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Download (End card acoustic short: Run Away, Fugitives)

Here’s an interesting one!

It seems I’ve been doing a lot more ‘chill’ GaMetal this year like Dire Dire Docks, Misty Rain, maybe Confronting Myself, and probably some other one(s) I can’t remember at the moment… but now we have another to add to the pile: Sky Tower.

But I’m a-ok with that, because chill songs are fun!

Sky Tower falls into the ‘pretty long for a game song’ category, coming in at a whopping 3:40 before hitting the loop point. I did, however, (at the suggestion of GaMetal Patron FZRBrawler, gotta give credit where it’s due) throw in some of Sky Tower Summit to cap off the song.

I’ll be getting back to PMD again I’m sure, till then!

PS: If you didn’t understand why Mario Kart Wii shows up in the video at around 3:28.. well, just listen to the first part of MKW Rainbow Road and then listen to this section of Sky Tower!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Theme of Mystical Ninja)

For the second time in a row, I’ve got another song for you that I’ve done previously in a medley: Goe Goe Spark from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon!

I first did this one rather recently, back in December 2019, as part of the Nintendo 64 Medley. Because of that, if you’re not familiar with Goe Goe Spark, you might be expecting it to break into Jet Force Gemini’s Character Select theme at the end of the loop.. but alas, it does not.

But it doesn’t need to. This is a great song on it’s own. I’ve seen quite a few people cover Goe Goe Spark, despite Goemon not being particularly popular here in the West. So as fate would have it (this won a GaMetal Patreon drawing!), it was time to throw my hat into the ring.

Aside from the usual shenanigans like a pretty cool guitar solo thrown in the middle, I also did a key change that I think ended up sounding pretty awesome for the last loop of the song.

I wonder what song that I previously did in a medley will come next?

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Download (End card acoustic short: WANTED!)

You’re probably not familiar with Metal Max, and that’s ok, it’s not exactly the most popular game/series around. But by no means does that mean it’s bad!

My first encounter with this song was when I covered it back in 2015 for the SNES Medley. This medley, if you didn’t was, was entirely assembled by choices made from the GaMetal Patreon community back in its infancy, when we only had a handful of supporters.

I’ve never heard of this song or game before, but it was one of my favorites to do from that medley. I knew I wanted (get it?) to do a full version of it some day, it was just a matter of squeezing it in when I could. So I did!

I haven’t played or listened to the soundtracks from all of the Metal Max games, but from what I can tell, WANTED! or Battle with the Wanted (from what I have seen, it has officially been titled both of these names with WANTED! being the most common) is in most if not all of the Metal Max titles, even dating back to the first one on the Famicom.

It’s short and sweet (originally about 25 seconds, IIRC), but it’s still really catchy and high energy. Later official arrangements added a few more things here and there, but the core melody remained in tact.

Then there’s the Metal Max Xeno version.

Xeno added an insanely long and great guitar solo that I couldn’t pass up on playing, so I’ve included it in this remix, making this about 66% guitar solo!

Xeno aside, this arrangement was also strongly influenced by the Metal Max 2 and Metal Saga versions of WANTED!. From 2, I used a lot of the background organ line that is present there, and Saga incorporated some synth leads that I’ve included as well.

I know this won’t be the most popular GaMetal song around, but this might end up being one of my personal favorites that I’ve done this year. It’s just such a great song!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Comet Observatory)

At long last… a GaMetal Super Mario Galaxy remix! And we’ve invited a special guest along for the ride: the amazingly talented String Player Gamer!

My first interaction with String Player Gamer was when he invited me to be a part of his K.K. Crusin’ mega collab, which I gladly took part in. In that same discussion, I mentioned that I’d love to have him on the channel sometime in the future. He was down, so after some discussion on what sort of series he’d be interested in, I told him I’d get back to him with a good one.

Fast forward just a little bit, and this song was chosen in a GaMetal Patreon drawing. When I finally sat down to flesh out the arrangement, it hit me that this could be a perfect Violin and Guitar duet for String Player Gamer and I. So I brought up the idea with him and he was all in!

I’m really fond of how this one turned out, String Player Gamer made it beyond perfect! Be sure to check out his channel, subscribe, and show him some love!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Grit’s Theme)

Time for some NU METAL!! That’s what this theme reminds me of anyway, haha. Either way, CO Brenner’s theme Hope Never Dies is badass.

I’ve only done one Advance Wars song (Sturm) a few years ago, and I’ve intended to get around to doing another when I found the opportunity. I found said opportunity in this banger of a tune.

While the Days of Ruin soundtrack is great, it suffers from one major issue: extreme bitcrush. The compression on these tracks are so bad, it’s almost as if they’re coming straight from a Game Boy speaker.

My intent was to keep this one pretty true to the original, but bringing it out of that bitcrushy mess into the full quality glory it deserves.

I also threw in a section with a solo reminiscent of Zakk Wylde (more like Zakk Mild am I right, haha… I think I made this joke before plz forgive me I’m not funny).

I’m sure we’ll get back to AW eventually, till then!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Card Castle)

Deltarune showed itself once again in top 3 most requested songs of the GaMetal Song Ballot (alongside The Battle of Award 42), with crazy song: Chaos King!

I’d definitely put this song higher up on the crazy scale than The World Revolving, but it’s still a cool song none-the-less. I tried to emphasis the calamity with a lot of back and forth keyboard/guitar action, and a sort of nutty solo.

There are probably still a couple of Deltarune tracks I’d like to get to sometime later. We also really haven’t had much Undertale in a while, have we? Maybe Chapter 2 will come out before I get to either one of those?!

We’ll find out eventually! 🙂

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(End card acoustic short download coming soon!)

Chill GaMetal is back, and this time we’re revisiting Mega Man ZX for a take on the Graceful song Misty Rain (Area I – Imprisonment Facility).

I first did this song for GaMetal Patron SolarZero as an acoustic short several years ago, and I’ve been a fan of it ever since. It has an aura of mystery to it that I find really appealing.

This arrangement borrows influence from both the original and the ZX Tunes version, though the ZX Tunes version is really just a higher quality version with some additional instruments added. Namely, the arpeggiated synth line that plays over the altered intro after the first loop, and the addition of vocals carrying the intro melody and main melody during the second repeat. Here, I held off on the vocal “oo”s until the end, behind the outro/guitar solo.

I’m really happy with how this one turned out. I know it’s not exactly the most popular ZX song around, but I’ve always felt it was way under-appreciated and needed some more love!

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Download (End card piano short: Rawk Hawk)

It’s time to RAWK! …and 1000 other ‘Rawk’ puns.

Paper Mario: The Origami King was just released about a week ago, so I thought we’d celebrate in classic Paper Mario fan fashion by bringing up The Thousand-Year Door again.

This song is originally pretty short (about a minute?), so I did quite a bit of arranging for this remix. I held off on the second half of the song, which plays a heavy sounding riff, till we do a couple of runs through the first few sections. Then I expanded the heavy section to be a lot longer (because I thought it sounded really cool) and also made it the dedicated solo section.

With Rawk Hawk finally complete, there’s only a few popular Paper Mario requests left hanging around (along with several other great songs that just aren’t as popular). I still have to listen to the Origami King soundtrack to see if there’s anything there we need to hit up!

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(End card acoustic coming soon!)

At long last, something from FighterZ!

I’ve done a fair share of Game Boy Dragon Ball songs in the forms of Decisive Battle from Legendary Super Warriors and both Elite Frieze Soldier Battle and Frieze Battle in the Game Boy Medley, but this is our first foray into music from a more modern DB title.

This was already a pretty bangin’ song, so I didn’t change much, but swapped in the keyboard to take over the lead melody after the first loop, and added a guitar solo.

Badass song from a great soundtrack, perhaps we’ll get back to it again someday!

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Download (End care acoustic short: Bright Sound …for Dry Lagoon)

TAILS SONG!

I’ll be real with you: I don’t think I’ve ever referred to this song as On the Edge, I always call it Eternal Engine.

I first did this song in the 2013 Sonic Fan Medley as the opening tune, and since learning it from that, I’ve always really dug all of the guitar riffs and felt this is a really under-appreciated SA2 jam. Lately this one’s been popping up in my head a lot, so I felt it was time to bring back something I haven’t officially done in 3 years: doing a song as my personal birthday (July 1st) song choice!

I had a blast doing this one. On to the next song!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Beloved Tomboyish Girl)

It’s Touhou song #2 this year, this time we’re throwing it back to the PC-98 era with Sleeping Terror from Lotus Land Story!

This one came from the Patreon request list, and I always thought it was a cool song since the first time I heard it there. When it won a drawing, I was more than happy to take this one on. It’s probably the most ‘simple’ Touhou song I’ve done so far, but I really like the main melodies.

There are still a lot of Touhou songs I want to get to eventually, so more will definitely be coming in the future!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Objection! 2009)

Hold it!

I didn’t do an Ace Attorney song last year, breaking a 3 year streak of covering Pursuit themes. I didn’t want to repeat an AA no show this year, so here’s the next most requested Pursuit theme: Lying Coldly from AAI: Miles Edgeworth.

Honestly, this wasn’t exactly one of my favorite Pursuit themes that I’ve heard, but it grew on me a lot the more I worked on it. I’m really happy with how this remix turned out.

I think I said this before but, next time I get to AA, maybe it won’t be a Pursuit theme. 🙂

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Download (End card acoustic short: Tigrex)

Almost 4 years later… I’ve FINALLY gotten back to Monster Hunter!

Every time I do a live-stream Q&A/News session, I get a lot of questions about if and when I’ll do more Monster Hunter songs. I’ve had Zinogre in my sights for a while, since it’s been the most requested song over the years. With his recent (sort of) inclusion in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne expansion, I felt like we had to get to it’s theme as soon as I could.

This theme has has a few different iterations throughout the series. This remix is based on the versions from Iceborne. The first half is based on the normal version of the theme, while the second half is more influenced by the Mount version (which really, aside from some mixing differences, just adds a drum kit).

I’m really happy with how this one turned out. I’m sure I’ll get back to some more MH in the future!

Download (MP3) (Vocal Version)
Download (MP3) (Instrumental Version)
Download (End card acoustic short: Waiting Room)

It may be June, but there’s one final remake I wanted to get to before we moved back on to new stuff: let’s bring back the Main Theme from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and throw in the amazing vocal stylings of Marie-Ève Ermel and our newest GaMetal Dream Friend, Nicolas Daoust!

Daoust is well known for his great Crypt of the Necrodancer ‘Real Voice Shopkeeper’ covers (so much so that his voice was later officially added as an option in the actual game!) and he’s also the one that connected me with Marie-Ève Ermel for the Daughter of the Dark God cover we did last year.

We’ve been talking about some ideas for a little while now, and one song Nicolas brought up that he and Marie-Ève had an idea to cover was the Brawl theme. This has been a song I’ve been kicking around remaking for May for the past few years, but the idea of having 2 badass operatic vocalists on the track instantly had me sold. So much so, you may have noticed I didn’t include it in the 2020 May Madness Eligible Song List.

Since this is such a short song, clocking in at just under 2 minutes, I decided to go ahead and also provide you all with an instrumental arrangement as well! This one’s far more reminiscent of my old 2010 version, which, back in my Newgrounds days, was one of my most popular old remixes.

Eventually we have to show Smash 64 some love…

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Download (End card Acoustic Short: Goldenrod City)

And finally(?), the number 1 most requested song to return for this year’s May Madness: Deoxys!

This was the song that I cut from last year’s line up that I felt the worst about. It had a lot of votes… but I just wanted to get to the others that I ended up doing. This year, it came back and took the #1 spot in both the public vote and the Patreon vote, making it a shoe-in to be included this year.

Lately when I’ve been remaking my old songs, I’ve been changing the keys back to their original state, but I think Deoxys actually sounds really good in B. Not much is changed from my 2014 arrangement, mostly just a performance/mixing thing. I did slightly alter the brass line during the intro to sound less like One-Winged Angel, though.

I honestly have no idea what the #1 most requested remake will be in 2021, but I’m excited to see. Until then, let’s get back to some new stuff!

 

…or will we?

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Download (End card acoustic short: SMB3 Ending)

This year’s hottest ‘song that was previously in a GaMetal medley that you’d like to hear a full version of’ (I tried to think of a shorter name, but that’s all I could come up with) is none other than King Bowser from Super Mario Bros. 3!

I’ve actually done this song in 2 different medleys, both a very long time ago: in the second ever GaMetal song Bowser Medley back in 2009, and in the 2012 Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars mega medley. Both of these times, as well as this time, I’ve drawn the most influence from the Super Mario RPG version Fight Against Koopa, which added a short new intro, extended the main melody in a nice way, and added a new small section at the end of the loop. There’s really nothing in Fight Against Koopa that wasn’t in the original, so I’ve given this remix the original name and game source.

The SMRPG version is the version I’m most familiar with, and I actually heard it before I ever heard the SMB3 version (I didn’t actually beat SMB3 till later in life). It was one of my favorite songs from the game, so I’ve always had a special place in my heart for this song. I was thrilled to hear it return in Smash Bros. Ultimate.

While this remix, as mentioned, draws the most influence from Fight Against Koopa, I threw in a few more nods with a little bit of the Airship theme, and some of the Smash Ultimate version (which includes the World 8 map theme).

Still waiting on Geno to be revealed for Smash so I have an excuse to remake that SMRPG medley…

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Download (End card acoustic short: The Roost)

With the success and craze of Animal Crossing: New Horizons recently, I felt like I should do a K.K. Slider sometime soon for all of the AC fans out there, so I went with one of my personal favorites: K.K. Rock. You might have been expecting K.K. Metal, but there are a lot of great K.K. Metal covers out there already, so I felt like we should visit a K.K. song a feel like is a lot more underappreciated!

I actually heard K.K. Rock long before I ever heard K.K. Metal or most other K.K. songs for that matter, so it’s always had a special place in my heart as far as K.K. Slider songs go. This song is mostly just a slow groove, but it’s incredibly cool and catchy.

I’ll eventually get back to more Animal Crossing songs sometime later, there are already a couple I’ve been considering. It’s a good thing you’re a follower/subscriber so you can be around for when I do get to it! 🙂

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Download (End card Piano short: Plantera)

Let’s take a break from all of the remakes from this month for a few new songs, starting with the #2 most requested song from this year’s GaMetal Song Ballot: Plantera from Terraria!

Because of Terraria’s Final Fantasy influenced style, there have been quite a few people that mistakingly assumed the GaMetal Bard was a Terraria character. To set the record straight one last time, for those that aren’t aware, he’s originally a recolor of the Final Fantasy I Red Mage. After the GaMetal reboot (the GaMetal album), he’s been slightly redesigned to have his own custom appearance, rather than being a straight up recolor.

Plantera is originally somewhat… strange, so this was an interesting song to work on. I wasn’t sure how it’d turn out, but once I was finished with everything, it ended up all coming together exactly how I wanted.

Also fun to point out: I lack a 7 string, so I instead tuned my old Jackson RR3 to the bizarre tuning of A#FA#FAD for the rhythms. It also looks incredibly similar to ‘The Axe’, a red flying V guitar weapon dropped by Plantera.

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Download (End card acoustic short: Spinning Tower)

The classic Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest song Bloody Tears is back!

Bloody Tears was the first ever GaMetal Halloween Special, all the way back in 2013. It was also the first Castlevania song I covered.

I’m quite fond of my old arrangement, so not a whole lot has been changed here aside from the usual “not as sucky playing and mixing” aspect. I did sneak in a quick Monster Dance reference, though.

Although I’ve been improving on the size of the GaMetal Castlevania catalog recently, there’s still a lot more CV that I need to get to. I’ve only managed to do 4 CV songs since 2017, and before that, Bloody Tears and Beginning / Vampire Killer had come out 3+ years prior.

In time…

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I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know a whole lot about the actual Silver Surfer, aside from him being silver and also using a surfboard.

But what I do know, is that the Level 1 theme from Silver Surfer NES is one of if not the most bangin’ tunes from the NES era. It’s another song, and soundtrack, composed by the amazing Tim Follin, known for making some of the best NES soundtracks around. Unfortunately, those soundtracks were usually a part of some rather mediocre games, so his genius wasn’t as well known, as it is now, until a lot later.

I first covered this track back in 2014, and have been dying to re-record it for the past few years. It was far from the most requested remake for the year, but being from an old, not very popular game, that wasn’t unexpected. It did have a lot of votes among GaMetal Patrons, however, so I used my powers of ‘hey I can really do what I want’ to make this an official remake for the year.

I don’t think I really made any changes to the arrangement from 2014, it’s just performed a lot better this time around… this song is hard! In fact, I’d say, in it’s entirety, it’s the toughest GaMetal song for guitar.

Usually I talk about doing more songs from a certain game or series at this point, but instead I’ll say: I gotta do more Follin stuff!

 

Side note: I have to find the old Silver Surfer acoustic I made in 2014, so it’s not yet available for download, but will be as soon as I can find it! The one played in the video was ripped from the old video.