ReMix: Lufia & The Fortress of Doom 'Metastatic Bloodline'

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If for nothing else - and there's a whole host of other reasons - you have to admire Darangen for his consistency: he's been putting out mixes on a pretty regular interval for quite some time now, and they've consistently been keepers. Here he turns his shredding attentions to Lufia:

"I've played with these themes for what seems like a thousand times already, but the originals still hit home with me no matter how many times I've listened to them. Plus I've always wanted to get a Lufia mix up on OCR. This isn't really a hard-rock arrangement, even though it has some grungy guitar-work. I don't really know what to classify it as, it's just music. Hope you like it."

Also has some Cream-style electric wah soloing, which is always fun. Shiono's Lufia scores are indeed memorable; it was impressive for Sunsoft to have gotten so many things right, including the music, with an entry into a genre which for them was relatively unfamiliar - same goes for Waku Waku 7. That being said, though, I think perhaps the biggest thing this mix has going against it is a similarity to many of the ReMixer's other efforts, most of which had something that set themselves apart, some salient element that made them more singular. JJT says it well:

"this doesn't have flawless execution or production, but that's not enough to sway my vote. the drum sequencing isn't spectacular, but the track has a good performance and a good arrangement."

Several judges took issue with the drums, which I didn't think were particularly good or bad, but I think on the whole the production wasn't out of the ordinary relative to Michael's work, which I hold in pretty high regard. Instead, I think the arrangement could have used something... more. So as not to speak in convenient vagueness, specifically the dynamic remains too static for too long a period - I think a drop-out and build-up would have emphasized the kicking of guitar posterior more than keeping things in-your-face the vast majority of the time, and sometimes the accompaniment gets overpowered. This is important, because by now we all know Mike can play, and I think the more his accompanying arrangements, i.e. the non-guitar elements, improve, the more complete his arrangements will become. In this case, the end result was still seriously rockin' and certainly not to be overlooked, and Lufia fans, rock fans, and most in general will dig, but the powerful guitars could have shared a bit more space and time with their supporting cast, so as to better the ensemble.

― djpretzel