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Super Mario RPG’s most beloved song returns for the #1 most requested old GaMetal remake of May Madness 2022: Beware the Forest’s Mushrooms!

Beware the Forest’s Mushrooms placed #1 on both the public and Patreon May Madness voting forms, and by a fairly large margin at that.

I was actually pretty surprised to see this one voted so strongly at the top, but with Super Mario RPG being one of my favorite game soundtracks and all, I’ll definitely take it.

Most of this arrangement is based off of my old 2014 remix. The most major change this time around is a different intro, and I raised the key back up to the original.

Enjoy! 🙂

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At long last… Kingdom Hearts FINALLY arrives to the GaMetal channel, here’s The 13th Struggle from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories!

It’s been a long time coming. For the past 2 years of the GaMetal Song Ballot, Kingdom Hearts has been one of the most requested series that had not yet received a GaMetal remix.

To celebrate Sora’s inclusion into Smash (a little late, I know), I decided to finally get a KH song done. The requests for KH songs from both comments and the ballots has always been spread out among several songs, to where there wasn’t a clear outlier, so I chose to hold a GaMetal Discord Request Battle to narrow it down to one.

Like some of our recent request battles, I had everyone submit their most wanted KH song (up to 2), and pit the top 2 songs against each other. It came down to The 13th Struggle and Rage Awakened, so those 2 faced off in the official battle, with 13th taking the victory 81 to 67.

While this song originates in KH: Chain of Memories, this arrangement is based off of the Kingdom Hearts II version.

So… sorry to keep you waiting so long Kingdom Hearts fans, this ones for you!

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Falcom music, yay!

This is our second song of May Madness 2022 that first appeared in a GaMetal medley, a quite recent one actually. Valestein Castle from Ys III: Wanderers from Ys was a part of last year’s NEStalgia IX (NES Medley #9). When I asked what song from the medley people would like to hear a full version of the most, this one came up a ton.

And those of you who wanted a full version stuck to your guns and voted for it in the May Madness 2022 ballot, where it placed #2 in the Patreon ballot and #5 in the public ballot.

Just to be a little bit different from the awesome Oath in Felghana version, I instead based this arrangement mostly off of the NES and PC Engine CD versions.

Enjoy!

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Here’s our first song of May Madness 2022 that isn’t a remake of a previously full remix, but a song that was a part of an old GaMetal medley that many have wanted a full version of ever since: Solar Inferno (Solar Man Stage) from Mega Man 10!

This song had an appearance in my 2013 Mega Man Mega Medley. Ever since, I’ve had requests to do a full version, and as much as I love this song after hearing for the first time (specifically for doing it for that medley)… I never got around to it.

But this year, after nabbing the #2 spot in the public May Madness remake ballot, you’ve left me no choice… and I’m glad! This song is awesome.

I started this song off with a quick nutty tapping solo, inspired by EVH’s Eruption. Because you know… eruption… inferno… hehe haha.

Great tune and easily my favorite from MM10. We sure have had a lot of Mega Man this year, haven’t we?

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Man, me and this song go way back.

You might know that I did Hyrule Temple (or Palace Theme, whichever you want to call it) back in 2013, and you might also know that was a remake of a version I did in 2010… which might lead you to believe this is my 3rd Hyrule Temple remix. But actually, this is one of the first game songs I EVER made a cover of, before GaMetal even existed. I’m talking -before- 2009, I can’t remember the year exactly, but it was sometime between 2005-2008. In fact, I still have it. It’s right here if you want to hear it.

So here we are, back at the Temple for the fourth time.

I was always really happy with the arrangement I made in 2010. So much so, I changed very little when remaking it in 2013, and yet again I’ve changed little here 9 years after that one. My original aim was to make a Black Mages style arrangement, giving it a sort of progressive metal feel.

I even kept a lot of the old synth sounds I used in the 2010 and 2013 versions, most notable the intro and synth lead break.

Aside from maybe a few minor changes to the guitar solo (and of course, hopefully, the performance and mixing being better 😅), not much else is different from my old arrangements.

Oh and since I mentioned it in the last two song posts, I might as well say it here too, this is another one I’ve been wanting to remake over the last few Mays, but it’s barely missed the cut each time!

As an added bonus, ZeldaDungeon.net’s Kora Burton recently posted an article about this remix, so much love to both ZeldaDungeon and Kora for the kind words!

I wish Nintendo would remake Zelda II already…

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Rusty Bucket Bay from Banjo-Kazooie returns as our second remake of May Madness 2022!

This was the first BK (Burger King) song I did, back in 2014. Like Cradle, this is another song that’s barely missed the cut for May Madness remaking over the last few years. This year, however, May Madness voting put this song in 3rd place on both the public and Patreon ballots, which was definitely high enough to earn it a confirmed spot in this year’s remake roster.

The most notable change I made this time around was scrapping the old intro I had made in 2014 (didn’t like how it flowed). Everything else is mostly similar to that arrangement, with the usual minor tweaks here and there.

And of course, I kept the fast upbeat feel of my old arrangement.

Till next time, Banjo-Kazooie!

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It’s May, and you know what that means… GaMetal May Madness is here!

And if you don’t know what that means… well, every year in May, I go back and remake a few songs that I remixed several years ago (prior to 2015). Why? Well, my hope is that I’ve improved at least slightly over the last 7+ years, so hopefully I can make my old arrangements sound far better than they did previously!

This year we’re kicking it off with a song that’s been barely missing the cut for a remake over the last few Mays (and there’s quite a few of those this year): Cradle from the N64 classic Goldeneye 007!

I was fairly happy with my old arrangement, so there’s not much changed with the song structure here. The biggest change you might notice immediately is that I bumped the key back up to the original (E instead of Eb). Probably the next biggest change after that is several tweaks to the guitar/synth solo section.

I’ve always really loved this song and felt it fell under the radar as far as GE64 songs go. Doing this one really makes me want to do Dam sometime soon!

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It’s another Fire Emblem collaboration! This time we’re joined by the wonderful Psamathes for a rockin’ version of the Fire Emblem Fates song Lost in Thoughts All Alone!

This song has become a bit of a meme in the GaMetal Patreon community (shameless plug, come join us!), as I’ve had it on the to-do list after it was pulled from a Patreon stream for a very, very long time. Eventually I stopped dragging my feet, reached out to Psamathes who I felt would be a great fit for this track, and finally got this one finished.

For the guitar rhythms, I drew a lot of inspiration from my inner Randy Rhoads, and tried to emulate a feel similar to the iconic Goodbye to Romance.

The vocal stylings of Psamathes, of course, are front and center and the most essential part of this arrangement. She did a phenomenal job and I couldn’t have asked for better!

So for those of you who knew this was eventually coming, apologies for keeping you waiting so long, but I hope this was worth the wait. Enjoy! 🙂

PS: Be sure to show Psamathes some love for this one!

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We’re taking on the Four Fiends of Final Fantasy IV with this remix of Battle With the Four Fiends (The Dreadful Fight)! This is a song I’ve been meaning to get around to for a loooong time.

Battle With the Four Fiends made a brief appearance back in the 2015 GaMetal SNES Medley, but that was just a small taste of what could be. I’ve covered a lot of the classic FF battle themes at this point, leaving only a few left to eventually get to. In fact, this song might very well be the most requested 2D-era Final Fantasy battle theme at the moment.

Well, you know I always have a blast covering Final Fantasy music. So I hope you have a blast listening to it!

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Ok ok, here’s the actual [Irresistible Deal] you’ve all been waiting for. 🤪

Deltarune Chapter 2 came out not too long ago, and with that, of course, came a flood of Deltarune requests. A little while after the game’s release, the world fell in love with newest addition to the cast, Spamton, and requests for the Spamton Neo fight theme, BIG SHOT, spiked to the point where it was arguably the hottest request of over the last several months.

In fact, this song has been so highly requested, it’s been the main reason for me holding off on the 2022 GaMetal Song Ballot. I knew this one would take the #1 spot, and I prefer a little more unpredictability just for the heck of it.

As luck would have it, a new Kirby game ended up being revealed and released within that small time span, which somewhat foils my completely unpredictable ballot results plan. Ah well. (Ballot goes live in May this year, by the way!)

Since Deltarune’s release and BIG SHOT’s rise in popularity, I’ve had a bit of an inside joke to refer to the song as the Fatal Fury Big Shot!, and had mentioned how it’d be funny to release a remix of that Big Shot instead of the Deltarune one.

I wasn’t exactly sure when I’d get this remix (the Deltarune one) done, but when it got closer to April, I decided there would be no better time to release Fatal Fury Big Shot! than on April Fool’s Day, with Deltarune BIG SHOT immediately following it.

Alright, actual song notes… this is a crazy song with a million different things going on, and it ended up taking me a lot longer to put together than I had anticipated.

It was pointed out to me that a lot of people have been passing up the opportunity to use NOW’S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A as an intro piece, so I made sure to do that. I only did about half of it (the ‘now’s your chance to be a bit shot!’ vocal section comes in normally where I transitioned into the actual BIG SHOT). I’ve seen some saying it sounds very much like Primus, which wasn’t my intention, but yes it absolutely does sound Primus-like, haha.

It was imperative to me that the vocals were included, it’s arguably one of the most important parts of the original track, including the hard to distinguish talking at 1:40, which many talented folks have done a spectacular job at isolating from the original track and interpreting (which was a HUGE help).

Now that this one’s done, I can release the 2022 GaMetal Song Ballot… soon anyway! As I mentioned above, it’ll go live in May, so keep your eye’s peeled and remember to [Like and Subscribe] for more [Hyperlink Blocked]!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Big Shot!)

At long last, the most requested GaMetal remix over the last several months is finally here… ladies and gentlemen: Big Shot!

I know! I was just as stoked as you all were when Terry Bogard was revealed for Smash Ultimate. It seems it took a couple of years after the reveal for it to process for us completely, but when it did, EVERYONE started requesting Terry’s infamous theme “Big Shot!” from Fatal Fury 3.

The flood of Big Shot requests really appeared to start last September, so I’m also assuming people were stoked for Fatal Fury’s 20th anniversary, which came up a couple of months later in November.

Apologies for being a little late to the celebration, but here it is. Enjoy!!!! 😀

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Download (End card acoustic short: Flash in the Dark)

Mega Man has consistently ranked in the top 5 most requested series every GaMetal Song Ballot, but the individual votes are always spread among various songs, to the point of no particular song being a clear favorite.

So, I decided to hold a special Robot Master Request Battle tournament on the GaMetal Discord server to figure out what the most popular Robot Master themes truly were. After several rounds, Tornado Man made it into the finals as the underdog candidate, going as far as taking the odds-on favorite Galaxy Man into a sudden death round and securing the victory.

And thus, here we are, with today’s Tornado Man remix.

I hope it blows you away!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Between Two Worlds [Night])

It’s JRPG time! Here’s a killer track from the Super Famicom game Treasure of the Rudras, Surlent’s boss fight theme “Spirit Chaser”!

You may not be too familiar with Treasure of the Rudras (or Treasure of Rudra), as it’s never officially left Japan, but hopefully we can use our power of VGM-cover-game-summoning to bring an official translation overseas.

This game has a spell system (“Mantra”) where you make spells using different words that you input yourself. Different words render different results. This really neat system could be what prevented the game from being released outside of Japan, as it’d have to be reworked to make sense in different regions.

Anyway, it’d awesome to see this game remade and released worldwide sometime. Oh yeah, and of course, the soundtrack, composed by Ryuji Sasai who you might know from our familiar friend Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, is great as well! 🙂

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It dawned on me recently that I haven’t covered an Elite Four theme yet, so I figured I could start with one of the best ones: Hoenn’s Elite Four Theme!

And yes: the iconic Hoenn Horns are present! I used a mixture of soundfonts and some Roland SC88 synths (which is the original source of a lot of the Ruby/Sapphire samples). It would’ve felt blasphemous to not include them in some capacity.

It’s always a blast covering Pokémon stuff, there’s still a ton I’d like to get to eventually, so till then! 🙂

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We’ve been on a bit of an SNES JRPG kick lately, so how about another Shin Megami Tensei song? For our second song from the SMT series, we’re taking on the Battle Theme from Shin Megami Tensei II !

I’m not sure what else to say aside from simply… this is an awesome normal battle theme! I didn’t really have to add much, I did some choir chants at the 00:53-1:26 section (and the other time it does this in the song later).

I also throw in a reference that you may or may not have noticed the first time around: the rhythm section from 2:20-2:33 is the Level Up theme!

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Download (End card acoustic short: Wind Spirit Shrine)

Let’s take a trip to Rune Factory’s Wind Spirit Shrine!

It’s a good song from a good series. That’s all ya need to know!

Also, fun fact: this song later appeared in Rune Factory 4 as the Idra Cave theme. 🙂

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It’s Wood Man! >:]

Really though, this has always been one of my favorite MM2 Robot Master themes. I’d probably put it at #2 behind Flash Man.

I had been planning on doing a Robot Master Request Battle Tournament in the GaMetal Discord for the past few weeks (which I just started last week, as of this post). Before the tournament started, I decided to get this remix together and up real quick. I’m not sure if Wood Man would’ve exactly won the tournament if he were an eligible contestant, but I felt there was a high chance he could, and since I like the song so much anyway, I decided to go ahead and get it done beforehand.

More Mega Man is coming very soon, via that request battle tourney I just mentioned!

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We’re back on a mystical quest to take a trip to Doom Castle from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest!

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest has a killer soundtrack. There’s really not much else to say. I’m surprised we haven’t done more from this OST yet, but this is a damn good candidate for the second remix, the first of which being Battle 1 back in 2018.

And you gotta admit, Doom Castle is a pretty awesome name.

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CATCH THOSE PUPPIES!!

Every year since 2014, I’ve let my wife choose a song to get covered for Valentines Day. This year, she’s decided to go with her favorite song from one of her favorite childhood games: the Toy Store theme from 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue, a game that’s story is unrelated to the actual movie.

Who doesn’t like puppies?

Happy Valentines Day from the Atma family! 🙂