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Here’s one I’ve been considering for a little while: Shadow Showdown from Drawn to Life.

This song has always received a solid amount of requests from the GaMetal Song Ballots over the years. Not quite enough to break into the top 10, but usually just within reach of it, and enough for me to take notice. In this year’s ballot, it placed #15 overall.

There are two versions of this song: the original from the first game, Drawn to Life, and another version from the DtL sequel The Next Chapter. The DtL:TNC version is almost the same as the first version, but up in key by a whole step and the use of a different soundfont.

This arrangement is based on the second version from The Next Chapter, but again, it’s practically the same as the first.

It’s also a pretty long song originally, so I didn’t feel the need to add any brand new sections, but I did extend the final part and try to make an acknowledgement to the original version by lowering the key a whole step during the guitar solo.

Cool song! I also really dug the bass in the original, so I made it a bit more prominent than usual in this arrangement. 🙂

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We’ve reached the checkpoint: closing out this year’s May Madness (in June, as is tradition) is the last remake of the year (for now), and the #1 most requested remake for the year: Stickerbush Symphony from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest!

This one managed to place first in the 2021 May Madness ballot by a single vote, barely edging out FF6 Decisive Battle.

I first covered this song way back in 2010. It was the first ‘soft’ arrangement I made, and I used a Drum & Bass sound for most of the song. Despite the drastically different feel, this happened to be one of my more popular arrangements from the 2010 year of GaMetal.

I’ve arranged this one a bit differently from my 2010 version. The biggest change would be moving the metal section to the end of the song, rather than the middle.

That was probably the biggest complaint I had about my old version, that the metal part came in too abruptly and ruined the flow… and I agree, listening to it now, everyone was right.

I considered leaving the rock part out completely, but didn’t want to leave the people who liked that section hangin’, so I decided to move it to the end instead, sort of like how I did Eternal Wind.

In order to make the rock part a bit more acceptable of a changeup, I extended the soft part of this song with a synth-centric section from 3:08 to 3:47, and a new guitar solo after that part. In early drafts of this arrangement, I didn’t have the synth-centric section at all, but I didn’t care to have 2 back to back guitar solos without getting back to the main melody in some way.

Having almost 5 minutes straight of soft Stickerbush (rather than 2 minutes in the old version) makes the rock changeup a lot easier to accept once it finally hits, imo.

This song has had a lot of requests for a remake these last few years, but I’ve always been a bit reluctant to do so because I knew it’d be a somewhat difficult task. But with it taking the #1 spot in the May Madness ballot this year, you all left me no choice, but I’m glad you did, because I really like how this one turned out.

And of course, I hope you do too!

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Download (End card acoustic short: The Amazon)

Ah yes, The Moon, one of classic game music’s legendary gems.

I first covered this back in 2014 in the second ever GaMetal NES Medley, where it was the closing song. A lot has happened since then: DuckTales had a reboot, lasted 3 seasons, and was cancelled. A remastered version of the DuckTales NES game, DuckTales Remastered, was made. I think it’s about time we give this song it’s own time in the spotlight.

I’ve been considering a full version the past few years for the May Madness remake events, but there were always medley songs that had more requests. So this year, I made an exception and did two former GaMetal medley songs: Armored Armadillo a few weeks ago, and, of course, The Moon.

This arrangement is based on Jake Kaufman’s awesome version from DuckTales: Remastered, which adds a few new sections.

So off we go, to the moon!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Phantom Train)

Our 5th GaMetal May Madness remake is a song I first covered in 2014, and is one of my favorite songs from my favorite game soundtrack: Decisive Battle from Final Fantasy VI!

There are many “Decisive Battle” themes out there, but this one will always be my favorite (I’m biased). This is one of the first really intense songs you hear in the game, which could make it the first song in game to make you think ‘hey this soundtrack is awesome’.

It did for me anyways, haha.

This was the #2 most requested old GaMetal song for a remake from the public ballot, and was only one vote behind the #1 song, and as much as I love the FF6 OST, I can’t say no to that!

Aside from the usual remake changes, I added a new section to this arrangement from 2:20 – 2:46 to give this song a bit more fullness outside of the usual repeating of some sections.

I don’t have to say ‘I’m sure we’ll do more Final Fantasy VI in the future’ because it’s my favorite game soundtrack, so that one should be a given!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Good Night Mom)

We’re revisiting the song that introduced me to La-Mulana back in 2014: Interstice of the Dimension!

This one had a surprisingly large amount of requests from the May Madness ballot. I considered remaking it last year, but couldn’t quite squeeze it in.

With all of the requests it received this year, along with my love for the song, it was an easy inclusion for this year’s May Madness line up.

This time around, I changed up a few of the spots where the Guitars or Synths handled the medley. I also tested out including some bass drum shots in the video, since this one has some nutty double bass sections (for me anyway, haha) that wouldn’t of looked as cool with just the new front-facing shot alone.

This is a really crazy song and I love it, I’m glad a lot of you requested it in the public May Madness ballot. It was a blast to remake!

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Download (End card acoustic short: The Great Sea)

Ahoy mateys, we’re setting sail once again for Dragon Roost Island from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, this time for a Pirate-Metal style arrangement!

This was the last GaMetal song I did before the ‘Atma Era’ of GaMetal started in 2013. It received many requests to be remade from the May Madness ballots, and was the last song I cut from my May short list from last year, so all things considered, this one was a lock to return in 2021.

Upon listening to my old 2012 remix, I… hated it, lol. So I started completely from scratch and made this into a Pirate-Metal song, changing from 3/4 to 6/8 timing and adding some ‘piratey’ instruments (accordian, bagpipe, fiddle, flutes, etc).

The feel may be completely different, but I feel it suits the song well, and I’m definitely much happier with this arrangement than my old one!

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Download (End card acoustic short: MMX Staff Roll)

It’s been about six whole years since I last covered a Mega Man X song… and that was just a quick feature in the old Mega Man Mega Medley 2. Before that, there was the 2014 GaMetal finale, the Mega Man X Maverick Medley. I’ve only ever done MMX songs in medleys, but never gave one song the full treatment.

I must be crazy!

Well the GaMetal MMX dry spell is finally over with today’s newest GaMetal arrangement, one of my personal favorite songs from the game: Armored Armadillo!

I first did this song in the aforementioned 2014 MMX Maverick Medley, and it was the most popular song from that medley that you all requested a full version of from the May Madness ballots.

I’ll try not to take 6 years to get back to MMX next time!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Donkey Kong Title Screen)

It’s that time of year once again: May Madness! For those that aren’t aware, every May I go back and remake some songs that I arranged in the old days of GaMetal.

This year’s first GaMetal remake is a song I first covered in 2010, then ended up liking so much that I did it again in 2014. Now, almost 7 years later, it was one of the most requested by the GaMetal community for a 2021 remake, so let’s get to it: Stage 9-8 from Donkey Kong ‘94!

Also dubbed by fans as ‘Showdown at the Tower’, this may have been the first song I did by request where I was initially unfamiliar with the original.

Along with generally being a cool song, the original has a sick ‘solo’ section that sounds like it was meant to be for guitar. That could explain why I like it so much, haha.

For this 3rd and final revision, I threw in a lot more background instrumentation in areas, with some added brass/strings/synths. I also let the synth handle the lead melody of the first ‘Ascending the Tower’ section that comes in at 00:56. I didn’t really care for how I handled that section in my older arrangements. I like this way much better.

I’m now fully satisfied with this arrangement, so I think we can leave this song be now. Farewell, Stage 9-8!

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We’re returning to the La-Mulana series, this time for a song from the second game in the series, In Yggdrasil!

When it comes to game soundtracks that were introduced to me by the GaMetal community, La-Mulana remains one of my favorite discoveries (more like archaeological discoveries, eh?). I’ve only done a couple of LM songs, most recently Good Night Mom (which was one of my personal favorites from 2019 GaMetal), and a lot of La-Mulana fans out there have been asking for a song from the second game ever since.

I really, really dig this song. The little section with the powerful hits at 00:28 gets me hype every time.

I added a key change at the end to make things even hyper.

Go and listen to more La-Mulana music, pretty much every song is a banger! (And play the games while you’re at it!)

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Download (End card acoustic short: 46-:ri9)

Back in the year 2010, we were all told that we would know their names.

Years later, Shulk got into Smash 4, and then even more people knew their names.

A few years passed. Just when we had forgotten their names, we were told to recall them, so here we are with a GaMetal cover of You Will Recall Our Names from Xenoblade Chronicles 2!

When Pyra and Mythra were announced (and quickly released) for Smash Ultimate, I wanted to get a XC2 song done soon. Lucky for us, this one was chosen during a GaMetal Patreon stream not long after their release!

I’ve said several times before that when I hear Xenoblade Chronicles music… there’s not really much I would change about them. They’re already super kickass. So there aren’t exactly a ton of differences between this version and the original, aside from the addition of a Guitar solo when the intro loops back around at 1:46.

It’s always fun to cover XC songs. I’m sure I’ll do another in the future!

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Happy 20th Anniversary to the Mega Man Battle Network series!

MMBN is one of those series that I’m constantly asked about, and I always talk about planning to get to as soon as I can. I gave you a small taste of Final Transmission from MMBN3 in the Game Boy Advance medley, but that doesn’t really count as ‘doing a Battle Network song’.

When I was informed that MMBN’s 20th anniversary was coming up in March, I decided now was the time to finally do a song from the series. I was neck deep in Side-Quests Volume 3 videos in March, so I couldn’t drop something on the exact date of the anniversary (March 21st), but I made it a high priority to get this one done as soon as I was finished with SQ3 and the April Fools Special.

I decided to go with Surge of Power! since 1. it’s awesome and 2. it was the most requested Battle Network song.

For this remix, I borrowed a few ideas from the Rockman.EXE 15th Arrange version, but tried to keep the feel of the original.

I’m sure we’ll get back to MMBN in time… till then, I hope you enjoy this one!

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Download (End card acoustic short: OoT Mini Game Theme)

The year was 1993, and after a few years of success for the SNES, Nintendo decided it was time to kick things up a notch. They reached out to Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES to make bigger and better games. However, Sony was not able to handle the magnitude of what Nintendo was asking for. Parting ways, all looked to be in a peril, but then, from the shadows, a hero emerged:

Philips.

While Sony went on to develop the Playstation (which went on to sell a pathetic 12-16 units worldwide or something like that), Philips created what is still accepted by many to be one of the greatest consoles of all time: the Philips CD-i.

Eager to jump on the CD-i bandwagon, Nintendo hastily connected with Philips and threw their 2 biggest IPs right at their faces: Mario and Zelda.

The iconic “Hotel Mario” went on to sell 3 gazillion units, and gamers unanimously agree that future Mario titles have been unable to reach it’s high level of quality since, with the exception of Super Mario Odyssey which some feel came close (but still, ultimately, fell short).

But before that, developer Animation Magic was tasked with creating a game for the Zelda series. Unlike Hotel Mario, the game and world they had imagined was so monstrous in size (comparable only to Breath of the Wild), that the game had to be split into 2 different titles, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, and Link: The Faces of Evil.

Gamers and critics the world over were floored upon playing the titles. SNES N-Force Magazine praised the games for their superb graphics and brilliant sound / voice acting.* Joystick Magazine also considered the graphics to be stunning, and described the animations as “perfect”.*

The soundtracks, composed by Tony Trippi and William Havlicek, have been unmatched in later Zelda titles. Most reviews of recent Zelda games you find these days will usually contain a version of the phrase “the OST still fails to reach the high bar set by the Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil soundtracks” somewhere along the review.

Philips would attempt to capitalize on the wild success of Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil by releasing a third Zelda CDi title, Zelda’s Adventure, but no one cares about that one. You probably didn’t even know it existed.

We’ve covered many songs from many games on this channel, but I hope this attempt at one of the CDi Zelda’s best songs, Firestone Lake from Link: The Faces of Evil, can deliver even half of the justice that the game and soundtrack deserve.

 

*All of this is true.

Downloadable via the Side-Quests 3 album!
Download (End card acoustic short: Land of Sorrow)

And now, the top secret surprise song from Side-Quests 3: the long awaited and highly anticipated Twilight of the Gods from Fire Emblem Gaiden / Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, and we have our friend Sax Dragon along for the ride!

I was having a lot of fun working with all of the songs that were chosen for the SQ3 album, but I felt like it was missing a really great closer song. Bowser Battle was close, but I wanted something a bit more epic.

My initial plan was to use the #1 most requested 2020 GaMetal Song Ballot track, God Shattering Star, as the surprise closer, but before I knew it, December 2020 had arrived and I didn’t want GSS to not happen in 2020.

We’ve had Sax Dragon join us for a few multi-person collaborations (Pepsi Jam, Life Will Change, Battle of Award 42), but I’ve been wanting to do a duet with just the 2 of us. While discussing what series he’d be interested in doing, he brought up Fire Emblem, so I brought up a song that placed highly in the 2019 GaMetal Song Ballot: Twilight of the Gods, and from there it was a lock!

We’ve had this collaboration in the works for quite a few months now, and I realized this would fit the bill of great surprise closer for the album.

I keep referring to this as the ‘surprise’ closer, because this track was kept a secret from the GaMetal Patrons (reminder that all Side-Quests album songs come from the Patreon Request List and are known by the Patrons well in advance), and wasn’t revealed until the end of the SQ3 first-listen stream after Bowser Battle finished to the shock of everyone in virtual attendance.

The surprise format was also kept for the public video releases, with the end card silhouette lineup excluding Alm until the end of the Bowser Battle video.

As I mentioned above, Twilight of the Gods placed among the top 10 most requested songs from the 2021 GaMetal Song Ballot. It was strongly overshadowed by God Shattering Star in the 2020 ballot, but still had a presence, and with GSS now completed, TotG was once again the most requested Fire Emblem track.

It’s request amount also gained some traction when I briefly touched on it in NES Medley #6.

This arrangement is mostly based on the version from Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, which included a lot more than the original Gaiden version. The main melody is passed between Sax Dragon and I, making this a Guitar and Aerophone duet.

Overall, I love how this came out and needless to say Sax Dragon did a killer job, we hope you love it too! 🙂

Downloadable via the Side-Quests 3 album!
Download (End card acoustic short: Rogueport)

What’s a GaMetal Side-Quests finale without a Bowser appearance? A cruddy finale, that’s what!

…ok I’ve made that joke like 100 times now, but it still works. Even if you include that fact this isn’t really the finale, just like in TTYD.

I’m not sure if I’d consider this a favorite Bowser theme by any means, but it’s still pretty intense and goes in quite hard at several points.

Can’t go wrong with Paper Mario songs, right? 🙂

Downloadable via the Side-Quests 3 album!
Download (End card acoustic short: Last Cave)

Cave Story has finally made it’s way here! Aaaah!

Running Hell has been a very popular request over the years, placing in the top 10 in the 2019 GaMetal Song Ballot and still holding a decent amount of requests in the 2020 ballot, so I knew this was going to be one a lot of people would like.

This is mostly based on the original version of Running Hell, but I threw some elements of the Wii arrangement in later in the remix.

Also, I’m aware this song hasn’t officially been deemed Curly’s Theme, but most people know it as such, hence the info in the video title. 🙂

Downloadable via the Side-Quests 3 album!
Download (End card acoustic short: Character Select 2)

Here’s one from a great game that I feel more people need to give a shot, especially if you’re into Smash style fighters: Lightning Pandemonium (Tempest Peak) from Rivals of Aether!

I hope you like Guitar solos, because I threw a lot of ’em into this remix.

If you’re a fan of Smash style gameplay, beautiful sprite work, and awesome game music, give Rivals of Aether a try when you can!

Downloadable via the Side-Quests 3 album!
Download (End card acoustic short: Endless Battlefield)

We’re back in the world of Final Fantasy Legend II (or Saga 2: Hihou Densetsu, depending on where you’re from) for our take on the final dungeon theme: Burning Blood… or Boiling Blood, I believe both are official titles with Boiling being the most recent iteration.

We’ve hit up this series twice now, with the first time being Save the World (which is still one of my personal favorite 2018 GaMetal songs) and a quick appearance in the Game Boy Medley with Lethal Strike.

Save the World borrows a part of the melody from Burning Blood, so I incorporated a little bit more of StW in this remix to pay further homage.

Awesome song from an awesome soundtrack!

Downloadable via the Side-Quests 3 album!
Download (End card acoustic short: Furnace of War)

I’ve done a few Q&A / News Live-Streams over the years, and almost every time, someone brings up Tales, and I always say I’m going to try to do a full song from the series whatever year it is I did the live-stream. Finally, thanks to the RNG magic of Side-Quests, we have our first full Tales remix: Fury Sparks from Tales of Vesperia.

I thought it’d be fun to give this song a faster paced, Xenoblade Chronicles feel, and I feel the style suited it perfectly.

We’ll return to the Tales series eventually, I’ll try not to have it be 12 years this time.