, after a few hours of getting increasingly frustrated, I put down the controller and decided to look up some videos on YouTube and discovered what a wild, emotional journey the Undertale experience could be depending on how you played it.

Regardless of my enjoyment while playing it, I was still astounded to learn that the game was conceived and developed largely (if not in some ways entirely) by one person who went by the handle TobyFox. In addition, I discovered that he single-handedly composed the entire score for the game, which would already stand alone as an achievement of incredible breadth and quality on its own.

I listened to the Undertale soundtrack separately, which had many fantastic pieces on it. I came across a few tracks that I enjoyed thoroughly, but I ended up choosing the strange, rather melancholy "Waterfall" theme as inspiration for this particular Sin City remix. The original song is a combination of ponderous, sad, and also somewhat epic at points.

I decided to lean heavily on various synth sounds and textures for this remix. As well, I had trouble deciding whether I enjoyed the original's more unique timing or something more traditionally 4/4 more, so I decided to incorporate both time signatures into the song at different points. I found that it helped to increase the energy of the later part of the song, and the strong structure of the melody certainly shines when presented the way TobyFox originally composed it.

As always, thanks for taking the time to listen, hope you enjoy!"

Fun to have MkVaff "settle" for invoking two time sigs since he couldn't narrow it down to one; in music, all paths are open! :-) Good drive behind the beats and bass kicks, with the texture filling up around 1:06 for the chorus section. From 1:33-1:46, it was a nice idea getting subtractive with the melody; changing the lead sound and filling the melody back out then provided a nice contrast. Seamless change to a slow 6/4 at 1:59, that was awesome, then we hit another rendition of the chorus at 2:38 with the new time sig, which kept the presentation nicely varied, finally moving back to 4/4 at 3:19. Everything coalesced into satisfaction for judge prophetik music:

"this is a pretty smoove run through a pretty wandering original. i liked the time elements you worked in, as well as the very laid-back groove you got out of your instruments. the adaptation of the melodic line wasn't anything crazy, but it works well with the feel in both time sigs. nice work."

As MkVaff noted, the interpretation's driven more by the sound design and original writing additions as opposed to a melodic re-working, which absolutely sat well with fellow judge Hemophiliac:

"Arrangement is terrific as always with MkVaff and delivers his own unique vibe and continues to fit in with his "Sin City" line of tracks he's been producing. Great work as always, chill beats, and awesome vibe."

As MkVaff mentioned, a cool aspect of Undertale is the mutiple paths you can approach it in, so if you're more aggressive there's an extra wrinkle to MkVaff's presentation feeling darker, moodier, and more beat-driven than Toby Fox's original. :-) Not every game experience works for every gamer, which is fully expected; after all, I don't care for RPGs (I prefer fighting games and beat-'em-ups), and I think I turned out OK. :-D It also means neither one of us have hurt Undyne, so maybe we deserve some medals over here. :-P The important thing as VGM fans is that firing up a soundtrack often can be all the connection -- and in MkVaff's care, inspiration -- that we need.