Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Favorite Tunes #14: Arranged Themes

This installment of Favorite Tunes covers some of my fav arrangements of video game tracks. These arrangements are unique in that you won't hear any of them in the games from which they are based off of. Each track comes from an album.

Adrenalyne Kick (Hurry!) 



Final Fantasy VII has some of my least favorite music in the series, but on the whole, I still enjoyed the score. You end up hearing Hurry early on in the game and from there on out, it gets played numerous times throughout your quest. Hurry has been the name of a few tracks throughout the Final Fantasy series, but I honestly think FFVII managed to pull off the best version of it. This OverClocked Remix arrangement of it from the FFVII album Voices of the Lifestream is one of the few instances where I found the remix superior to the original.

Outride a Crisis -Mickey Arrange Ver.-



Super Hang-On is one of my favorite SEGA arcade games and I was very excited to see it get released on the Virtual Console. Like OutRun, you can select your music before you begin racing. You can choose from four songs but the one I pick the most is Outride a Crisis. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hang-On series in 2007, Wave Master released the Super Hang-On 20th Anniversary Collection album. It contained the music from the arcade versions of Hang-On, Super Hang-On and arrangements for all four BGM race themes for Super Hang-On. It would have been nice if they included the Game Boy Advance version music of Super Hang-On from the Sega Arcade Gallery, but it still ended up being a fantastic album.

Remebrance ~Cammy Stage~



It took Capcom a few years, but they finally realized that they needed to add some more females to the roster in Street Fighter II. Cammy made her debut in Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. She may not be as popular as Chun-Li, but she's always been a fan favorite and I absolutely LOVE her theme! This arrangement from the 1994 release Street Fighter II Alph-Lyra with Yuji Toriyama is but one of the finest remixes she's ever received.

Girls



Policenauts is game from famed game producer, Hideo Kojima. But unlike the Metal Gear series, this is one of those games that fewer gamers have played, which is a real shame. The theme Girls is extremly calming. This particular version comes from 1996 album Policenauts F/N. Policenauts did get an unofficial fan translated patch released in 2009 and the game can also be purchased on the Japanese PlayStation Network.

East Asia (Stage1)



I firmly believe that East Asia is one of the greatest first level themes from a video game. Manabu Namiki's scores awlays managed to impress me and I've heard numberous arrangements of this theme. But none of them come close to toping Yayushisa Watanabe's rendtion of it. Some beleive that when you stray too far from the source material, you ruin the song. In this case, I think going for a different feel paid off. Most remixes of this song play it safe. Watanabe opted for a different approach and I am ever so greatful for that. This song comes from the dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU [arrange album] that released in 2009

Unleashing the Ogre



Ever wonder why Double Dragon II carried the subtitle "The Revenge"? That question gets anwsered pretty quickly. In the opening scene (in the arcade version), Billy's gilrfriend is gunned down. Harsh. For all the original Double Dragon did for gaming it hasn't aged very well at but Double Dragon II still holds up nicely. Titled after the game of the same name, Double Dragon II The Revenge contains no music from the actual arcade game, instead housing arranged music across the board. Though it was released in 1990, the quality of these arrangements is mighty impressive.

TECHNOTRIS



I have no clue why Diverse was always getting into fights but since the results of those versus matches were some sweet albums, who am I to complain? From Diverse vs 8bit, Technotris is a techno-infused version of one of the classic BGMs from Tetris.

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