ReMix: Shining Force 'Armageddon'

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Mr. GrayLightning sends us our first ReMix from the first Shining Force game, for the Genesis, which starts off dramatic and stays that way. The ReMixer writes:

" The original is orchestral, military type oriented. I have kept the orchestral style pretty similar but expanded it greatly into a more symphonic form. There's lots of articulation usage of various instrumentation that ranges from typical orchestral fare to even a new ageish middle section with pads. There's also choir and a crazy amount of drums and various percussion. This is easily some of my most complex work on a mix so far with around 50-60 midi tracks."

Prominent + dominant percussion is the flavor of the day, with gradually crescendoing vocal shouting that recalls some of the score from LOTR; very primal and apocryphal. At 1'25" there's a VERY slick transition into a mellow break with great triplet-laden slapped percussion, getting back into the more apocalyptic motifs towards the second-minute mark. Flute flares, running strings, increasingly tense layered percussion, church bells, and more all lead up to a final brief isolated fanfare and resolution. This is a mix that handles a specific problem very well - how does one construct a building, suspenseful, urgent orchestral composition that also has some breaks into varied, more deliberate portions, without losing momentum? GL handles this with excellent transitions, using a plethora of bombastic percussion to great advantage in rapidly transforming the tone and direction. The energy levels here are amazing, and indicate the astounding and highly successful transformation the mixer himself has made from making primarily laid back, new-age compositions to being able to put together a Carl Orff-inspired arrangement of this nature. It takes the ball from the original and truly runs with it, adding cataclysmic choral work, deep and sinister lower orchestral timbres, chromatic and unpitched percussion of all shapes and sizes, and the willingness to pull some tricky transitions to make the piece more interesting. A new level for GrayLightning, at least in the orchestral realm, and an inspired juggernaut of an arrangement for Shining Force.

― djpretzel