Tales of Phantasia "I'm Gonna DOUSE Dhaos!" 2:54

UPA has arrived with their arrangement debut on OCR! Not only did they bring their A-game, Unknown Pseudoartist brought along four heavy hitters to tussle with a baffling boss battle theme from Tales of Phantasia! In submitting this proggy piece from their Songs of Phantasia album our way, UPA appreciated the irony of aiming to get this passed by the judges when three of our panelists wound up as collaborators:

• jnWake: lead keys
• minusworld: guitars, mixing
• paradiddlesjosh: drums
• pixelseph: bass
• Unknown Pseudoartist: arrangement, base programming, production, ideas, etc. (a.k.a. everything else, LOL)

minusworld, we comin' for YOU! (Kidding! :-P) Judges informally recuse themselves from voting on anything they're heavily involved in, but thankfully we had a few others in tow to not let this one get logjammed in the evaluation process. Check out the MP3 for UPA's extensive full comments; their most salient thoughts summarized how this collab took shape, opined on RPG boss themes, and mentioned just how much of a threat Dhaos is:

"When it was the time to go more serious with this particular track I'm submitting to OCR now, I had pretty clear the team I wanted for it. jnWake and minusworld are frequently teaming and collaborating for each other's works and both fit incredibly well on the style and ideas. Couldn't think of more proper keyboardist and guitarist, seriously. I also talked with Seph about joining as a bassist because his bass tone is just perfect for what is mostly a low-tuned, deep and heavy-as-heck track. Josh was the latest incorporation and it was somewhat close to the album's release, but it marked a huge difference for better. Before that, the arrangement had my own keydrummed improvisations that were sloppy as heck. Josh took the base and elevated the whole track to the infinitely superior level with his drumming work.

So, that's how both recurrent teams joined together in an arrangement initially made by a pseudoartist, LOL. And now, the result is what you see (or rather hear). That kind of "cover I wanted to hear for long but nobody else did, so just had to start it myself".

The original source is prog and complex as heck, and it was a pain to deal with, especially because the unusual time signature, and I'd expect performers to have a real pain with it also because the fast, proggy leads and rhythms and stuff. But, of course, counting with such talented artists, one can only expect a cool result of this. I had a hard time trying to get the mix to sound decent enough tho... so, that's when minusworld offered to help. In just a short time, he already got a mix that sounds a lot better than what I struggled so hard for weeks.

The original source is the "penultimate boss theme". You know, that typical boss theme for the main antagonist when they are not in their actual final form yet. It's not uncommon for such penultimate boss battle themes to be arguably more interesting than the actual final battle. Final Fantasy V is a good example of that, and, although this might sound like a controversial opinion, I think the same about Final Fantasy VII despite so many people loving "One-Winged Angel" so much.

There's a very annoying moment that happens often in such battles against "the bad guy", Dhaos. And it's when he goes past your main protagonist (Cless) and starts attacking the rest of your party. That's a moment when you feel like "OK, now I'm gone". He'll throw his signature laser and your whole party might be dead in a matter of few seconds. [...]

For any fellow fans of this fantastic game and its wonderful soundtrack, and without any pretension to spam my work, I'd totally recommend checking my album, Songs of Phantasia. It's full of cool stuff beyond the iconic "Fighting of the Spirit" (great track, but so much of good stuff in the rest of the OST too!), and, while mostly relying on metal as a base, there's plenty of variety and interesting ideas there."

In their full comments, UPA kindly shouted out our community's Summoning of Spirits album as a prior scene tribute to Tales of Phantasia, and there's of course always room in the scene for more, so definitely add their Songs of Phantasia album into the rotation. For judge Chimpazilla, a savage source begat the group's vigorous variation:

"This original is wild and great [...] The remix is vibrant and varied, fast-paced and crazy, and super well performed by all involved."

Along the same lines, fellow judge Hemophiliac heralded UPA & crew's fearsome fleshing out of Sakuraba's stressful theme:

"This is a strong example of something mixed very well that it makes you want to turn up the volume. It's full enough, but not so full that it's overly dense.

The arrangement is solid as this crazy source is well represented and there's little tiny additions throughout the piece. [...]

Blink and you miss it, strong performances, great mix, sweet genre adaption. Welcome to the club UPA!"

Not too shabby for a self-proclaimed pseudoartist, and there's a ton more where that came from on Unknown Pseudoartist's Songs of Phantasia! Like Hemo said, the energy here's such that you'll want to crank the dial up to better appreciate the off-kilter time sigs and powerful performances. Lest you be the one getting doused, be sure to listen closely to draw your own conclusion. ;-)