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It’s time yet again to take a trip back to to the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System and remix another 15 awesome NES tunes!

As is now yearly tradition since NES Medley 3 back in 2015, I’ve given the song selection choices to the GaMetal Patreon Supporters, and drew the winning songs via random drawing.

This year’s medley features:

0:00 Title Theme (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
0:36 Egg Catcher (Kirby’s Adventure)
1:07 Ryukotsuki Battle (Getsu Fuuma Den)
1:52 Kazakh Theme (Strider)
2:43 Ocean Theme (Crystalis)
3:28 Theme of Lyll (Legacy of the Wizard)
4:03 Level Theme (Kiwi Kraze)
4:31 Hebe in the Cold Area (Ufouria)
5:27 The Silence of Daylight [Town] (Castlevania II)
6:01 Ice Princess (Batman Returns)
6:27 Final Map (Fire Emblem Gaiden)
7:09 Great Palace (Zelda II)
7:42 Music 2 [Title Theme] (Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu)
8:23 Burning Heat (Gradius 2)
8:49 Napalm Man (Mega Man 5)

So a couple things to note: this is the first time I’ve done a Crystalis song, and I just wanted to say that if you enjoy classic top-down action RPGs (like Zelda) you really need to give this game a shot. It’s a real hidden gem in the NES collection that never saw anything beyond a Game Boy port that screwed up the soundtrack.

Second is a story of how this NES Medley drawing solved a mystery that has boggled me since childhood.

I’ve always had this faint memory of an NES game I played when I was a kid, but have never been able to find anything about it since. I couldn’t remember the name, only that it was some sort of RPG-ish platformer where you could choose between different characters. The best image I could remember of it was some sort of house that you left at the beginning of the game.

This one.

While I was adding the game play footage to this music video, I noticed something was familiar with the Legacy of the Wizard footage. So I looked into it, and as you might have been able to guess… it turns out the game I’ve never been able to remember was Legacy of the Wizard the entire time. Thanks NES Medley drawing (and specifically, giga-ganon for being the requester)! 😀

Also, a lot of people like my placeholder thumbnail, so I might just end up keeping it. 🙂

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Iji is a critically acclaimed free indie game developed by Daniel Remar back in 2008. Even since the early days of GaMetal, I’ve had the occasional request to cover this song. The game received a compatibility update last year which helped it to resurface a little bit, so let’s help it resurface even more with this Tor cover!

This song was already pretty rockin, so I didn’t make too many changes. During the arpeggio harmony section (around :20-1:15) I made the harmonies climb even higher with every other play-through, which I thought sounded really cool and built up to the following section really well. I also added fairly lengthy guitar solo section over the softer section later on in the song, because this is GaMetal and that’s what we do around here!

So just to praise this song a little bit, it makes use of some really interesting chords in what I suppose we’d call the chorus section (around 1:15-1:50). It’s also one of the smoothest songs, especially rock songs, that I’ve ever heard in 7/4 timing. It does switch to 5/4 after the first chorus until the end of the guitar solo, but even that flows extremely well. Most of the time these uncommon timings can sound jagged, but not here, so big kudos to the original composers for accomplishing this feat.

Iji is free and has received a ton of praise, so give it a try when you get a chance, you can grab it here!

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We’re hitting up Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney for our third Pursuit theme remix from the AA series!

I’ve had a bit of a tough time finding out the official name of this song. The most popular (on Youtube, any way) is Pressing Pursuit ~ Cornered, but I’ve also seen Pursuit ~ Overtaken, and even Overtaken ~ Cornered. You could really pick your choice of name, to me personally Pursuit ~ Overtaken would make the most sense and follow the typical Pursuit theme naming structure but… what can ya do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Unlike Pursuit ~ Wanting to Find the Truth, this song borrows a lot of rhythmic elements from the original Pursuit ~ Cornered. It’s also pretty short, so I gave it an intro section to help extend things a bit.

We’ve done a new Pursuit theme every year since 2016, maybe next time I’ll get around to doing an AA song that isn’t a Pursuit theme. :O

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Download (End card acoustic short: Friend Star / Friend Train)

We’re capping off our 100k subscriber celebration with the latest most requested GaMetal song: Hyness from Kirby Star Allies.

The Dreamland Invasion album was released shortly after the release of Star Allies, but was in development since late last year. Because of that, I didn’t really have time to do a true Star Allies cover, which most had hoped would be at the end of the album. I was at least able to squeeze in Buff Dedede in the D3 Medley, but even that was more an acknowledgement than anything.

As was to be expected, numerous requests for Star Allies music poured in after the Dreamland Invasion event, with Hyness (Unhooded) being the most requested of the bunch. I promised I’d get to a Star Allies tune later in the year, and knew this would be a perfect way to end the 100k celebration.

I had originally intended to only do the second phase (Unhooded) of the Hyness battle. When I was trying to think up ways to extend the song, I thought it’d be cool to pay tribute to the first phase in the middle of the song to lead into the guitar solo. Upon throwing that in, I had grown familiar enough with the first phase that I thought it’d be cool to do it with a sort of doom metal feel, so I decided to go ahead and do the entire first phase as sort of a long intro piece. It came out much better than I expected!

Even after the Dreamland Invasion, there are still plenty of Kirby songs left to do that we’ll get to in time. So don’t fear, there will always be more! 🙂

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Here lately in the GaMetal universe, we’ve been doing a lot of curve-ball Pokémon remixes like Miror B., Club Leader Duel, and to some extent Team Rocket, Giratina, and Gladion. So it’s about time we get to a more popular Pokémon tune!

I’ve been getting endless requests to do Ultra Necrozma for the past year or so, enough to where it’s approximately the #2 most requested GaMetal song at the moment.

This isn’t the most difficult song to play, but I can see where a lot of people would have trouble remixing it (including myself, haha) with all the stuff going on in the background. Yeah, it’s one of those ‘million things going on in the background’ songs I always talk about. xD

I think next time, for Pokémon, I’ll go backwards in time a bit for something a little older. I have an itch to do full versions of some past Champion themes… but we’ll see what happens when the time comes. 🙂

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Download (End card acoustic short: FFII Overworld)

It’s been a long time coming, but Battle on the Big Bridge has finally arrived!

Initially, I was going to do this song sometime in 2013. In fact, I had a lot of stuff recorded for it (drums, bass, and maybe some rhythm guitar), but I never got around to finishing it up.

Since then, I’ve been meaning to get this song done but just haven’t been able to squeeze it in. A few weeks before this song was released, we crossed the 100,000 subscriber milestone on Youtube, so I decided to do a few highly requested songs to celebrate. What better way to start off than with this long awaited song I’ve been promising for years?

I did something a little different in this remix: I based it off of the Piano Collections version, which includes a key change in the middle of the song that transitions back to the original key, and has a big growing outro section. If you listen to that version, you’ll hear a lot of the similarities. I don’t think the PC version ever gets referenced, so I thought it’d be neat to acknowledge it.

Have you noticed 3 of the past 4 songs have been from Final Fantasy games? :O

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Download (End card acoustic short: Endless Battlefield)

Perhaps you were expecting an Undertale song by the same name.. but this is the OG Save the World, from the final boss with with Arsenal in Final Fantasy Legend II!

…or SaGa 2: Hihō Densetsu, whichever you prefer to call it. The FF Legend series are all known as SaGa games in Japan, and were branded with Final Fantasy in the US for familiarity.

This is one of the most intense Game Boy songs I’ve ever heard, as well as one of the best uses of the Game Boy sound chip I’ve heard. It makes use of a lot of ‘instrument’ change ups and panning effects to really bring the song alive.

There was also a DS remake of this game, which means there was a DS remake of this song.. but it was… eh… well, it’s there. 😛

Save the World is one of my favorite GB songs, and I hope this remix will make it one of yours too!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Lufia II Boss Battle)

You’re probably not familiar with this song, but I know that small sect of Lufia fans out there might recognize it. And I know you’re out there!

It seems that anyone I’ve met that has played Lufia.. has played most of them and really loves the series. I had Lufia II in my old ‘RPGs I should play’ collection years ago, but I never got around to playing it more than a little bit. Everyone tells me I should.

So yeah, the song! This is the final battle theme from the first Lufia, Lufia and the Fortress of Doom. On it’s surface, it didn’t seem like much of a song, but it remixed extremely well. It sort of gives me old Final Fantasy vibes.

Try it, you might like it! 🙂

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Download (End card acoustic short: Lava Dome)

It was really only a matter of time until I did a full Mystic Quest song. The soundtrack is full of some of the most rockin’ tunes I’ve heard from the SNES era.

The first time I did a FFMQ song was the Battle 2 piece in SNES Medley. Battle 1 is a bit more chill, but it still has a really great guitar riff.

I will definitely revisit Mystic Quest for another song in the future. There’s a few that would be really great picks, so who knows what it’ll be!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Song of Storms)

It’s been 5 years since the last Wind Waker remix: Dragon Roost Island back in 2012. Since then, I’ve been getting requests to do this song, and I’ve finally gotten around to it.

All of the percussive sounds in the first section were made with acoustic guitar beating, drum sticks, and true ‘chicka chicka’ vocals. I felt like the acapella ‘chicka’ was absolutely necessary, since it’s one of the first things people think of when they think of the Molgera theme. Plus, every time I would bring up doing this song, ‘are you going to do the chicka???’ would be asked immediately.

About a minute in, we go into full heavy mode. While I’ve heard the Hyrule Warriors version a few of times before and thought it was awesome, I only listened to it a couple times before recording this section. I didn’t want the two to sound too similar. Obviously it still sounds like the Warriors version because, you know, guitars.

The one thing I DID include from the Warriors version is the key change at the end. I thought it fit really well, and I did want to do a real acknowledgement of the Warriors version in this remix.

This is possibly one of the most well received Zelda GaMetals to date… onward to the next song!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Moon Knights)

To tell the truth, I don’t know much about the Super Robot Wars series, but I do know one thing: the music is awesome.

It’s one of those game series that has a ton of songs that I could’ve chosen from, and I’ll most likely end come coming back to it, but for now we’re starting off with one of my favorites from the series that I’ve heard: Steel Beowulf.

I honestly don’t have much else to say aside from this song rocks! I’m seeing a lot of requests for this ‘Trombe’ song… I’ll have to look into that. 🙂

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Download (End card acoustic short: Courtney Gears)

Here’s a fun song about human genocide!

This song may take the place of ‘Jonny’s favorite song that he didn’t know until he had to remix it for GaMetal’. This was another request song that I had never heard until a few months ago, and have fallen in love with it since. If I think about it once during the day… it’s over, it’ll be stuck in my head until the following morning.

I wasn’t going to do the vocals, but decided to throw it in the end for fun. I’m considering arranging a more vocal-centric version sometime… maybe as a GaMetal VIII bonus track? :O

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Download (End card acoustic short: Bright Sound (Dry Lagoon))

In a surprise turn of events, I bring you yet ANOTHER collaboration, and this time with vocals to boot! I’ve teamed up with UK rapper Shao Dow to bring you this special remix of Unknown from M.E. from Sonic Adventure 2!

This song won a Patreon drawing, and I had mentioned before entering it that if it were to be drawn at some point, that I’d have to get someone else to handle the rap sections. Could you imagine how bad this remix would’ve been if I did that part? Shao reached out to me a while ago and mentioned he’d like to collaborate sometime, then this song popped up and gave us the perfect opportunity.

The only rap verse we kept from the original was the first verse, since it’s the most remembered verse of the song. After that, Shao created a new second verse (which originally is just a repeat of the first verse) and I also extended the section after the second chorus to give him another new third verse.

All of the new lyrics are in the captions for the video, but I’ll post them here for you as well:

It’s time for the red
Head full of dreads
Make a badnick dead

Here I come, rougher than the rest of them
The best of them, tougher than leather
You can call me Knuckles, unlike Sonic I don’t chuckle
I’d rather flex muscle
I’m hard as nails, it ain’t hard to tell
I break ’em down whether they’re solid or frail
Unlike the rest I’m independent since my first breath
First test, feel the right, than the worst’s left

Born on an island in the heavens
The blood of my ancestors flows inside me
My duty is to save the flower
From evil deterioration
I will be the one to set your heart free, true
Cleanse yourself of the evil that’s in you

Streaking lights, loud sounds, and instincts
Are the elements that keep me going
I am fighting my own mission
Nothing’s gonna stand in my way

The master emerald’s one and only guard
Stay away from me now ‘cos I hit hard  

Won’t be frightened, I’ll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
Just believe in myself, won’t rely on others
Get this power to wipe out the havoc and anarchy
This is my planet, gonna fight for my destiny

Whether I be climbing or gliding I be surviving,
The island is relying  I’m trying to keep it flying
So I’m striking when I find where he’s hiding cos he was lying,
My pride is on the line .. the seven will need uniting,
Going hyper .. I am a fighter,
Digging in the dirt climbing  like a spider,
And it’s gonna hurt, breaking ’em for practice
Make a badnick nap quick slap him with the back fist

I have no such things as weak spots
Don’t approve of him but gotta trust him
This alliance has a purpose
This partnership is only temporary

I’ll be the one to set your set your heart free true
…..
“Oh No”

Won’t be frightened, I’ll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
I’ll just believe in myself, won’t rely on others
Freedom will be waiting when serenity is restored
This is my planet, I will not surrender

Living in the tropics, I’m Mighty like Chaotix,
Leaving Angel Island  behind for more exotic,
Sonic or Robotnik, not one of them will profit,
If you’re stealing the Emerald my job is to make you drop it,
You got miles per hour, I got the violent power,
So when I climb  the tower, you better hide and cower,
Lemme face the trouble – break the  struggles ..
I’m the best team it’s Knuckles & Knuckles,
Oh yeah, tell em don’t dare,
Dread hair .. spiked fist in the air,
You can declare your plot, I will be there to stop, so..
Prepare for loss, go..  repair your bots,
Don’t cross me and don’t attack me, yeah I’m a boss I  belong in act 3…
I stay alone and great I control my fate –
In my zone you’re prey, you do not know de way   

Won’t be frightened, I’ll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
I’ll just believe in myself, won’t rely on others
Get this power to wipe out the havoc and anarchy
This is my planet, gonna fight
I won’t be frightened, I’ll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
Just believe in myself, won’t rely on others
Freedom will be waiting when serenity is restored
This is my planet, I shall not surrender

Yeah! Will not surrender, no.. yeah
(Do the guitar solo)

Gimme some grapes… I’m done

The new verses were all written by Shao, and they’re amazing. He couldn’t have done a better job! We’ll definitely get back together again for you sometime in the future. 🙂

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Download (End card acoustic short: Sonic 3 Credits)

A common name that came up whenever I’d discuss collaboration suggestions is Jazz VGM remixer Carlos Eiene, aka InsaneInTheRainMusic. I reached out to him a few months ago and he said he’d get back with me, and recently he did just that.

We discussed what we could do and we expanded on an idea I initially had: since our two styles are so different, I thought it’d be really cool to release either the same song or different songs from the same game on each of pir channels at the same time, a jazz remix featuring myself on his channel, and a rock/metal remix on my channel featuring Carlos. We talked for a while about what game to pull from and among those was Sonic, since we have a lot of Sonic fans in our fanbases, when we got this great idea to take a Sonic 3 song, since most had Act 1 and Act 2 arrangements, and do one of those, ultimately deciding on Hydrocity since it’s a kickass song.

My approach to the Act 2 arrangement was to make it sound like a Mario Kart 8 song. MK8 arrangements have a strong fusion sound, and there are quite a few with back-and-forth lead guitar and sax work (IE, the F-Zero arrangements). I also took a few elements from Carlos’s Act 1 arrangement and incorporated them into Act 2 for that… Act 2 feel (I guess that’s what I’d call it, haha).

This remix was a ton of fun and we will for sure get together again for you all sometime in the future. Also, here’s the Jazzy Act 1 arrangement in case you missed it!

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Download (End card acoustic short: FIGHT!! Version #3)

GaMetal visits the world of Grandia for this remix of FIGHT!! Version #3 from Grandia II!

I’ll be real with you, I don’t know much about Grandia, but what I do know is that has some really great songs. Grandia II has a few different FIGHT!! songs, and this is one of my favorites.

I… really don’t have much to say about this one haha. It’s a really cool song though, hope you like it! 😀

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After sinking hundreds of hours into Splatoon 2, I think we’re about due for a Splatoon 2 remix. So let’s get started with the Phase 2 theme of the final boss fight: Tidal Rush!

Before Splatoon 2, the squid sisters released their own solo songs: Bomb Rush Blush (Callie) and Tide Goes Out (Marie). This song is a final-boss themed mashup of those 2 songs.

In this remix, the main melody of Tide Goes Out is represented by the guitar and Bomb Rush Blush with the keys/synths. With the exception of a spot towards the middle where I switched it up for a section.

For the end of the song, I threw in Calamari Inkantation. It made sense since this is a combination of Callie and Marie’s solo songs, and Phase 3 of the final boss has a remix of Calamari Inkantation.

I’ll definitely be returning to Splatoon 2 eventually. There’s a few other songs I’d like to do from the soundtrack. Until then, stay fresh!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Bumpsy Plains 1)

Showtime!

Here’s the last remake for this year’s May Madness (today’s May 46th), hailing from 2013 GaMetal, weighing in at 500 lbs… In the Final!

We previously called this one Dark Star Core, because I wasn’t aware of the In the Final name. It’s also appeared in Smash titled The Grand Finale, but these days I’ve mostly seen it called In the Final (which I’m assuming is a direct translation), so we’re going with the more popular name of the two.

I wasn’t aware this was a song people were wanting to see remade until I left a comment gathering remake suggestions for this year, and also in a May Madness discussion post on Patreon. While it wasn’t #1, it was a lot more than I was expecting.

The 2013 arrangement I made has always been one of my favorite pre-2015 GaMetal songs, and it’s also (as of this writing) the #3 most viewed GaMetal song of all time. Because so many people liked the first remix, I didn’t change too much. Most of what I did differently this time around was adding things to the background rhythm. For starters, I threw the choir section back in (which I’m not sure I had in the 2013 remix). There’s also this sort of chromatic plucking harmony line in the original that I wasn’t aware of till listening to it recently that I’ve added, it’s in the staccato sections (25-30 seconds in and the other times it does this). It’s extremely subtle, but it makes a difference.

I also changed up the rhythm pretty drastically on sections that are the last part of the original song (before it loops), IE the section between 1:16 – 1:27. For some stupid reason I left these sections sounding pretty empty in the 2013 remix, so I filled it up this time.

The guitar solo from the 2013 GaMetal remix has always been one of my favorites that I’ve written, so I kept it almost exactly the same here.

I had a lot of emphasis on keeping this close to the 2013 version, another thing I did was used the exact same piano sound when the piano and strings take over at 2:46. Specifically, it’s the acoustic piano from the Korg Triton LE. I tried it with the Piano’s I use these days, but it just didn’t have that same effect.

We’ve sure had a lot of Mario & Luigi stuff lately! Maybe Antasma will show up one of these days.

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Download (End card acoustic short: Rocket Barrel)

Ah yes, a true softer song. This year’s May Madness has had a lot of rather laid-back songs (Rainbow Road Wii… Fly to Live… Meridian Dance to an extent), but now we’re laying all the way back with this one from DKC2.

Mining Melancholy was previously featured in the SNES Medley from 2015, which coincidentally is also where our medley remix from last year’s May Madness (Ridley’s Theme) came from. It’s feels pretty similar to Stickerbush Symphony, another song I previously did a softer remix of. DKC songs just seem to be made for softer styles.

I made sure to include a million different anvil and metal hits for this once, since I feel they are the most important part of the original. I also did something odd and let the bass play the melody at 1:27. In the original, it’s sort of this low choir sounding thing, so I thought a lower instrument should take over that section.

I think I’ve ended up liking this song more than Stickerbush, to be honest. 😮

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Download (End card acoustic short: Fly to Live I)

I know what you’re thinking: I’m hungry, I should get something to eat. Or maybe What on earth is this song?

This song is from an old shoot-em-up arcade game called Thunder Dragon 2, and if you’re wondering why it did it.. well it won a Patreon drawing! But don’t let the obscurity fool you, this is a great tune.

The original has sort of a relaxing, flying-through-the-air-casually-shooting-down-planes-without-a-care-in-the-world feel to it, that I attempted to keep going in this remix.

It reminds me of a more laid back After Burner. Give it a try!