Fire Emblem Engage "VTuber Emblem Enrage" 6:39

What the what? A new Fire Emblem mobile game JUST appeared out of thin air, Fire Emblem Shadows! To celebrate, we've got some goodness from another mobile...ish (well, the Switch is portable, for sure) game from the series, as DoD veteran and TSO's own Tony Dickinson just casually supergroups in his spare time to make Fire Emblem Engage's "Bright Sandstorm" even bigger and bolder, joined by newmajoe, Eli Bishop, and Dom "The Bomb" Palombi! When it comes to the Fire Emblem franchise, Dickinson's got OPINIONS, so the floor is his:

"Hello OCR, it has been quite a while since I have submitted something to the website, but recently I did a Fire Emblem arrangement that I thought would fit! Most of the time, I do heavy metal remixes, but every so often I get a jazz or funk itch that I need to scratch. It recently won the GMRA 2025 "Best Jazz" remix, which I wasn't expecting but am very grateful for, especially considering the caliber of musicians that tend to be in that category.

I became a massive Fire Emblem fan after playing Three Houses. The soundtrack on that game still blows my mind when I listen to it. So when Fire Emblem Engage came out years later, I was anticipating another fully banger soundtrack. Aaaaaaand... nope. It did not hit nearly to the same degree as Three Houses did. Don't get me wrong, Engage has plenty of really good tracks, but they're a little more hidden, and mostly only occur when it switches from the tamer "planning" version to the "attack" version, for like 6 seconds at best.

One more thing I should probably mention about the title: One of the biggest criticisms of Engage was its character design and somewhat childish writing, at least compared to the more adult war themes of Three Houses. A lot of people weren't super fond of the extremely brightly colored character designs and thought they all looked like VTuber designs. And, of course, "Enrage" being the feeling that it made people feel expecting a Three Houses follow-up and receiving some Saturday morning anime instead.

But, the sources "Bright Sandstorm" and "Bright, Bold Sandstorm" kinda came out of nowhere in the middle of the game and captured me as soon as I heard them. No surprise, it is written by one of the three incredible composers who put together the Three Houses soundtrack. The sense of harmony and melody blew me away with all of its cheesy Japanese glory.

This arrangement was also a fun exercise in trying to start with an incredibly small ensemble, and gradually add more and more instruments as the song goes on., i.e. starting with a string quartet and rhythm section and, then, by the end it becomes an entire orchestra with jazz brass. For the nerds, I wrote the string arrangement with LA Scoring Strings, which has multiple sizes of string ensembles, so, as the song went on, I would keep increasing the size, like Violin 1 would go from 3 violins, to 6, to 9, to, finally, 12.

But I didn't use just string samples, Eli Bishop recorded the solo violins as well as layering many passes of violin 1, violin 2, and viola to make the strings sound more realistic, so mostly what we hear is Eli's fingers. Definitely took the song to the next level. The saxophones were recorded by Joe Newman and drums by Dom Palombi. A lot of talent in this group of musicians and I was super stoked to have them be a part of it!"

But what house in Three Houses is Tony? Judge Joe "XPRTNovice" Zieja (voice of Claude von Riegan) is out there somewhere yelling "He better be Golden Deer!", but I fear we don't have the info here. :-D Nonetheless, we've got super-duper-looper top marks for this from typically tough cookie prophetik music:

"opens with a fun filtered violin/ebow and keys, and some percussive elements. as the filter gets pulled back, we get some super tight guitars and ensemble percussion. the lead at 0:46 carries the melodic material, and the band starts to fill out more at 1:00. there's a really tight vibe to the entire first section, with the whole band feeling really close and in front, and i love the sound.

there's a break at 1:43, and i really liked the lush feel of the strings here. there's some winds as well that start to really hit nicely as well in here as we get more of a jazz orchestra vibe. joe's an outrageously good player so the horns just sound fantastic. 2:40's another pause in the action for a bit.

3:00 starts the Bold version of the track, i think, and we get an electric guitar carrying the melodic material with the entire orchestra trucking along behind to provide backing material. i like the soli feel of the sax parts in here especially. [...] 3:42's got a breakdown feel with the tom groove in the drums, and the whole orchestra hitting the lead parts. [...]

there's a really slick bass riff into 4:10's more intense breakdown, and we get some soloing around what sounds like a persian scale for a bit with a ton of intensifying elements behind. i did a stankface on the end of the solo at 4:36, what a riff! coming out of that we get the B theme from the main body of the piece in the strings with a fantastic countermelodic thing in the saxes behind it. this is so dense in here and i'm here for it, it sounds fantastic despite everything going on.

5:10 we are reminded who's playing bass, and there's a great full-ensemble tutti section. i'm running out of superlatives so i'm gonna stop there. joe rips off a fantastic solo at 5:40 that any pro player would be happy with, and we hit the falling action at 6:04. really like the violin solo in here too. there's one last lick in the strings and we're done.

this is the best remix i've heard in a year. i can't believe you're giving it to us for free."

Superlatives aside, I look at the VGM arrangement scene -- our humble, free corner of it -- and have that reaction all the time. :-) The community's love of the game is unreal and unmatched in creative circles, and Tony & crew's musicianship here is easily a standout example of why. Tony's seamless blend of the sampled parts with Joe, Eli, Dom, and his live performances sounds incredible, and the dynamics of the arrangement had fellow judge pixelseph plucking out highlights everywhere:

"From now on, when I tell people that playing and listening to music is supposed to be FUN, this is the track I'm going to reference. It's got everything - dynamically different sections (:00 - 1:42, 2:40 - 3:00, 4:10 - 4:40, 5:10 - end), tasteful key change for the B section introduction (1:43 - 2:10), surprise trill build to the drop(!) (2:11 - 2:15), and every lead voice gets a solo somewhere in the piece!

The string elements are a big highlight for me, and the attention on the layering pays big dividends, especially around the 4:40 mark, where they take on the countermelody line behind the sax picking up the lead from the guitar. I can only imagine how amazing a live performance of this piece would be.

No question about source usage here. Arrangement and production are pure fire, as established. Get back on the front page, bruh!!"

5:58, I see what you did there, newmajoe! :-P Seriously though, sincere congrats to these guys for snagging VGM CON's Game Music Remix Award for this year's jazz/funk category; no lies detected given how bright, bold, fiery, vibrant, jazzy, and funky this is! Grandiose is the word. :-) If you fans don't engage with this, we'll be enraged. Epic work, bros!