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And to finish off returning songs for the year (for now!), here’s a song I came very close to revisiting last year: Never Turn Back from Shadow the Hedgehog.

This one has always had a bit of a presence in May Madness remake voting, and as I just mentioned, I was going to do it in 2022, but opted for Supporting Me instead. Honestly, I wasn’t too familiar with any songs from Shadow the Hedgehog until I did this song for the first Sonic Fan Medley in 2014 (where all songs were chosen from fan submissions at random, this being one of the songs chosen). Since this is the credits theme, I used it to end off that medley, and as with most medley songs, people have been asking for a full version ever since.

Well here we are with the full version almost 10 years later!

There are mainly 2 major changes in this arrangement: I arranged the piano intro into an acoustic guitar variant, and I added a guitar solo section later on in the song (which I was surprised to realize wasn’t present in the original).

It appeared a lot of newer GaMetal fans and those unfamiliar with May Madness voting were anticipating an I Am… All of Me cover when the end card silhouette was revealed in the previous song. I will say I’m a huge fan of that song so, who knows… maybe someday!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Mt. Pyre Exterior)

And the most requested song from this year’s May Madness ballot was…. Battle! Champion Iris from Pokémon Black 2 / White 2!

And as is tradition, I didn’t finish the last couple of songs until June. Oh well!

This has always been one of my favorite champion themes, and I like it even more now after covering it. It has this unique, magical feel to it compared to the other champion themes.

I let the synth lead handle most of the first half, since this is another song I’ve always felt this song deserved to be more synth-centric. I had considered adding in the new section from the Masters arrangement, but decided to do my own thing instead. I did, however, borrow some inspiration from that arrangement when I added the buildup later on in this version.

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Download (End card acoustic short: Sending a Dream into the Universe)

After a long sleep… the time… has come…
I’ve done pretty much all my favorite Final Fantasy songs at this point, but there’s still a few that I’ve been meaning to get to… and JENOVA is one of them. I used this song to close out the 2021 PSX Medley which went over well enough to get a lot of you voting for it to make a reappearance in full form for May Madness.

There some brilliant JENOVA remixes out there, the two that instantly come to mind are the Black Mages and Advent Children version (both fairly similar, with AC being knocked down a few steps in key). I knew these versions would be the one this arrangement would be compared to, so I opted to stick with a feel closer to the original version. Not because I have an issue with those versions (they’re probably my personal favorite versions really), I just wanted to be a lil’ different.

That said, I knew as I knocked the key down a step halfway through this arrangement, that people would immediately think of the AC version.. but there’s nothing wrong with that! 😜

 

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Download (End card acoustic short: Greedy Game)

 

 

 

Digging once more into the GaMetal medley catalog for May Madness 2023, we have the song that I used to close out the Sega Genesis Medley from 2017: Ristar’s final boss theme, Greedy Game.

I did nearly the entire song in that medley halved the intro section there), but this here is the full, FULL treatment that many of you were wanting.

I always felt it was weird that the original song ends by looping back to the intro, which is much slower in tempo compared to the point where everything goes full speed, so I opted against revisiting the intro and instead kept the party going after the first loop.

Now I just need an official Ristar resurrection and OST release and we’ll be good to go!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Surface of SR388)

 

Back in 2011 I made my first Metroid remix: a combination of the Title Theme and Brinstar. It sounds like I slapped a bunch of bs together and sped it up a little bit.

This time around, I still slapped a bunch of bs together, but in a more structured way and closer to the original tempo.

But in all seriousness… my early versions of this arrangement did not include the Title Theme, as I didn’t originally intend to have it be a part this time around, but later on, I decided to go ahead and include it because 1. Brinstar is short and 2. it’s a cool-ass song.

I try not to do directly-Smash-based arrangements these days, but I did take a lot of inspiration from the SSB Melee version of Brinstar for this arrangement as it seems to be most peoples favorite version (mine included). It has a certain adventurous vibe to it that feel best encapsulates the song.

Remember this at the end of the 2011 Brinstar video? 😅

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Download (End card acoustic short: Geist Race)

 

Up third in this year’s May Madness remake lineup is none other than…. Popful Mail??

A quick recap on how May Madness works for those new to these parts (welcome!): every May I go back and remake some songs that I did several years ago during GaMetal’s early years to give them an improved (hopefully!) makeover. Some of these are songs I did in full, some are songs that only appeared as part of a medley. A month or so prior to May, I take votes from people on which old GaMetal songs they’d like to see return, in two different forms: a public form for everyone (posted on Youtube and my other social media accounts), and a second form for the GaMetal Patreon.

Most of the time the two forms have similar songs towards the tops, but every now and then the Patrons like to throw us a curveball, and this year’s happened to be Popful Mail’s Destiny, which in itself was a bit of an unexpected entrant in the 2015 SNES Medley.

Destiny is a bit of an interesting song from the Falcom Sound Team catalog. It comes from the game Popful Mail, which appears on a few different platforms, but Destiny is only present on the Super Famicom version.

Which is a real shame… because it’s a really cool song! The SFC version to this day has not received any sort of translation, but there is an english version of Popful Mail that was made for Sega CD (though not a direct port, as there are several changes).

Maybe someday the series can return, or the SFC can get a real translation. Till then, we have this arrangement!

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

 

 

Second up in this year’s May Madness line-up: Fighting of the Spirit from Tales of Phantasia!

….or Symphonia, take your pick.

Tales is a series that I keep sticking songs from in medleys (GameCube… PSX… SNES), and have only done one full remix for (Fury Sparks). Well no more! For the last few years, it’s barely been missing the cut for a May Madness remake, but with the recent release of the Tales of Symphonia remaster earlier this year, it absolutely had to be done now.

My song research indicated that most people’s favorite section of FotS is the part that comes in around 1:09 of this arrangement, so I tried to put some extra emphasis on that part by doubling it up and using the first half as a build-up of sorts.

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May Madness 2023 kicked off this year with this remake of Dark World from A Link to the Past!

I first did this song back in 2011. As with pretty much all of my material from that era, it’s absolutely terrible and mega cringe for me to listen to, so I didn’t listen to it more than a single time for reference purposes.

The one idea I did keep from that old version was using the Dark World teleportation jingle for the intro.

I was gonna do this one later in the month, but since Tears of the Kingdom just released recently, I figured I’d go ahead and do it first in May to celebrate!

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Download (End card acoustic short: MMX Staff Roll)

I finally got around to doing my favorite Mega Man X song… Boomer Kuwanger!

I’ve done this song in a couple of medleys in the past (MMX Maverick Medley and Mega Man Mega Medley II), but have always put off doing it on it’s own. I even have an old unfinished version that I started working on several years ago.

I’ve always seen this as a synth-centric song, so I had the melody handled entirely by a synth lead for the first loop, the guitar handles the rest of the song.

Maybe one of these days I’ll do an X song from X2 or X3.

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Download (End card acoustic short: Luma)

There had been some recent rumblings in the GaMetal community that we were lacking mainline Mario songs…. so to help with this matter, I held a mainline-Mario themed GaMetal Discord Request Battle to determine what exactly the most requested mainline Mario song is and get it done.

In the end, it came down to Super Mario Galaxy’s Buoy Base Galaxy and Super Mario Odyssey’s Break Free (Lead the Way), with Buoy Base taking the victory with 59% of the vote.

For this arrangement, I also merged in parts based on the “In Water” version of Buoy Base, to complete a full on Buoy Base In Your Face remix.

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Download (End card acoustic short: Waltz of the Troupple King)

 

 

We’re back in the realm of Shovel Knight to take on one of the series’ most requested songs: High Above the Land!

This one also features the alternate Propeller Knight stage arrangement, A Cargo of Fineries, from the Specter of Torment campaign. The Cargo arrangement isn’t too different from the original, with the major differences being some changes to the rhythm section, and a small new section later on in the song.

For shovelry!

 

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Download (End card acoustic short: SMW Map 2)

 

 

 

With every new Mario game that comes out, we’re reminded of the wickedness that is the almighty King Bowser and his villainous ways. But do you remember one of his wildest schemes?

It was to melt Antarctica with hairdryers, thereby flooding Earth. Which means that Bowser was trying to end the very world we live in.

Thus, we’re officially dubbing this maniacal incarnation of the Koopa King: Apocalypse Bowser.

This arrangement features both the NES and SNES versions of the final battle theme from Mario is Missing! (and of course the MS-DOS version, which uses the SNES song). On top of that, I’ve thrown in several references to other Bowser-related songs. Can you find them all? I’d tell you what all of them are…. but it’s more fun this way!

Oh and if you don’t believe me on that whole story… go play the game. Or you could look up the story too, that might be easier. 😜

 

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Download (End card acoustic short: Valedictory Elegy)

 

 

 

 

BATEN KAITOS REMASTERS COMING LETS GO!!

If you’re a fan of Motoi Sakuraba soundtracks, the Baten Kaitos series holds some of his best work, so I highly suggest you check it out if you’re not familiar with it. Think of Golden Sun with guitars.

This song was already banger so I didn’t really change a whole lot around here. I extended the guitar solo section a little bit, as it felt just a little bit too short in the original.

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(End card acoustic short coming soon!)

 

 

 

Hey, it’s that awesome SNK RPG that was on the NES… Crystalis!

This is one of my personal favorite NES titles. If you’re a fan of classic top-down Zelda like games and haven’t played Crystalis, it’s on Nintendo Switch Online’s NES catalog… so go play it! It’s one of the best NES games around.

On top of being a ton of fun, the game has a wonderfully composed soundtrack. Wild Fields (which I’m pretty sure is a fan name, but it’s known well enough that we’re gonna roll with it) is the main overworld theme. But this arrangement is a little bit more than just a Wild Fields remix. I’ve thrown in a few nods to some other Crystalis tracks as well. The most obvious one being the Cave 3 theme for the guitar solo section, but there’s a quick amalgamation of 3 others I used for the intro: Semia’s Theme, the Title Theme and the Main Menu Theme.

Go play it, I’m serious. 😶

 

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Download (End card acoustic short: Pop Star)

 

 

Get ready to ROCK with this GaMetal remix of Rock Star from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards! Because you’re all Rock Stars!

And because apparently I don’t do enough Kirby stage themes, according to some folks (the Waddle Dees on my desk).

This is one of those Kirby stage songs that I always forget is really good. Actually, the whole Kirby 64 OST is really good. Well… the whole Kirby discography. But I digress.

I’ve also gone the extra mile and included the Rock Star Select (Map) theme in the middle of this arrangement.

Enjoy, Rock Stars!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Misty Rain)

 

It’s time to Double Megamerge!

You know I’m always up for showing some underappreciated spinoff love here and there. I’ve done a couple of ZX/ZXA songs in the past (Misty Rain and Trap Phantasm), but those are both pretty old at this point, so I’m bringing us back to the ZX series with this arrangement of Determined Eyes from ZX Advent.

This may just be a cutscene song, but it’s a badass one. I had planned to use a little bit of gameplay footage in case I ran out of cutscene footage (shoutout to SolarZero for getting both), but lucky for us, Aile’s cutscene lasts a whole 2 hours longer than Vent’s 5 second transformation scene.

Only kidding of course. Aile’s cutscene is supposed to pay homage to the ‘magical girl transformation’ style, while Vent’s is Kamen Rider style.

This arrangement is mostly based on the ZXA Tunes arrangement, which adds some new guitar solo work. This version fades during the last new lead guitar bit though, so to make things a bit different, I extended the song beyond that section.

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Download (End card acoustic short: Inside Krazoa Palace)

 

 

A GaMetal tribute to the Nintendo GameCube. Get into it!

All songs featured in this medley:

• 00:00 GameCube Startup
• 00:05 Opening (Super Smash Bros. Melee)
• 00:52 Hyrule Field (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)
• 01:22 The Great Sea (The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)
• 01:48 Delfino Plaza (Super Mario Sunshine)
• 02:15 X-Naut Fortress (Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door)
• 02:50 Divas (R: Racing Evolution)
• 03:20 Streets (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003)
• 04:00 Multiplayer Theme (Metroid Prime 2: Echoes)
• 04:40 Professor E. Gadd’s Lab (Luigi’s Mansion)
• 05:06 Aparoid Queen 1 (Star Fox Assault)
• 05:48 Bowser’s Castle (Mario Superstar Baseball)
• 06:27 Creature Montage (Pikmin)
• 07:02 Checker Knights (Kirby Air Ride)
• 07:44 Won’t Stop, Just Go! …for Green Forest (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)
• 08:28 Blazing Internet (Mega Man Network Transmission)
• 09:04 Captain Falcon Theme (F-Zero GX)
• 09:39 Fatalize (Tales of Symphonia)
• 10:25 World 8 – Clock Tower (Super Monkey Ball 2)
• 10:59 Baby Park (Mario Kart: Double Dash!!)

As with all of our console medleys over the last several years, this medley was assembled by GaMetal Patrons (hey you should become one https://www.patreon.com/jonnyatma ), who submitted almost every song that appears here. We then drew several random songs and I hand selected a few from the list that were from key games I wanted to be sure to include.

So this was technically supposed to be our second console medley last year, but as the end of the year got closer, I decided to do some other songs instead (like Team Star Boss) so I didn’t feel like I had to crunch at the end of the year as I’ve been doing in recent years. Medleys use up a lot of creative energy!

I’m really happy with how this medley came out. I put a little extra emphasis on having songs transition as smoothly as possible (only using hard transitions in a few spots). Opening (SSBM) was one of the drawn songs, and being from arguably the #1 GameCube title, it was a shoe-in for the opening spot.

No Zelda songs were drawn, so I was deciding between including either Twilight Princess or Wind Waker… I couldn’t make up my mind, so I just did both!

My personal oddball selection for this medley was definitely Captain Falcon’s Theme. No F-Zero GX song was drawn, and I wanted to include one. There’s a few that could’ve been included, but I thought this one would be most memorable.

Stacking with my playfulness of the Captain Falcon pick was my pick for the medley closer. Baby Park, with it’s constant escalation in tempo and franticness, fit the bill better than any other. I’ve always wanted to do this song in some way, and it made for the perfect GCN Medley closer, imo.

There’s always a game or series that might have missed the cut in these medleys (I can only do so many songs in a medley project before I go insane!), but I feel we’ve touched MOST of the important bases here. Besides, there could always be another medley in the future.

Enjoy this tribute to the Nintendo GameCube!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Emerald Hill Zone 2P)

 

 

Happy Valentines Day!

Every year I make an arrangement specifically chosen by my lovely wife Sharice. This is yet another song she’s selected from the Sonic 2 soundtrack, this time we’re hitting up the Special Stage theme!

As a classic Sonic fanatic I knew this song very well, and it’s always been one of my favorite special stage themes. It’s a bit on the shorter side, so I tried to give it a little extra length with a small new section mid-song, and a key change towards the end.

Also, we gave Tails some redemption in the gameplay footage here: instead of constantly hitting bombs, this time he avoids them!

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Hey! Do you like guitar solos? What about synth solos? Well, do I have the song for you! But one question:

Are you the boss?

Or are you just a +1?

If you’re a fan of Treasure games, you’re most likely familiar with Silhouette Mirage, the side scroller with an interesting mechanic where you use different types of attacks (Silhouette or Mirage) based on which direction Shyna (the protag) is facing.

And as with Treasure games, its accompanied by a really great soundtrack. This is the games boss song, and it’s chock full of zany whammy-filled guitar leads and synth leads. I also noticed while working on this: in the original, the synth lead is panned to the right, and the guitar lead is panned to the left. Not sure if that was supposed to be a way to acknowledge the Silhouette/Mirage attack mechanic of the game, but if it wasn’t, it’s definitely a cool coincidence.

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In a world full of rival themes, team themes, and champion themes… it’s nice to have something a little bit different for a change. Enter PWT Final Round! from Pokémon Black 2 and White 2!

I wasn’t really familiar with this song till recently, and my initial thought was that it was really cool and I was surprised I never heard it before. It grew on me even more as I worked on and finished this arrangement.

Honestly, it’s pretty typical Pokémon battle theme fare, but that doesn’t take away from it’s feelings of intensity and determination.

Plus, it seems the Pokémon community has determined Gen 5 was actually one of the best (if not THE best) Pokémon generations, right? 😜