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Song number #3 from the ‘missed the cut from the last few May Madness events’ is our old 2011 GaMetal friend Sandopolis Zone from Sonic & Knuckles!

This has always been a personal favorite Sonic song of mine. In a sea of funky, upbeat, and fast paced songs, Sandopolis sticks out because it has a much slower pace than the other music it’s surrounded by. Then it gets even slower in the Act 2 arrangement!

This remake features more backup guitar lead harmonies, a sludgier Act 2, and a few changes to which instrument is leading the melody on certain parts (keyboard/lead guitar, mostly during Act 2). I cut the cheesy reverse/speedup effect I did in 2011 that transitioned Act 2 into the ‘fast Sandopolis’ (let’s call it Act 3) that I end the song with. I also completely changed the final guitar solo in Act 3. I heard my original once, said ‘nah’, and just wrote a new one.

That last sentence is pretty much GaMetal May Madness in a nutshell.

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After Pokey Means Business (or Cease to Exist, whichever you want to call it, this one doesn’t have an actual non-fan-given name) was revealed to be part of the May Madness line-up on the GaMetal Patreon which you should totally become a supporter of, one question loomed over the GaMetal Patreon community: will the swing intro return?

In my opinion, it had to! The swing intro is what made it the GaMetal version back in 2013. Changing it would have been changing an important piece of GaMetal history.

I often forget this was a 2013 song (I keep typing 2014 but have to go back and fix it), so it was one of the first songs I released at the beginning of the ‘Atma Era‘. Possibly because of this, I have a lot of people tell me this was the song that introduced them to GaMetal. This made keeping the swing intro even more important to me, because for some people it was their gateway into the world of GaMetal.

I didn’t make a whole lot of changes to this remake. I cleaned up the intro a lot (which I feel gives the metal portion more of an impact when it hits), changed the bass ‘solo’ section to reflect the original more, and made the Giygas section after the sludge/doom part near the end more dissonant sounding (on purpose, as the original is just straight up weird as heck).

I was pretty fond of the guitar solos I originally made in the 2013 version, so the solo (aside from being performed better) is mostly the same with a few minor tweaks.

Alright, I’m aware my Earthbound/Mother lineup is weak and, outside of medleys, only consists of 2 songs (the other being Natural Killer Cyborg). Next time I return to the series, we’ll do something different!

Side note: the name “Pokey Means Business” always makes me imagine Pokey in a business suit adjusting his tie, about to cut a mean deal on Wallstreet.

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It’s May, so you know what time it is… time for some remakes!

First up for this year’s GaMetal May Madness event is a song I’ve actually done twice before: the Punch-Out!! medley, now with even more Punch for your Out!!ing.

Punch-Out!! was a game I played a lot of as a child, so later in life, Punch-Out!! music was among the first games that I covered songs from. I first put together this medley, which featured (and some of these names might be wrong considering they’re from the NES days, so my apologies) the Little Mac Down theme, the Fight Theme, the Jogging Theme, and ended with the Lost Match theme.

In 2014, I rerecorded the song, and thanks largely in part to being featured in Smash Youtuber LittleZ’s “Little Mac is OP” video, it became one of my most popular songs from that time period.

For the past few years, I’ve been considering remaking this one for a May Madness event, but it’s always missed the cut in favor of other songs. It was among my top prospects for this year, and its stellar performance in the May Madness request forms, where it placed #4 overall, made this an easy choice for this year’s lineup.

This time around, I’ve made some new additions to the medley, mostly coming after the Jogging section. Rather than going back into the normal Fight Theme, I instead transitioned into a hybrid of both the original Fight Theme as well as the ‘new’ arrangement from the Wii version of Punch-Out!!, which I then followed up with the Wii versions variation of Little Mac Down and Opponent Down.

This medley also has a different ending: rather than Little Mac losing, this time, he wins! So instead of closing with Lost Match, this time we close with Won Match.

The only other major difference I made to my old arrangement is that I overhauled the keyboard solo that comes after the guitar solo. I think I’ve gotten a bit better at writing synth solos since 2014, so this new one sounds a whole lot better to me.

Maybe I should consider a Super Punch-Out!! song sometime?

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We haven’t had any classic NES songs yet this year, so let’s get to it with this Area 1 remix from Blaster Master!

Blaster Master was a Metroidvania game before ‘Metroidvania’ was even the name of a genre. It was produced by Sunsoft which meant, under normal circumstances, that it would both be good and have an awesome soundtrack with those sweet signature Sunsoft bass and drums.

I didn’t listen to the Zero version for reference much because I wanted this one to be based more on the original. I did, however, borrow a little bit of the speed from the Zero version. I ended up at about a halfway point in tempo between the original and the remake.

Years and years and years ago, I had this song on my ‘do someday’ list, as I’m a big fan of NES soundtracks, but it sort of fell to the wayside over the years. Now, thanks to the magic of the GaMetal Patreon and the Patreon request list, along with some drawing luck for Emile A., we’ve finally made this one a reality.

To the next song!

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HEEEEEEEEYA

That’s the most important part of the song you know. That’s why I absolutely could not do this song with the ‘heya’ section.

I don’t actually have any synths that can produce a good ‘hey’ sound, so I had to do it myself, recording a multitude of takes and applying a variety of effects. The ‘ya!’ shout was the trickiest part. In the original, it sounds something like… a shouted whisper, if I had to describe it in simplest terms, rather than straight shouting ‘ya!’. I had to try several different approaches till I figured it out.

The other most important part of the song is what people call the ‘glitching’ that occurs during the ‘heya’ sections after the first loop, as well as the very end. This was done but cutting the volume completely on the lead guitar and vocal tracks at ‘random’ intervals (the intervals here mostly match those in the original) with the occasional sound of static (also mostly matching the original).

Celeste mountain (or Mount Celeste?) has some really strange and mysterious powers. You might have noticed in the video, did you spot any familiar friends… or foes? :O

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Alright, alright, I know: I’ve neglected Persona music for far too long.

It was the #1 most requested new series from both the 2019 and 2020 GaMetal Song Ballots, both times having almost (and in 2020, more than) double the amount of the #2 most requested new (to GaMetal) series (Hollow Knight in ’19, and… we’ll keep this year’s under wraps for now!). To add fuel to the Persona fire, multiple songs from the series are highly requested, with 3 of them showing up in the top 15 most requested songs from this year’s ballot (all 3 tied). Life Will Change is one of those songs.

This song was requested by a GaMetal Patron (Smithy!), and upon its official reveal on Patreon, while I was talking about vocalist options, I was messaged by said Patron to consider Sapphire. I checked out her channel and was immediately blown away: I haven’t heard anyone that can match (and even exceed) the Persona vocal style in their covers as well as her, so I absolutely had to reach out to her to see if she’d be interested. Coincidentally, she was already working on a Life Will Change cover, but was still down to join in!

When I was putting this track together, I was really feeling some sort or organ solo or similar during the break part before the second verse. In one of my past conversations with Sax Dragon, who recently joined in with us in The Battle of Award 42 alongside InsaneInTheRainMusic, he had mentioned Persona being a personal favorite of his, so I asked if he also wanted to join in for some crazy aerophone soloing, to which he gladly obliged.

And that’s the story of Life Will Change, we’ll return to Persona someday!

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HEY HEY! COME ON OVER HAVE SOME FUN WITH THIS CRAAAAAAAAAZY TAXI REMIX!

Every April Fools day, I cover songs that have more of a unique aspect to them, such as songs from ‘licensed’ games that were actually really good (IE: McBoss, SpongeBot SteelPants, Pepsiman), great music from terrible games (Theme of the Cheetahmen), and even songs that are known just for being bad (1942). This year, I thought we could change it up a bit, with a great song from a great game that isn’t a cartoon of fast food franchise.

But the twist is… the song itself isn’t originally a game song. All I Want is a song by The Offspring, from their Ixnay on the Hombre album.

HOWEVER!

If you’ve played Crazy Taxi, and you hear this song outside of it later on, I’m 99% sure Crazy Taxi is one of the first things that comes to your mind. This is the first song that plays in the game, both on the title screen and also in-game, if I recall correctly. The game itself also only had a handful of songs, so it’s also a song you would hear several times while playing.

Later renditions/ports of Crazy Taxi dropped the original soundtrack because apparently relicensing songs for ports is one of the most difficult things of all time, but All I Want will live on in the hearts of Crazy Taxi fans as ‘the song that reminds us of Crazy Taxi’.

 

I can’t lie: I was a bit biased with this song pick. I’m a huge fan of The Offspring. Smash was the first album that got me into rock music. When I started learning guitar, one of the first things I tried to learn was all of the songs from that album. There are a lot of rhythm strumming patterns that I first learned in Offspring songs that I still use today.

I’m sure I’ll record another Offspring song someday, but probably not under the guise of GaMetal, so if you were a fan of this, expect another one from me sometime in the future, but for now, back to the game jams!

(This was still technically a game jam!)

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We’re going the distance with King Krusha K. Rool for this remix of DK64’s K. Rool Duel!

There’s a specific reason I decided to do this song. Remember the Nintendo 64 Medley? It was a composition of half chosen-by-Patron songs, and half songs of my own choosing. I was originally only going to add like 2 or 3… but then that became 4… then that become 5… and it just kept growing. In fact, I ended up with over 20 songs total, but decided it was already really huge so cut it down to a nice round 20 song count.

I wanted to hit up most of the well known N64 games/soundtracks in that medley, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do them ALL. So… some sacrifices had to be made, and the biggest of those sacrifices was Donkey Kong 64.

I had listed K. Rool Duel as a possible song option, but it’s such a great final boss theme with a million sections (classic Kirkhope final boss theme structure), that I both felt that it didn’t deserve to be cut down to shortened medley form, and deserved it’s own cover eventually.

Well eventually is now. For those of you who were disappointed DK64 missed the N64 Medley cut… this one’s for you!

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Ace Combat flies into GaMetal!

This is a series that I’ve seen requested a lot over the years. It even managed to fly into the 9th spot of the ‘most requested new (to GaMetal) series’ rankings from the 2020 GaMetal Song Ballot. The most requested from the ballot, and the song I’ve seen requested the most outside of it, is Zero.

Doing my song research, it became apparent that the choir and Spanish/Flamenco style guitar were an integral part to the original, so I kept both of these things in tact in this remix. It honestly would’ve been kind of weird to do the classical guitar part with distorted electric. It’d just be like something was missing!

With this, we now have 4 songs based on flight sim / vertical scrolling plane shooters: this one, 1942 (it counts!), Fly to Live I, and After Burner. What a unique collection! Maybe I should make an ‘flying’ playlist…

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It’s time for the second A Hat in Time GaMetal remix!

The Battle of Award 42 has been a hot request ever since I did Your Contract Will Expire a couple of years ago (wow it’s been that long, eh?), tying for #10 most requested song in last year’s GaMetal Song Ballot, then shooting way up to the #3 spot in 2020’s ballot, which is pretty impressive when you take into consideration not having done any Hat in Time songs since 2018.

That said, I’ve actually been planning this song out since last year. I thought it’d be fun to do a collaboration on this one, so I invited our familiar friends InsaneInTheRainMusic (who’s most recently joined me on Hydrocity Zone Act 2, and the Pepsi Man Pepsi Jam), and “Sax Dragon” Carl Catron (who was also a part of the Pepsi Man Pepsi Jam) to join in on Tenor Sax and Aerophone, respectively.

My plan was to have InsaneInTheRain mostly handling the leads in the brassy sections, and Sax Dragon handling the organ parts (I got the idea from him using an organ sound with the Aerophone during the Pepsi Jam), to make way for a big 3 way jam. Perhaps you could picture the 3 instruments being Hat Kid, DJ Grooves, and the Conductor.

The original track already gave me plenty to work with, so the song structure is mostly the same as the original, I did however slightly extend the section where the Guitar and Sax solos take place.

Also, for the few guitar players wondering… I had to tune to GGCFAD for the short bit around 0:42-0:49… the things you gotta do when you don’t have a 7 string, lol.

What the peck will come next? Only time will tell…

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Xenoblade is BACK in the GaMetal-verse!

I was hoping to get to a XC2 song last year, but it had to wait just a little bit longer. Xeno was a popular series to show up in both last year and this year’s GaMetal song ballot, placing in the top 10 most requested series both times, despite not having done a cover/remix since 2015.

Most Xeno requests these days are for music from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, so for my first Xeno cover in 5 years, I decided to go with my personal favorite XC2 song: Those Who Stand Against Our Path.

For this version, I blended in elements from the ‘in-game version’ and the ‘OST version’. There really aren’t any HUGE differences, but these are the major ones I’ve noticed:

• The in-game version has the guitar lead in the section after the intro (in this remix, 00:09 – 00:32), while a synth leads in the OST version. This is the most noticeable difference, in my opinion.
• Some brass parts are far more prominent in the OST version, but this could be due to the next point.
• The mix/master is a lot higher quality (obviously subject to opinion, but in general) in the OST version.

I followed the OST version as a reference for the instrument levels, and had the guitar lead in the post-intro section mentioned above, but brought back the synth lead for the section half-way into the song (around 2:09) where it leads in the OST version (it seems to be there in the in-game version, but far more in the background).

We’ll get back around to Xeno eventually, but for now… onward, to other songs!

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It’s time to hit up one of gaming’s most memorable water world themes: Jolly Roger Bay Dire, Dire Docks!

The original D,DD has a few different layers that get added depending on your situation in game, so for this remix, I made each play through ‘evolve’ with more things added each time, along with a subtle tempo boost throughout.

I’ve been wanting to get to this song for a while, but just never could get around to it, but each year for Valentine’s Day, I let my wife choose a song, and this was her choice for the year. I’ve decided to let her close out the description(s) with her own remarks:

“I didn’t really know how to fully play this game (I was 6 and it was my brother’s). Soooo I would leave Mario in Jolly Roger Bay just so that I could listen to the music while I played around in my room or read books. BUT! I did know how to throw the baby penguins off the cliffs in Cool Cool Mountain. That was fun!…. Do I need therapy? Am I okay?” -Mrs. Atma

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Bowser Begins, then he Returns, and then he Bows Out… here’s all 3 phases of the MegaDragonBowser fight from Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle!

This was (by request, as this won a GaMetal Patreon drawing) originally only going to be Bowser Begins. While doing my song research (which means listening to the song 1000 times and searching for other official renditions if there are any), I decided to check out the other 2 phases, Bowser Returns and Bowser Bows Out. They all have a similar feel and share a few parts, so it didn’t feel right to just do phase 1.

I want to close this out by saying Grant Kirkhope, who composed the M+RKB soundtrack, is an awesome guy and it’s always a pleasure covering one of his songs because we know he’ll say something about it if you show him. We also occasionally get to learn some fun facts like this one:

I’m not sure what exactly the choir is saying (I tried my best to match it), but I apparently should’ve just made it say “Bowser, Bowser”!

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It’s time for our first curveball of the year, a track from the “parody RPG” Cthulhu Saves the World: Existence Collapses, the final boss theme!

So, as with most obscure song picks, I’m sure a lot of you are thinking ‘wtf’, which I get, but as I ALSO say with obscure song picks, give it a chance. It’s an awesome song.

Fhtagn.

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We’re back at it with more Touhou! This time with Mokou’s Theme from the 8th game in the series: Imperishable Night.

One of the first things you might notice is I changed the key down a half step for this remix. Changing keys tends to send some people into a crazed frenzy, so in case you’re wondering, this is the key the original game MIDI file is in. The description in that video goes into a bit more detail.

This song poses a common problem some songs (especially Touhou) present: what the heck are we supposed to do on the fast parts. Those parts being what on the surface sounds like an amalgamation of random notes (00:14 and 00:48 in the video). So I just did some fast stuff. I don’t think people seemed to mind.

I ended up liking this song quite a bit! Touhou was the #14 most requested series from last year’s song ballot, but an early look at the (currently still open as of this writing) 2020 ballot entries show that it may end up a lot higher this year. So we just might see some more in the near future!

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Ever since I remade Zero Two for May Madness 2019, a lot of people have been asking: will there be a new version of the Edobean vocal arrangement?

When I first recorded Zero Two in 2010, Edobean had contacted me a few months later saying she had recorded her singing along with it and put it on her channel. I thought it was a really cool thing to do, so I (tried my best to lol) mixed in her vocal track with my original project and posted it on my channel.

While my mixing skills back then were only slightly above garbage, a lot of people enjoyed that version, and have been asking about a remade version ever since.

Well, here it is! Edo was happy to re-record the vocals for this new and improved Zero Two Ft. Edobean.

Lyrics (note: these are slightly different than the lyrics from the original 2010 remix):

We were once living quietly
But our future has changed for the worst
As the sky darkens
Becoming blacker than shadows
What could be the cause of all this
Twisting their minds
Twisting their souls
Now everyone is corrupted
Their behavior now destructive
I must search for those crystal shards
Even if the task may be hard
I’ll make sure that you will all see
As I set our universe free
With the crystal powers that were
Once completely scattered
It will be the very key to destroying each and every Dark Matter
Destiny calls for you to fly on forward, Star Warrior
Find the inner strength within you, bring an end to all the torture*
Let the stars guide you through to stop this never ending war
Or there might be a chance our universe will be
No more
Please go
Restore
Our world
Angels of darkness take flight
And I’m the only one left to fight
Our worlds are falling
As they’re* engulfed in the shadows
Their cries are fading from darkness
Drowning in it, consumed by it
There is no more time to be scared
The pain ends now
I am prepared
I’ll go forward with all our strength
I’ll make you see your end of days
I’ll make sure our hopes aren’t shattered
Pierce the evils you have gathered
Even if I’m devoured in this darkness that you’ve become
Just as long as there’s an inch of light in me I will overcome
Do not fear now the time is now to destroy the evil
This is the only chance you have, everything is up to you now
Use the power inside you and bring peace once and for all
Or our future will be no more, go now and fight
Star Warrior!
So stop this war
Protect our world

*I messed this part up in the subtitles for the video, this is the correct version. My bad.

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2019 GaMetal ended with the most requested GaMetal song to date: The Star Conquering Traveler (Void Termina). So there was no better way to start off 2020 than with the NEXT most requested song from last year: The World Revolving from Deltarune!

While Void Termina was, by far, the #1 requested song from the 2019 GaMetal Song Ballot, The World Revolving held a comfortable #2 position, trailed by Lifelight by only a few votes. It wasn’t my intention to do the top 2 songs from the ballot so late, but it’s just sort of how it came to be.

I also wanted to be sure to get this song done in time for the 2020 Song Ballot (you entered your request, right? You have till the 24th of February!), just so those that originally voted for this one can vote for something different this time (and also because, you know, we had to get this song done, right?).

I tried to keep fairly true to the original version, keeping this rather upbeat (but still with that hint of uneasiness) and.. ‘circusy’ sounding. Apparently that’s an actual word, I just looked it up.

I’m sure we’ll get back around to Deltarune in time, but until then, we’ve at least got the hottest request from the game completed!

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Finally, it’s VOID TERMINA!!

(Note: the entirety of Void Termina / Soul / Astral Birth is officially titled Suite: The Star Conquering Traveler, but for simplicity I’ll mostly be referring to it as simply Void.)

Not doing Void had become the meme of 2019 GaMetal: it was by far the most requested GaMetal song, placing #1 on the song ballot, and even outside of the ballot, it had the highest number of requests from comments of any song I’ve done, by a significant margin, it had about 50% more requests than the previous most requested songs: Megalovania and Hopes & Dreams. But I kept putting it off, both for dramatic effect and because I thought it was funny. Sorry.

I had actually planned on doing this song much sooner, but always ended up rolling it back because I wanted to get to some other things first and I knew Void would take me a while to complete. Some examples:

• Considered doing it after Side-Quests 2 songs were finished/released, however had May Madness coming up meaning I had 7 other songs to finish. Did Heavy Lobster in it’s place.
• Was going to do it at the end of May Madness, but wanted to do Dancing Mad last and knew that was going to be a long one.
• Planned on doing it around September but got hungry and ordered a pizza instead.
• Decided I was probably going to do it after the GaMetal album songs were all finished and released, but with it already being near December, decided it’d be a more effective finale than Nintendo 64 Medley which would’ve been the finale otherwise.

I was also initially unsure whether or not to include Astral Birth Void (the fifth movement, officially titled Shimmering Star), as most requests were calling for Void Termina / Soul. It’s also super long (half of this remix is the fifth movement alone) and far on the softer side, but I decided it just wouldn’t be right to do this remix without including it.

Suite: The Star Conquering Traveler is comprised of five movements: Star-Destroying Playing,  The Embryo’s Vessel, Wings of Sorrow and All Heavens, The Hope of Birth, and Shimmering Star. The first 3 are all very similar, but they do have enough difference for the 3 to be considered separate. There’s a bit of a groove change in Embryo’s Vessel (1:42), while Wings of Sorrow and All Heavens (2:42) brings in the pipe organ.

The Hope of Birth (4:08) is when things really start to change up, kicking it into high gear with a higher tempo rendition of the Green Greens and Void lines.

The final movement, Shimming Star (aka Astral Birth Void), comes in at 5:35 (though, as far as I can tell, the original also includes a loop of the fourth movement), and is where things slow down dramatically.

If you examine Void by melody alone, you might find that this is a very repetitive song. It mainly plays on two lines: what I refer to as the Void Termina melody (IE: 0:16 – 0:40), and the Green Greens melody (first time is in the fourth movement, 4:28-4:52). After we first hear Green Greens, it starts to switch back and forth between the Void Termina melody and Green Greens melody all the way to the end of the song. This happens several times.

So yes, on the surface, the melodies are very repetitive. The secret to this song is in the sauce: the instrumentation. Unlike the lead melodies, the  instrumentation of this song is CONSTANTLY changing. Very rarely do the rhythm sections repeat what they were previously doing moments before, for a whole 12 minutes, making this a truly progressive song.

The original Astral Birth Void is actually the same general composition looped 3 times, but with slight changes each time. More and more 8-bit stuff is added each time, culminating with what most people refer to as the “Green Greens Section” from around 9:50-10:18.

I applied even more instrumentation changes during Astral Birth Void to differentiate the 3 loops even more, the first 2 loops swapping which sections are heavy/soft, and wrapping up with a guitar solo (I think my longest in a GaMetal song to date) over the entire 3rd loop.

I’ve seen a few people say this almost sounds like a Dream Theater song, and that makes me happy because that’s exactly how I approached it. I knew this was going to be long remix, so I treated it like a Prog Metal song.

Now that this song has finally been completed, there’s one question weighing in heavily on everyone’s minds: what will the next most requested GaMetal song be?

I guess we’ll have to wait to find out in the 2020 GaMetal Song Ballot… coming soon! 🙂

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I managed to sneak 6 Final Fantasy songs this year, here’s the second one from Final Fantasy VIII: the much requested The Extreme, the theme of Ultimecia’s final form!

I noticed a lot of arrangements of this song leave out the weird intro section with the wind/choir, so I made sure to incorporate that into this remix. The original had a lot to work with, so not much is changed structurally. This was already a great song so it didn’t need anything of the sort.

With this, there’s really only one important song from FFVIII that I can think of that needs to be done: Man with the Machine Gun. I’m not sure when it would happen… but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually!