City of Fire ~ Faeria  |  Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest  |  Yasuhiro Kawakami

Hi! Medium time listener (I followed after slarpg altered my brain chemistry), first timer asker! What is your process when it comes to composing for games? Is it any different when the subject changes (personal, commission, etc)?

hehehe, well i hope that alteration was a positive one! 😋

so i think there's kind of two sides to this: there's the creative process, and the collaborative process.

The Creative Process

my creative process is actually pretty similar whether i'm working on contract or for personal enjoyment.

first, i consider:

the needs of the prompt in front of me (is it a save menu or a boss battle? is it a tense scene is or a tender one?)

how it should fit into the bigger picture of the whole project (mood/tone, genre, leitmotifs, instrumentation, production style, etc)

what tools i will need to use (subtractive synth or sampler or soundfont or live recording?)

then, i typically write what i call a "skeleton:" just the barest bones of a piece of music. i almost always do this on piano, dividing the bass, harmony, and melody into very distinct registers. i do it this way for several reasons learned the hard way:

first, by dividing parts into clearly delineated registers, i'm saving myself a whole lot of trouble down the line. i have long had a bad habit of over-crowded arrangements, which besides being weaker from a composition standpoint, are also notoriously difficult to mix. and mixing is already hard enough as it is! so writing a strong and well balanced composition from the outset is the best way to go.

second: when you jump into arranging or mixing before the whole piece is written, it's much easier to get stuck. where should i take this track next? i dunno, guess i'll fiddle with the mix. suddenly a week's gone by and i'm still working on a half-written track. if i require myself to write the whole piece out first, then this bottleneck is almost always eliminated.

sometimes you can get really excited about an idea, get carried away with arranging and producing a whole track, get to feeling really attached to it—only for your collaborator to say it's just not the right direction. by limiting myself to one instrument, i don't put in a disproportionate amount of work before confirming whether or not the piece is actually a good fit. and bonus, if it's not a good fit then i have a piece of music written that can serve another project later (or another part of the current project, if i'm lucky)!

of course, i'm not always perfect about this. even very recently, i got really stoked about a track i was cooking up for susan taxpayer and went BANANAS with it—only for punkitt to say she loved it but it wasn't at all the right vibe. a hard but necessary reminder of why i try not to get carried away prematurely!

(don't worry, the one i made to replace it fit like a glove, and the first attempt is gonna be used elsewhere. love wins 😌)

once i do have confirmation that i'm headed in the right direction with an idea though, that's where i really get into it with choosing instruments, designing synths, figuring out the production style, etc. and there's where the real back-and-forth with my collaborator begins, to make sure things are staying on track every step of the way. that leads us to:

The Collaborative Process

for starters, and probably most obviously, different people are different to work with. everyone has different strengths and challenges both creatively and interpersonally, so i try to meet my collaborator where they're at and tune in to their specific needs, vision, and communication style. within reason, i try not to look at these things as being "better" or "worse" with one person versus another, just different!

i think the biggest differences for me as far as how much time and energy i invest into a project are A) whether it's paid or pro bono, and B) my own level of personal excitement about the project.

if i'm doing something purely for fun, it's pretty exclusively because i'm really hyped about the project. because, well, it wouldn't be fun if i weren't, right? and in that situation, i enjoy giving it my all! susan taxpayer falls firmly into this category, and i'm having a blast with it.

SLARPG started out pretty similarly, but as the scope of the project grew, it evolved into more of a pro bono arrangement; bobby and i drafted up a contract and negotiated on how we would split earnings from the game once it released, and that's where i've gotten the vast majority of my income this year. it remained a passion project til the end, but i could not in good conscience put that much of my life into a project of that size unpaid, no matter how much i loved it! (maybe one day, if we collectively defeat capitalism and i no longer have to worry about such things... 🥲)

things get a bit different when you get into strictly contract work, though. when it's something i'm doing for a client who's paying from the start and it's not for my own enrichment, i have more hard and fast boundaries on how much of myself i put into the project. i have specific rates, and offer only so many free revisions before charging additional fees. sure, i can be horribly particular and will revise something a bazillion times to get it "just right" if i'm working on a passion project, but i'm not about to do that for like. a corporate commercial or whatever lol

whether it's for fun or all business, though, i always try to make something i'm proud of. because i want whomever i collaborate with to have something they're happy with in the end, of course! plus i'm kind of allergic to phoning it in, i'm too extra for that 😜

________________

i'm sure i could go on, but i think i'll leave it at that! pardon the slow response, it took me some time to formulate my thoughts for this one. thanks for the question, and take care ^^ 🎵

As someone who I know is intricately familiar with Genesis music and the FM synth it uses; why is it that many people (including myself) enjoy the Genesis era Sonic music but when Jin Senoue tries to emulate that sound using Genesis synth samples (Sonic Superstars being the most recent example) it just doesn't sound very good? I know it's literally become a running joke in the community that Senoue uses the Genesis synth too much but it's not like Sonic 1 or 2 had bad soundtracks even though they used the same instrumentation, and Senoue is obviously a very talented composer, so I don't really understand why his attempts to emulate the Genesis soundtracks always turn out so mid.

The general theory I subscribe to is that with the soundtracks to Sonic 1, 2, and presumably even Sonic 3, those games were composed by people who were just writing "real" music. They would pick out real world instruments and write for that sound.

If you've never heard it before, for the 20th Anniversary, Sega put out a compilation soundtrack for Sonic 1 and 2, which included the original demo tracks Masato Nakamura wrote for those games.

Now these are basically just MIDI files, because they didn't need to be anything more than that. But you can tell he was thinking in terms of horn sections, bass guitar, and so on.

Nakamura would submit these MIDI songs on cassette to Sega, and Sega's sound engineers would transcribe those instruments into something that sounded appropriate for the Genesis hardware.

Now, Jun Senoue did the same thing, to a degree. Jun's first major Sonic soundtrack was Sonic 3D Blast on the Sega Genesis, and Jon Burton (of Traveler's Tales) revealed Jun's own demo cassette. If you listen to Jun's tracks, they're all done on the Honky Tonk/Rhodes piano. There's no attempt to utilize real world instruments or have any kind of sound diversity. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Instead of writing music for a band, he wrote music for an individual playing a keyboard.

Worse still, it has eventually been revealed as of Sonic Origins that Jun Senoue had very little awareness of how to make Genesis sounding music. Again, he only submitted his songs on cassette. He was not responsible for the FM Synthesis conversion, just the raw notes, which were all written on, and for, a keyboard.

(throwing the rest of this ask under a "read more" tag because it embeds a lot more videos and even some images)

So when it came time for Sonic 4, and they had Jun Senoue do the retro style soundtracks for those games, he was probably pretty out of his depth. He was writing for style of music he did not really have a nuanced understanding of.

So we get this crunchy, grating, disassociated "this is what the Genesis sounded like, right?" sort of sound. The musical equivalent of one of those early 2000's "How to Draw Manga" books: somebody who thinks they know what they're doing, has actual talent in other adjacent areas, but doesn't actually get this particular niche.

This is one of the reasons why I'm actually a little warmer towards Classic Sonic's music in Sonic Forces -- it's not Jun Senoue. Somebody on that project understood enough and had Naofumi Hataya handle a lot of Classic Sonic's music. He has actual experience with chiptunes and wrote something that feels like it belongs in a Sega System 32 arcade game or something.

Not every single one of Classic Sonic's songs are stone cold bangers in Forces, but at least they sound more authentically retro than Jun's attempts, because they were written by someone who knew what they were doing.

Beyond that, I don't know why Jun doesn't just, like... do better, in a sense. I suppose I don't know his composing environment and how easy or hard it is to slot in what he'd need to sound more "authentic." I just know from my own perspective how easy it is to grab a VST or a soundfont for common Genesis/Yamaha instruments.

But even then, more authentic instruments aren't going to solve the problem that this style of music doesn't seem to be his strong suit, even if somebody at Sega keeps pushing him to do it. Thankfully, I think somebody finally realized it, given how Sonic Superstars seemed to be full of his Sonic 4 style fake-retro music and most of it got replaced at the last second.

"Quickly" Reviewing Four Nine Inch Nails Albums

A few months ago Germs by Weird Al and Closer were stuck in my head for several days. On a gut intuition I said "Well, I obviously like this music, why not check out more Nine Inch Nails?"

Currently I am attempting to steal Trent Reznor's gender and haven't listened to much non-NIN music last few months. So I'd say I might be a big fan. Possibly.

I'd like to thank my new friend Gray for giving a very helpful recommendations on what albums to start with. <3

For this I'll start with the few negatives, then move on to the many positives. Because I like ending on a positive note. :) We'll also be going in the order I listened to them as opposed to order of release.

Pretty Hate Machine: 8/10

Negative: I find because nearly all the instruments are fairly simple synths and MIDI soundfonts, the sound can get kind of monotonous when you listen to the entire album in one sitting. A lot of it sounds like video game music from 1990-1995 to me, which is oddly distracting. On first listen I kept asking "Why does this sound like DOOM music?" To be honest, I found Down In It the weakest track. Rap is just not Trent's thing and I'm glad he didn't pursue it.

Positive: Despite the limitations, these are really well put together tracks! I think this a very solid album, especially considering at the time no one was using synths this way. The melodies also feel very unique and are usually why these songs get stuck in my head. I found myself liking the lyrics way more than I anticipated. Even though they are dripping with teenage or young adult angst, which I typically don't like. The emotions on display are so raw and pure it's hard to not feel empathetic. It's hard to choose, but I'd say Terrible Lie and Sin are the strongest tracks to me. Just generally really good tracks that are addicting to listen to.

The Downward Spiral: 10/10

Negative: It's not an album I can listen to just anytime. I kinda have to be in a bit of a bad mood. Sometimes I find myself skipping songs that are very emotionally intense, like Big Man With A Gun and Hurt, because I'm so worn out and just want to enjoy some music. This album does not have a weakest track in my opinion. Any "lazy" writing lyrically or musically feels very intentional.

Positive: The positives on this one are really endless for me. Good lyric after good lyric. Amazing melodies and harmonies one after the other. Auditory assaults and walls of noise that are fun to listen to. Sound design that makes it feel like a soundscape of the mind. And I love that there's a story on top of all that. I could make a whole post about each individual track. This album takes you on a roller coaster that only goes down. Strongest track is extremely hard to choose, but I always come back to The Becoming. The odd time signatures, long verses, the increasing intensity of the vocals, and the theme of becoming something cold, emotionless, robotic, and other is a perfect combination to me.

With Teeth: 9.5/10

Negative: Not a lot of negatives here. Kinda has a similar problem to Pretty Hate Machine with the instruments sounding similar, although not nearly so much so. Sometimes I wish there were more songs that lead into each other. Weakest track is very hard to choose, they're all very good. But I'll go with Beside You In Time for no reason other than the throbbing synths legitimately give me a headache. Wish I could enjoy this song. </3

Positive: I really love the prominence of piano in this album, as well as the vocal layering and distortion effects. I also like the usage of guitars across this album, often I can almost feel the air vibrating with the strings. The sparing usage of swear words also means I can play nearly the whole album at work without issue. Generally I like this album a lot. It feels like something simultaneously from the future and the past. Strongest track for me boils down to personal preference. So I'll go with either All The Love In The World or The Line Begins To Blur, in my opinion two of Trent's most beautiful songs. They need to be put in a museum of some sort forever.

The Fragile: 20/10

Negative: Not much to speak of here. Sometimes the intense layering of sound plus high volume makes it feel like my ear drums are going to explode, but that is to be expected with NIN so I'm used to it. Can't name a weakest track. I look forward to all of them. It's 20/10 for a reason.

Positive: This may be one of the best albums I've listened to in my entire life. Every track has something memorable and creative. All feel meticulously designed to convey not an emotion, but Trent's exact state of mind at that moment. The lyrics are sparser than usual, but oh so much more impactful when they do arrive. It feels painfully real and deeply personal. It's not just a story of what-ifs anymore, it's reality. This album is a lengthy, beautiful mess of ideas and emotions and I wouldn't have it any other way. It is the most human a piece of art can be. Strongest track I think is almost forced to be La Mer. It impacted me emotionally so greatly I wrote a whole post about it before writing this section. Realistically I could make a post about each track if I wanted to, there's so much to talk about for each one.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Hi, I LOVE your song called HEAVEN SAYS, so I was wondering what it was like making this song

Hello,

I wrote the original HEAVEN SAYS around a year ago as a Deltarune fan song because I had just played Chapter 2 and was thinking about other darkworlds and where they could take place in the town and I thought one in Toriel's classroom would be fun.

A little bit after that original version I made the remake that most people know because I wanted to try to make something simple to try out some new samples I found.

[HEAVEN SAYS. Remake project file]

As for making the song itself, I always wanted to use samples from a Speak and Spell in a song because I thought it had a really interesting sound and so I'm glad to have finally done it. I mainly just used FL Studio and a bunch of free soundfonts you can get online. Looking back at it now I think the song is a little simple and the melody really is almost non-existent, I'm not really sure if I even like this song anymore lol. But it has a vibe to it I guess and people seem to like it.

The lyrics really don't mean anything and I picked them almost at random with the limited words the speak and spell had. I also would have removed the direct Deltarune/Undertale reference in the lyrics had I known how popular it would be with people outside of that community.

The response to the song has really been overwhelming, which I mean it's not like a super popular song or anything but for me it has been a lot. I didn't want to write music because of the amount of attention it was getting it kinda spooked me. But I think it's good that people have been enjoying it (I mean mainly enjoying Gameplayah's cover lol). I've enjoyed seeing all the edits and covers people have made. I've also made some good friends through it like my friend Yuki who helped make some character designs for the song although we never really ended up finishing them... I still want to use something similar to these characters in a game I want to make but I don't know if I'll be able to finish it.

[Early concept art for characters to be the secret boss attached to HEAVEN SAYS by Yuki]

...But that's all I've got to say I guess. Thanks for your question!

ah geez. noticed something while listening through the soundtrack again. so as far as i’m aware “faint glow” (the chapter 2 menu music) is one of the only tracks in the game that uses a standard acoustic guitar soundfont (the others being “a town called hometown” and “you can always come home”). but i only just noticed that from around 0:00 - 0:51 that guitar is just like. having a conversation basically with a piano while they’re accompanied by sleigh bells and choral voice, instruments associated with the holiday sisters and gaster respectively. the guitar plays a lead in to the piano and the piano plays don’t forget. “faint glow.” …hm.

sure tell me about pokemon music! my favourite is the lake cavern theme from platinum with the piano intro!

Ohhhh that’s a good one!!! I love all the music associated with the Lake Guardians—it’s got fun modal mixture stuff which (to make a long and very nerdy explanation short) does some really interesting things with colors in my head :3 so I suppose I will respond in kind by telling you a few of my overall favorites! (I say “overall” because singling out one is virtually impossible. Pro-tip: NEVER ask a musician for their one singular favorite piece—some of them may have an answer for you but the vast majority of them will cry. Me included.)

Alola Region Theme ~ Pokemon Sun and Moon

I have a ridiculous amount of nostalgia for this theme despite Gen 7 only being two generations ago. I love the chanting in the intro and the melody is beautiful and memorable—it’s a leitmotif that gets reused in other parts of the soundtrack like the player’s home, the summit of Mount Lanakila (which houses the Pokemon League) and the end credits. It also ALWAYS takes me back to Sun and Moon hype season—I have very vivid memories of waking up to new trailers on Pokemon’s official YouTube channel and getting immeasurably excited, and they often used this theme which played a big part in that. Despite being a certified Music Bitch I’m not really the type of person who cries while listening to music that much, but this is one of those themes that CAN make me cry if I hear it at the right time. A bit odd considering this theme is nothing if not joyous but it is what it is.

Cynthia’s Theme ~ Pokemon Diamond and Pearl

This theme has been memed to hell and back because of Cynthia’s uncanny ability to strike fear into the hearts of children and adults alike with piano alone, but other than the initial jumpscare that those sixteenth-note triplet octaves in the bassline sometimes give me in the intro, I unironically think it’s a beautiful piece of music. To me it sounds like it could be a piece on the program of a piano student’s senior recital—I don’t know if I can ever hope to learn how to play it myself with how fast it is (not to mention my teeny tiny hands that can’t even reliably reach 9ths ;_;), but goddamn if I don’t want to try. Also obligatory shoutout to Volo’s battle theme from Legends Arceus because this is what it’s based on and it is excellent as well :3

Route 10 ~ Pokemon Black and White

This is my favorite route theme in the entire Pokemon franchise, no questions asked. It plays on the very last route you visit before challenging the Pokemon League and it’s got a bittersweet tone that complements that feeling perfectly. Unfortunately in Black and White 2 this route got destroyed in a landslide—but this theme is still accessible via talking to a post-game NPC (but only during the winter months in-game, sadly). There’s also a bit of musical symbolism insofar as this game’s Route 1 theme is in C major whereas this one is in the parallel C minor. I love this because it fits with the circumstances of your journey at that point being a bit darker than your standard Pokemon fare—you’re challenging the Pokemon League not for personal ambition, but out of necessity because Team Plasma will take over if you don’t. The key difference is a testament to your Trainer’s growth and I love it so so much.

Slumbering Weald ~ Pokemon Sword and Shield

I wasn’t as big a fan of Sword and Shield’s music as much of the rest of the community seemed to be—to my ears at least, the soundfont of these games sounds a lot thinner and weaker than that of previous generations and there weren’t a lot of tracks that really hooked me right off the bat (though this only applies to base SwSh—the DLC music redeemed the soundtrack in my eyes because there’s a LOT of good stuff in there). This piece, however, was one of the exceptions to that—one of my FAVORITE musical ideas is any melody that makes heavy use of the leading tone (the 7th scale degree, which is the last one before the tonal center and it has a very sensitive, sometimes bittersweet quality to it because of this), specifically the note sequence 7 -> 1 -> 5 (in solfege this would be ti -> do -> sol; or G# -> A -> E in A major which is the key this piece is in) and this track straight up repeats that sequence over and over in that starting melody which turns into a background ostinato as the strings take over. The rest of the track holds up too—the synths mesh well with the strings and gentle percussion and even the howls work well melodically—I’m also a big fan of the diminished harmonies underneath them in what I’d call the B section of the piece; those elements along with the muted choral chanting really adds to the mysterious vibe of the winding forest this track is meant to represent.

Again, this is not at ALL an exhaustive list of my fave pieces (my favorites playlist on my phone is currently housing a whopping 435 tracks I’ll have you know) but I hope you enjoyed this peak into my musical tastes regardless!

Check-in for October 25th, 2023

Welp, The Present is a Gift has officially broken 8,000 words and is rapidly approaching the 10k mark! Also, fun fact: according to the outline, I haven't even finished writing the first chapter. This terrifies me when I consider the later chapters which have way more plot packed into them.

Despite me writing out a very detailed plan for the project, it feels like I'm learning new things about the characters with every sentence I write. Twig is apparently a big fan of learning weird, obscure words and is sad that her old hobby of reading dictionaries has been dampened by her struggling to learn how to read footprint runes. You think you know a gal...

I spent most of today working on programming assignments and even got a nice comment on a past submission I sent in. In it, I mentioned single vs. double equals signs always tripping me up and causing bugs in my code--- turns out they used to baffle my instructor too! He's able to use them in their proper places without thinking now, which is encouraging. Regardless, I have never felt this audio more keenly than today:

I had planned on getting some practice with 3D modeling for low-poly V-tuber of my persona I've been jokingly working on, but that didn't work out as anticipated. I did spend a while admiring how I went from a giant gray cube to this, though:

Ahhh. Look at that beautiful skeleton. So few polygons. So few worries. If only I could figure out how make the pupils move or make a bow.

I also spent a while reminiscing about how Blender lit up in flames at one point and I didn't understand why it happened or how I got it to stop. That was a fun seven minutes of unadulterated terror.

I'm tempted to get back into Blockbench for its simple UI, but after learning the basics of Blender, I know it'd be unbearable to return to the rigidity of working in a program that's pretty much built for Minecraft modders. I just need to stick with Blender and find a few more tutorials to keep me going.

I will miss the fact that Blockbench automatically puts your model on a turntable and offers to pixelate it for you, though. It makes low poly modeling so cool so fast.

Just look at these things! They're so cool! I made them yet they look like something out of my fave childhood video games!

I tried to figure out Super Mario Paint this morning and ended up with my first finished song from that program. Tried importing a few soundfonts from other sources but had no luck getting them to work, and the song was definitely rough around the edges--- but I'm still really proud of myself for making a quick tune! It was a battle to figure out how to export the finished product, and I ended up just recording my desktop with OBS to get it to capture the sound and video together, then converted that video into an MP3 file. It was a very roundabout process, but still!!! I made a thing!

The Shy Guy and Boo instruments, as their flawless character designs may have you suspect, are vastly superior to everything else contained in the program. You can't change my mind.

Also, I was tinkering around with Chrome Extensions and found the most heartbreaking note in the description for one of them.

Tiny Sidebar developer, whoever you are, wherever you are--- I want to give you a hug and a slice of cake or two. Reading this activated my inner anime protagonist and I want you to know that there are so many good people out there, but they're quiet about their goodness. Bad people are just loud as heck and make scenes wherever they go.

With that sudden sappiness, I'm signing off on this check-in. Take a parting teaser for a future joke animatic as a palette cleanser. Depressed Friend will be Twig, Emotionally Stable Friend will be Celebi.

Sincerely, Sofie

okayyyy finished pkmn y (first time through kalos yippeeeeee) and it was okay. little mini review under the cut. just for fun :)

honestly imo the kalos dex sucks. in my first playthrough of any region i try to use pokemon that were introduced in that gen but it was a struggle for me to find good ones to use. the gen 1 pandering was insane and the amount of gifted pokemon too. ik you don't have to use them but for my first playthrough i like doing it """"lore accurate"""" so i did and i ended up with only 1 gen 6 pkmn on my team (delphox <3)

but i feel like i didn't see many kalos pokemon in other trainer's teams either. but then again i don't remember many of the teams bc i was insanely overleveled and defeated everything rlly quickly

(EXCEPT for the water e4 member his clawitzer kept killing my ampharos and i had no other way to deal with water types lol)

THE STORY ummmm. umm. it was okay. the pacing was a bit weird but there were some good concepts and there are some interesting characters. wasn't a fan of any of the rivals though i would take 1 good rival over having a friend group

also for how much people hype up mega evolutions i found how they were incorporated really disappointing? like it had barely any significance to the plot and only like 3 other trainers use it?? yea korrina lysander and diantha were the only ones who used it against me. i barely used it either i didn't really see the need for it

anyway. i feel like oras did a better job of incorporating megas somehow. probably bc your starters got one which. WHY DID THE KALOS ONES NOT. come on

AESTHETICALLY SPEAKING. nice enough. i will always prefer pixel art in these games but there were some nice environments

highlights for me were the route before snowbelle city with the bridge, couriway town, and reflection cave

to me oras looked nicer, but that might just be because hoenn is generally better designed imo

WHAT I DID LIKE is the rollerskates. movement in general was good in this game it was fast and fluid and you don't need too many hms

unfortunately the 3ds soundtracks don't hit for me usually ☹️. i don't know what it is but i don't love the soundfont and most of the kalos songs sounded very similar to me. but my favourite is the boutique theme honestly that one is a banger. diantha's battle theme was pretty good too

what else is there......... umm

THE CUSTOMIZATION WAS PRETTY GOOD i liked the outfits but i wish there were more hair options and that the clothes weren't genderlocked. still there were some cute outfits and the default trainer designs look really nice to me as well

also sycamore is officially my least favourite professor i don't likehim. the vibes are off and i didn't like how he was like "oh lysander was just a bit disillusioned but he had some valid points we should have met him halfway" BRO HE TRIED TO KILL EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD. the dick can NOT be that good please change your ways

wtf happened to that guy anyway. did he die or get arrested or escape or what.

toby fox guest composition thoughts

I like how whenever toby guest composes his tracks always stand out. like even if he's not arranging the final version, his style still shines through.

I also find it funny when a team lets what toby gives them be the final version unedited bc it often results in next to highly orchestral, expensive vst filled music, be cheap sounding brass and technically illegal orchestra soundfonts, DOUBLE FUNNY if he uses a game soundfont that is just SO ridiculous in my mind, especially for triple A releases like pokemon

Wooo, I played Mega Man 1 (Wily Wars version) in what combined would be a couple of hours, on the Switch today! Here are the most important points:

The Mega Drive soundfont is really naff for a Mega Man game! Everything sounds soft and toothless, there’s no lovely crisp and crunchy sounds of the NES, which are a Large Part of Mega Man’s audio identity!

The sprites for the most part are rather nice, Rock is in good preportions, though in 16 bit his 3 frame running looks a little odd.

The stage backgrounds have a lot more visual layers to them, an effort I like on paper but I’m unsure if they all hit the right vibe in practice. Ice Man’s stage bothers me most, the undiluted Cyan of the old ver brings to mind a tropical paradise that Ice Man used his immense power to flash freeze over, whereas here the Palm Trees are under a dreary winter sky so it doesn’t have the dope juxtaposition. Cut Man’s “Abadoned Warehouse” theme is pretty solid, though it’s a bit shadowy for my own spin on his working environment lol

No Select Pause :(

No teleporting with ladders either :(

The Magnet Beam doesn’t work as well as it did in the NES ver, and the visuals make it look like Cat Poo (but blue and glowing)

Cut Man has been massively buffed in this game, and I always pick him first (Cause he’s My Favourite 🧡) but his was a very tricky fight cause, while he still fliches upon being hit, he no longer takes increased damage from the Rockbuster, while being very nimble and having a boomeranging projectile.

This is a good point to say that yeah, I used Rewinds lmao. They got me through many tight moments and vastly improved Gaming Experience in things like Mario 2 [Lost Levels], getting 100% on Yoshi’s Island, and doing this run deathless B3

I had minimal rewinding on the Yellow Devil fight, though. Dodging his blobs felt a lot easier to memorise and the hitbox was a little more generous (note: When I play NES ports I always use the Select Trick lol)

I beat Copy Robot very slowly, with 1 or 2 Rockbuster shots, then switching to Super Arm for a breather as Copy went into a good position. I forget if there’s a better way to cheese it, I know he only acts in like 3 positions unless you go in all guns blazing though.

The uhh.... Bubble Boss thing was done by me nearly dying while using the Rolling Cutter and then using all the Guts Blocks in what I hoped were the last 4 Bubbles. It may’ve been last 5 Bubbles, but I managed to get very lucky in hitting 1 and another coming out of the gate at the same time B3

Then the last level which I love for the Aesthetics, though I found the hardest part was the brief section with the Yasachi (that’s the word, right?) cause the lift didn’t load in until I Magnet Beamed, then I kept slipping at the jump part lol

I’ll be playing the MM2 and 3 sections of Wily Wars soon, though hOof, both them games have mega stupid BS sections. I’m still a Big MM1 Lover, you know! But I do wanna try the Wily Tower out, so sacrifices must be made -w-;

A rendition I made of the Super Mario Bros. 35 victory theme.

I always liked the original songs from Super Mario Bros. 35. This one in particular sounds like it’d fit well in a new Pokémon game. (At least one with a better soundtrack than Sword and Shield...)

Speaking of Pokémon, the soundfont used is from Pokémon Black and White Version 2.

If you're ready then try giving Zero 3 ratings!

Story: 9.5/10. Man, the plot just went from 0 to 100 real quick, huh. What can I say? Dr. Weil is an amazing, slimy villain, and the twists kept me on the edge of my seat, even the ones I knew that were coming. The foreshadowing of Zero's twist was a little laid on thick, and that genuinely tense scene of Weil controlling all Reploids in the world... really went nowhere, but those are small moments compared to the general story. My favorite scene was Ciel standing up to Copy X, you go girl <3

Graphics: 9/10. Just as pretty as Z2, nothing much to say. I like how the throwback stages got a substantial revamp - you can notice it in particular in Anubis' level.

Music: 9/10. Just slightly behind Z2 in terms of OST, I'm not 100% sold on the "middle" tracks but the bangers really bang, and once again the soundfont is stellar for the console <3 I appreciate how this game was not afraid of including some seriously eerie tracks like Cold Smile and Submerged Memory, that almost reminded me of Metroid (counterbalanced by the oddly Sonic Advance-sounding Trail on Powdery Snow).

Controls: 10/10. Same as before, except now I get the double jump, best game ever <3 <3 <3

Level design: 8/10. Even more speedrun friendly than Z2, which was already very well designed. Some levels were kinda there (Hanumachine's level was short and annoying at the same time, no it's not fun to stand on buttons while you're assaulted by perpetually-spawning cannons), others were really fun (Flizard's platform-hopping sections! Riding on carts in Glacier's level!), but the important rule to have a good time is: don't waste time, go, go go! Also, I hear that Volteel's level is considered annoying? I thought it was an original and welcome pace breaker lol.

Bosses: 7.5/10. So many bosses this time around! But most of them fall in the same pattern as Z1: some are bullshit at first and pushovers once you learn the patterns, others are just pushovers. I liked Omega's fight a lot, though, a great step up compared to Seraph X and Elpizo :) and Phantom was a welcome surprise, good thing you fight him in the cyber space because dude hits like a truck.

Weapons: 9/10. No more grinding! I don't know if I prefer the Chain Rod or the Recoil Rod, both are pretty fun, but at the end of the day I always use my trusty Saber. Not a perfeft 10, though, because I don't like how the Kuuenzan was relegated to an Elf :\

Chips: 8/10. rip forms, you were really cool. But the degree of customization here is just as great, and you get some really nice powers, like the helmet that makes you regenerate health, boots that can make you jump on water or not slide on the ice and my absolute favorite, the one that makes you double jump <3... of course, the Ultima Foot chip is OP and great for NG+ :P

EX Skills: 9.5/10. I finally unlocked them! And oh my god they make gameplay so fun! Give me your Split Heavens, your Saber Smash and your Throw Blade! With these and the double jump, I felt like in X4 again, and that's the highest compliment I can give <3 (admittedly some of them were more... situational and I didn't use them as much)

Elves: 9/10. Never talked about elves before because I didn't bother to use them extensively before (even though I was always stuck with a low rank in Z1 and Z2 so I could have bothered), but the Satellite Elves are almost game breaking. Oh, I can only use two at the time? Yeah, what if one of them literally doubles my health and the other scatters energy around? :P Sadly the first time I made the mistake of using Fusion Elves at the end of my playthrough, which carried over to my NG+, and man did it hurt my ranking. My bad for not understanding how it worked :P

Difficulty: 8/10. The first time it kicked my ass black and blue, then I unlocked Ultimate Mode to get my revenge make some practice, and then I got gud (well, better) and the flow changed like night and day. It's just hard, not bullshit hard, but again you not only need to practice obviously, but also have the right speedrun mindset.

Replayability value: 9/10. I played it 4 times in a row, what do you think? :P

Thebaby: two of them now and zero is canonically a child murderer/10

i keep getting this thought back in my head every so often

like... i can’t be the only one who’s a little sick of games using orchestral music in their soundtracks

this sounds kind of hyperbolic coming from me probably, like i’m a trained classical musician, that’s what i’ve done for most of my life, i went to college and won for it, and it’s not that i don’t love classical music and orchestral arrangements! i just feel like there’s so much more than can be done to a soundtrack to make it more interesting

for years, games have had to rely on a handful of digital sound channels to use on their systems, which all had a unique sound to them. as time has gone on and our hardware has improved, developers are now able to use live music recordings in impeccable quality in their games, and i still think that’s worth celebrating and utilizing

however. it’s come to a point where most mainstream games use orchestral arrangements or live performances of other instruments for 90% of their soundtrack. in a bubble, and depending on how the pieces are constructed, that’s still pretty cool. but i think it’s of the same mindset as the focus on more realistic textures and high-fidelity graphics. it’s thought to be aesthetically more impressive than continuing to use 2d animation or stylized 3d or even pixel art because that stuff? it’s primitive. we’re above it now. if our game is to be respected, it needs to look... and sound... a certain way

and for one, that’s ridiculous. i respect the hell out of people who make 8-bit or 16-bit style music, and seeing exceptional sprite art has always been a treat. i think the novelty of this realism movement is starting to wear out, and people want to add some more retro elements to the mix. i think using live musicians is awesome, and i definitely still encourage it, but let’s not forget the wide variety of sounds video games can play with, and have done for decades. we can’t just leave that in the past, because it was awesome, and honestly very impressive

who knew the approximation of instruments in digital soundfonts would sound way cooler and more iconic than what they actually sound like with the instruments they intended to mimic?

Ok, then, a post that rates all the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons fall themes coming up:  SNES - Actually, I find this song to be a bit annoying. It is too repetitive and too loud. It also didn’t help, that for some reason, SNES didn’t had crops for fall, so that fall was more like a winter where you could collect mushrooms.  GBC - It is the same as with the SNES, but in the Game Boy sound font. It actually is a bit more tolerable like this, but still not much. 64 - Now that’s a good fall theme! The melody is just perfectly aligned with how busy fall is and there is the sense of an underlying hurry in the theme, probably because winter is creeping up. It also sounds like a remix of the SNES fall theme, but one that was done very right.  GBC2 - This one is nice. It tries to get the best out of the limited GBC sound system. It has a very nice melody, a bit melancholy, but overall catchy. If someone would play this with actual instruments, it probably would sound amazing. BTN - One of my favourites actually and not only because I love BTN. The song is just catchy, it goes in your ear and it certainly makes you think of a sunny fall day. It repeats the first notes a few times before changing it a bit and repeating. The low notes in the background really let the song shine and the constant rythm doesn’t make the song boring.  GBC3 - I still can’t find a video which points out which seasonal theme is which, but it is still pretty yikes overall.  AWL - Because of the lack of traditional season themes, we only have the records. The fall theme is a remix of the N64 one. It is still the same awesome melody, just cleaned up and played with different instruments. It sounds really good.  What a bummer you can only get this records by trading with FoMT.  FoMT - The same as BTN, but in the GBA soundfont. It definitely sounds better on the PSX. It is fine for the GBA, but too much chiptune for my taste.  MM - This theme has a bit of music that would play in a lounge. Where you would go and hang out with a fancy cocktail, just relaxing after a hard day of work. The melody is definitely catchy and I enjoy listen to it. The song also is coherent, unlike the winter song, and makes me want to sway to it. Though, I have to admit, MM songs are pretty long, unusual for HM music.  STH - Aw, this theme is fun. It tells you that a busy autumn day lies before you, where you stroll along the leave covered street to town to hold conversations and sell your hard earned produce. All while you sway to the tact of the music.  Sadly, I can’t find the town theme.  DS - Woah! Just woah! This sound starts out with a few very elegant notes and it only gets better. The song is almost creepy in a way, but it is thoroughly beautiful, with a piano melody as the main melody. Always only a few notes, and then they leave room for the background notes, but the song wouldn’t be complete without this three notes.  It definitely is one of my fav fall themes.  HoLV - Oh, that sounds like medieval folk music ^^ It is very cute and catchy, a very cheerful song. Certainly gets you into the mood to work on the fields and harvest your crops.  ToT - Elevator music! That is straight up elevator music! Who composed this song?! The song would probably be higher in my favour if the first part wouldn’t sound so much like elevator music, but the second part is pretty good.  Thanks at jake-marshall for providing a link to the night theme. I agree with them, this one would have been perfect for the day theme. A nice piano in the background and the melody is played with a violin, sounds very much like a chill fall day and more importantly, doesn’t sound like elevator music! IoH - The OST of IoH continues to convince and starts with a cheery little melody, but it very much culminates after a few seconds with a key change, which makes the music sound higher, as if floating in the clouds. Only downside again, it’s too short. AP - This song carries a sense of melancholy, but a good one. The sweet memories of the picnique you had with your crush, thinking about sitting around with your family and talking, thinking about just having dumb fun with your friends. It is a very emotional song, in a good way. A song that warms the heart, a song you want to roast sweet potatoes to.  The night version is a much more calmer version of the day version, with a piano in the background and a flute for the melody. It sounds like it wants to coax you to go into bed.  I defnitely get tired from it.  SI - A nice song, another one that makes you think of a busy autumn day, but the same as the winter theme, it feels a bit not coherent and a bit too chaotic for my taste.  GB - That is a fun fall theme! It starts with a nice little jingle and then changes into the general melody. The jingle continues as the background and the melody gets played with different instruments that complement each other wonderfully. It culminates into a medium fast version and is just fun to listen to.  ToTT - I am not going to lie, this is another one of my favourites. The song just slaps. It makes you think of a busy fall day right away and you just have to sway in the melody, especially when the second part starts.  ANB - Ah, ANB, you are just a source for fun and good music. The autumn theme very much reminds me of HoLV, a very medieval folk sound, with a lot of violins played in that very cheerful matter, ready to harvest the crops to. But the best part is the second part of the song, it is such a nice melody, I want to sway to it.  TLV - I actually rather like this track. It sounds busy and conveys a fall day pretty well. It is also catchy and I remember not getting tired of it when listening to it in game. The melody is coherent and not grating, but it is a bit too short. The night theme sounds like someone put a blanket over the theme, it is very slow and quiet, as if it doesn’t want to disturb the night.  SoS - “You are the ocean’s grey waves.” Wait a moment, Fire Emblem Fates only came out AFTER SoS. Huh, but the melody sounds very very similar to “Lost In Thoughts All Alone”. To be honest, the SoS OST is a bit too generic for my taste, it isn’t too catchy. The Fall theme is the same, only that it sounds so similar to a famous Fire Emblem song makes it stand out.  SoS actually brought the night songs back (I think I forget this in the winter rating list). The night theme is very calm and sounds like someone played the main melody on a harp. It seems to say “good night”.  SV - I can only find a whole video with the OST without time stamps and not the fall theme on its own, so I have to skip on this one.  SoS 3oT - That one is fun. It has this usual busy melody and carries around a certain autumn wind with it. The song starts with a cheery melody and then in its second part gets to a climax.

LoH - What a nice melody. Cheery and playful. It is fun to listen to, but a bit too short. The beath drop after the beginning is done really well though. SoS FoMT - It is again, the same as from BTN, but actually... I prefer the BTN one! The SoS one is a bit too... chiptunes? I guess. I prefer the much more cleaner version we got for the PSX.  This one has an alternate version that plays on the weekends/festival days. I actually really like this one. It is calmer than the usual one and uses a piano for its main melody. It has a very nice section with high notes in the second part of the song.  SoS Doreamon - I actually forgot about this game in winter! But let me make up with the fall theme. I am actually not too sure about it... it sounds fine, but a bit too broken up. It has a bit of a western theme to it also, probably because of the harmonica that is used in the background. It is certainly very calm and relaxing.  If I forget a game or you have a link to the songs I couldn’t find, please tell me.

rank every year of the 2010s from best to worst i want some pochapal lore

[warning for discussion of my fucked up mental health and my myriad traumas. we’re really opening the pandora’s box here gang]

ok time for me to overshare on the internet again! super long post because i can’t shut up and you asked for it. anyway, by objective ranking: 

#1: 2012 - halcyon era, my personal peak. spent the whole year writing hunger games oc fics with my deviantart fanfiction besties whom i still think about all the time and always hope are having the best possible day. if you were here for this era understand i still hold you so closely and dearly in my heart <3. 

#2: 2013 - god i was such a good example of a human being back then. was the year my writing like actually took off and i had a healthy balance between creative stuff and a social life (said social life consisting of spending lunchtimes at school breaking into classrooms and discussing fandom shit with five other people. reading homestuck updates in the music room on one person’s really shaky mobile data...legendary). highlight of the year and maybe my life was in the april of 2013 when i got out of failing to submit a hard deadline essay by telling my english teacher i wrote a whole novel over the two week break and then producing said novel. god i wish i had that level of like. fucking confidence back me back then knew what i wanted and how to get it. 

#3: 2010 - the last year of childhood. i was 12 and played pokemon all the time with my friends and went places and had a moderately successful youtube channel and it didn’t matter that i was bullied so badly at school because i was basically high off life. summer of 2010 was so good specifically. i’d used to get the bus with a friend and go see movies and break into historical sites and get into normal childhood mayhem and maxed out my pokewalkers twice a month and i was buzzed because i had two (2) whole friendship groups to choose from and that was such a huge deal to me the terminal social outcast. it was so simple and carefree and even though everything and everyone involved in this era grew up to suck except for one specific person i kinda really miss it.

#4: 2018 - this was the first year i wasn’t depressed to the point of nonfunctioning. it was 20gayteen, i was on antidepressants, i was as close to thriving as i got at uni (going into town with people once a week, attending art and culture events, getting good grades across the board), i started to write for fun again, i got my cat whom i love dearly, i was exhibited in my uni’s city’s literature festival, GOD i actually nearly attended a pride event that year can you imagine. this year was basically my life’s second peak. miss getting the 8am train and daintily sipping on a cherry coke to keep me from passing out. wish this time could have lasted longer.

#5: 2019 - kinda absolute middle of the road year not for lack of anything happening but because the overwhelming amount of good and bad things cancelled each other out. so like there’s the fact that i was at the top of my uni game this year, was basically making the first steps into a professional writing career (covid i will never forgive you for killing all that dead </3), finally saved up enough to buy myself a gaming pc, and the summer after the homestuck epilogues, but equally 2019 was the start of the Pochapal Gender Fiasco which is by far the most horrible thing i am still currently undergoing and i burnt myself out mentally about halfway through the year (being stuck overnight in a hospital for a panic attack absolutely horrible horrible irredeemable) and then got like super death plague flu that i was sick with for three months (literally recovered less than a month before rona hit. god’s cruel karma.). so like...it kind of averaged out? the good shit was good but not as great as other years and the bad shit was awful but nowhere near as terrible as it could have been. gotta give a shoutout to 90% of my current mutual cohort for following me in 2019...omelette route gang make some noise !!

#6: 2014 - oof. this year essentially marked the start of a four year long downward mental health spiral because everything fell into awful alignment. i’d just turned 16, finished secondary school, had all my friends up and ditch me at once, was home alone for a whole summer, and was hit with Sudden Intense Body Image Issues that i couldn’t explain until uh. after very recent developments lmao. this one goes out to the me of july 2014 who did nothing but lay in bed and listen to the same two marina albums on a loop because fuck i’m attracted to men and also my facial and body hair are really starting to come in and if i think about this for too long i will literally kill myself because oh god i can’t handle getting older which is clearly and definitely the issue going on here. my brain fucking broke super hardcore and it’s a miracle that an overeating disorder was like the worst thing i walked away with. 

#7: 2015 - downward spiral year two!! i was so volatile this year it was such a mess. i was totally socially isolated after a brief stint of falling in with a group of people at the start of my first year of sixth form until january where in quick succession a) it turned out every single one of these people was friends with the person who sexually assaulted me whom i obviously had a lot of complicated feelings towards and b) baby’s first crush came out as bisexual but in the “women and also trans women” kind of way which tore me up so terribly in ways i couldn’t begin to understand. no words for the experience of seeing a girl kiss a boy and crying so hard at night you threw up because you could never be her no matter how much you wanted it. actually kinda get the sense what was going on there was bigger than just some crush lmao. then after that i was so mentally ill i basically attended school less than half the time and it was the only year in my life i failed my exams. i ended up having to resit my entire set of first year a level exams because jesus christ was i in such a bad way it was a miracle i even showed up to them. all i did was either have anxiety attacks or enter bedbound depressive slumps for weeks at a time. but it’s okay because it gets worse.

#8: 2016 - downward spiral act iii: the spiralling. prefacing this by saying that i actually had two whole good months (april - may) in that i was functioning enough to do my exams and finish school with decent grades. the rest was super extra mega terrible. my school attendance for year 13 dipped below 65% and literally the only thing that kept me from being kicked out was the fact that i was naturally smart at the subjects i took and also because the school would have a lot to answer for after letting me get to that state despite having a hefty file on how damaged i was. keep in mind every single part of this was fully untreated btw - i was just floundering around and letting it all fester. i spent three solid weeks going to school but locking myself in the bathroom all day every day and having mental health episodes then going home like nothing else happened only to continue the breakdown that night. then things got kicked into fucked up overdrive when i moved out to uni and was cut off from what little support structures i did have. it was so bad all i did was cry all the time and never went anywhere to the point where three separate sources recommended me to the wellbeing and crisis counselling service that i stopped going to after two sessions because i was fucked up in ways cbt techniques could not even touch. at least i tried to make an effort for the first two months of uni which like. good for me?

#9: 2017 - what lieth at the base of the spiral. helltrench year. i was at literal rock bottom. i stopped going to class, i didn’t hand in a single piece of work. i lied to my parents and would book trains each day only to go back to my student flat and sit there and contemplate suicide. like i would just slump on the floor in a catatonic state and vividly contemplate one of four or so ways i could end my own life. i only didn’t because i wanted to wait until the summer to collect my last student loan and transfer it to my parents as an apology for my death which obviously didn’t end up happening. honestly i can’t remember much of the first half of 2017 that’s how bad it was. i remember taking a gender studies class and the teacher made it Weird that i was the Only Male Student in the room and then she sent me a scolding email after i walked out halfway through a class and never returned. apparently i got into a lot of online discourse in this year but i don’t remember anything other than being put on a blocklist by the milkfic author over ace discourse which is funny if you have the context. mostly i just baited terfs and weirdo freaks to get them to say horrible things to me as what i guess amounts to some kind of digital self harm. anyway breaking point came in late august when i got kicked out of university and then nobody could ignore it any more so there was no choice left but for me to seek out help and recover enough to function which luckily i did. i really Do Not remember 2017. you could tell me anything about that year and i’d probably believe you.

#10: 2011 - extra circle of hell for this little fucked up gem of a year. on the surface it wasn’t actually that terrible, until the Summer 2011 Domino Effect Of Bad Shit. up until like may/june it was a pretty all right year! i was 13 and had a surprisingly successful youtube channel uploading pokemon soundfont remixes to an audience of i think ~350-400 subscribers at my peak? anyway then i got hit with the early summer triple combo of childhood friends moving away, cute and quirky sexual assault at the hands of a person in my friend group, and then having some Really Great and Super Appropriate interactions with adults on deviantart. like obviously there’s the actual ptsd-inducing event which totally disrupted and killed the person i was right up until that moment and reshaped every facet of my life for better or worse (there’s an alternate timeline where that didn’t happen and i got into electronic music and/or coding instead) but really it’s the events that followed in its wake which were kind of more fucked up. so like all of a sudden i was super aware of my body and me growing my hair out and being mistaken for a girl in class suddenly became this Less Innocent thing and i ended up spending hours overnight going to transgender questioning forums and looking up hrt timeline videos and having the wikipedia article on tracheal shaving saved because it was a life raft to me whose voice was imminently gonna deepen and i was simultaneously reeling with constant trauma flashbacks and the whole thing was so so fucked up. then i was on deviantart and i don’t remember exactly how but a small group of furry guys ten to fifteen years older than me started messaging me and encouraging and requesting me to produce nonsexual fetish stuff for them and talking to me about stuff like if i’d ever thought about growing up to be gay and i didn’t think anything of it for a long while because they called me a very talented writer and it felt so good to have someone be nice to me after being so alone and isolated for months on end. anyway the only reason i got out of that before it got bad was because they invited me to one of the big furry sites and i was weirded out because i thought it was a porn site and thinking about sexual stuff was a huge trauma trigger so i just ended up blocking them all and pretending like it didn’t happen. at the time half this shit didn’t bother me but in retrospect holy fuck 2011 was such a damaging year. to think if like three events didn’t happen i wouldn’t be the fucked up mess you see before you today.

god fuck this turned out super long but i’m not apologising because this was a therapeutic exercise for me and also constitutes as one of the biggest pochapal lore dumps of all time. come get your food or whatever.