OCR Watch - the truth is out there » remix album

Relics of the Community

Mobias — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:45:56 +0000

Let’s talk about fan arrangement albums, and naturally the ones on OCReMix. I was thinking of listening to each and writing something of a review of them. Chronologially, starting from the first.

The first album on OCR is Relics of the Chozo (official site), a Super Metroid album. Protricity, the director of the project, has 9 remixes on the project, not counting collaborations. It’s safe to say it’s a Protricity album.

With varying styles, mostly orchestral vgm and atmospheric synth tracks, it’s an interesting album, fitting of the source.

The album is consisted of 19 tracks by, aside from Protricity, Adhesive_Boy, Avien, Children of the Monkey Machine, Daniel Baronowsky, Prophecy, Suzumebachi, Vigilante, and zyko.

It should be mentioned that the amount of protricitic tracks is IIRC due to the failure of other remixers to devote the necessary time and energy, or skill, to the project.

RotC is a good album with scary, alien music. While not all players can play .ogg files, which the project was released in, several of the tracks are available on OCR, and those should get you interested enough to find yourself an ogg player.

My lawyer didn’t, tho.

Terra’s Got Her Track Remixed

Mobias — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 05:16:37 +0000

Would anyone be surprised if a song from Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger was the most remixed? I wasn’t. I checked OCReMix’s track listing. Surprisingly, it’s not emo-franchise FF7, it’s FF6. Even more surprising is that there’s a whopping 13 remixes of that one song, and the game features a handful of other over-remixed tracks, and a plethora of under-appreciated and under-remixed ones.

Yes, I mean it. More Final Fantasy remixes, please. But not of emo-fantasy. With Voices of the Lifestream, it’s gotten more attention, proportionally as well as otherwise, than it deserves. Loads of decent tracks worth a remix or two. Although I think I’d prefer remixes of games yet to be touched by OCRers.

Anyway, Terra’s theme is in the lead with 13 remixes. Chrono Trigger’s Schala’s Theme and Corridor of Time, Mega Man 2’s Dr. Wily Stage 1, and Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Houseki’s Far Promise ~ Dream Shore (Part 1) all have 10 remixes. Just look at it! Crazy!

The stats don’t really cover re-used themes such as the Mario or Zelda themes, which are also over-remixed. We’ve heard their Overworlds, thank you and remix something else now.

Interestingly, Final Fantasy 7 is represented by three tracks, each being remixed 6 times. Is it a coinkidink that it spells 666? Does it have anything to do with Square dominating the top tracks listing?

Anyway, I need a better lawyer. I hope Shnabubula won’t sue over the not so subtle reference to the name he picked for his take on the over-remixed track.

The Craze Is Out There

Mobias — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:58:02 +0000

The winners of OCReMix’ Voices of the Lifestream AMV content are announced and their works are filling up the front page. While regulars might go straight for the forum, or just log into the irc channel and get direct links to new developments (threads, remixes) via associates on #ocremix, people new to OCR likely come by the front page, making them exposed to the emo virus.

The Final Fantasy craze never seems to be over. By the time this has finally been shoveled away, some other final fantasy content or fan work appears. At the time of writing, there are three final fantasy remixes on the OCR front page “latest remixes” list. That’s a quarter of the total number of remixes in the list. While 25% may seem little, consider that Nintendo’s three main franchizes have less, only two remixes in the list.

It’s alarming to see the craze like this, knowing it’s actually at a low point at the moment. Numerous great games are omitted due to the game bias of the nostalgic idiots that remix. Casual gamers that played Mortal Kombat, Excitebike, Starcraft… Those games are found represented by an empty list, and many games do not even have that.

If my lawyer hadn’t told me to stop speculating about large corporations, I’d suggest that somewhere, the presidents of Square Enix must be sitting, petting their cats, twirling their moustaches (not the cats’), blowing the smoke from their cigarettes in the faces of the contract-bound video game industry-equivalents of director Skinner (note: not principal Skinner).

As a site that appreciates video game music, OCR should be able to ask “where’s the love?”, and not be met by an answer implying inbreeding.

Monotonic Monopoly

Mobias — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:19:46 +0000

OCReMix has an annoying tendancy to remix tracks from the same games over and over and over again. Leading the race is Chrono Trigger with a prepostorous 86 remixes, followed by Final Fantasy VII with a stupendous 79 remixes. Coincidentally, both these games have had OCR fan arrangement albums made. Anyone see a pattern here?

Let’s test that hypothesis. If a fan album is the cause for the ridiculous amount of remixes, the same should be true about the other games with associated fan albums. All games with associated albums should be having fantastic amounts of remixes. Kirby’s Adventure proves this is false.

The humongous interest in the music from these games can be attributed to composer extraordinaire Nobuo Uematsu, but since my lawyer says I should refrain from attributing anything to that particular composer again in these analyses, another cause to blame must be found. One could argue that the games were popular among music nerds and nerdy musicians back in the days before video games were as normal as they are today, but that would exclude more unlikely possibilities, something I’m sure dr House wouldn’t approve of.

In the spirit of House MD, I should consult a number of experts before telling them they’re all wrong, but as I’m trying to maintain a secret identity, I’m gonna ask myself instead. Those possibilities I’ve come up with that I will completely ignore are: people like the story, people like the music, people like the gameplay.

I’m gonna suggest Square (with a total of 418 remixes) has been attempting to take over the world since long before becoming Square Enix (2 remixes). Much like megalomaniacs like EA, Square Enix is all over the market, and seeing what a fan of FF7 my sister has become from just seeing the emos in Advent Children, this seems plausible. Subliminal messages is one possibility, but I seem unaffected. Then again, I missed out on FF7, which suggests exposure to both is required. Further research would likely confirm this, but I’m convinced I can’t be wrong about anything so further research is unneccessary.

I can only assume exposure to subliminal messaging both games causes a psychosis-related condition in which reality is shifted towards diverting attention to the music of the games, ignoring the propaganda they may contain. It seems that since I have played Chrono Trigger, I can’t examine FF7 without exposing myself to this. I assume a symptom on the condition is the inability to notice this.

Further research might required to independantly confirm this, but i am confident I am right no matter what I propose. There are most likely subliminal messages in both games, but requiring exposure to both games to induce the psychotic state, like in that one Batman movie. Fortunately, I figured it out.