Source 1: Melty Blood - Blood Drain (PC)

Source 2: Mega Man Zero 4 - Straight Ahead (GBA)

Source 1: Wassup Thunder

I've never actually played the game this song comes from, but my source is Blood Drain from Melty Blood. This is most amusing, because I'm not really into Japanese Anime or similar styled games, but I sure can appreciate impressive music where I find it! I learned about this song when someone asked me to remix the tune for a project of theirs, and I got captivated by the beautiful composition, it's got an impressive blend of intensity, elegance, and a playful tinge. I'm certain everyone will find something inspiring to play with in this! Also, the song features vocals on the melody, but the midi translates the vocal line pretty well, so unless studionimbus wants to amaze us again with his Japanese 😁, it should be easily put to an instrumental!

Source 2: Souperion

"Straight Ahead" accompanies a mad dash to the control room of an orbital superweapon aiming at the last bastion of humanity. I wasn't too fond of the soundfont of Mega Man Zero 4, but it had a few great pieces like this one. Have at it.

2021 is almost over. Time for the traditional free round to conclude this year.

No source limitations (also non VG songs and originals are allowed), MIDI Rips are allowed. 

Source: Sonic Unleashed (Xbox3360) - Dragon Road (Daytime)

"This is a source that everyone will sort of resonate with, coming from a franchise everyone should know by now. If not, you have a lot of catching up to do. It's also one that took me quite some time to get the MIDI out for. It's also one of the many tunes, where people seem to get the notes completely wrong. So believe me, i went hard listening by ear. Luckily though, i manage to make it in just around a week (Alongside other stuff). 

The game i'm referring to is Sonic Unleashed. A game at a time period where Sonic had experienced an all time low. Sonic 06 was terrible, and people knew that the 15th Anniversary was a disaster, because all the games at that time just sucked, or were overshadowed by the bigger games. Since Sonic 06 was so bad, some people considered it the worst game ever. Sonic Team and SEGA knew, they needed to take a step back, and make something everyone can enjoy, without going too far into new territory, while also renovating Sonic into a more modern platform. This was the transition into essentially 2010's Sonic, where the big emphasis was speed. Unlike Adventure where speed was one of the many components into the character and the stage, in Unleashed it was the primarily focus, so much so that everything else was reduced to a mere background element. If you've played Unleashed, especially the Daytime levels (The night-time stages can be forgotten about, nobody likes them lol), you go at such lightning speed it almost gives you a headache, and personally for me, i love it. It's like riding your favourite rollercoaster over and over. It's soo much fun, especially when you blaze along with the background. 

Personally as well, i also argue it contains the most beautiful graphics to ever grace a video game. Like i'm not lying too, the only other game that i think is on par is Halo: Reach. The graphics are outstanding, even for a cartoony game, the environments are gorgeous.

And how about the music? That's what were here for right? Well it's also one of the top tier soundtracks, and yes i would consider it to be one of my top 20 best soundtracks in a video game. You probably think i'm a Sonic fanboy right? I am a fan, but nowhere near a fanboy. I only resonate with this game a lot, because i've played it, and for an extremely long period of time too. I just had so much fun with it, but seriously the music is no joke. Very professionally produced, yet has such a very cool fusion of genres. It takes essentially the cultures of each location it represents, and the music it predominately plays, combines it with heavy electronica elements (Mainly Drum and Bass), as well as rocking guitars. It's like a Rock Band went on a trip to a country, met an EDM DJ there, and collaborated with the local Orchestra playing music of the country. It's such a really good soundtrack (And also quite long and varied, since it has a lot of cutscene music. 4 hours is roughly the exact runtime of the whole album).

Dragon Road in particular (The location is Chun-Nan which represents China, but the stage name is Dragon Road), follows in the same descriptors. Thumping DnB beats blast through at 185bpm, while jazzy piano chords sit on top. Synthy basslines really emphasise the dance music parts, while traditional Chinese instruments provide the cultural accuracy of the location. Instruments including an Erhu, and a traditional Chinese Drum, specifically in the intro. All in all, awesome stuff, i hope you have fun with this (Lots of awesome ideas to be had here)

Note: This is the daytime version i'm doing. Not the hub worlds, or the Warehog stage. Just thought i'd get that out there."

(TheVideoGamer)

GAME: Sonic Unleashed (Xbox360)

Source: Dragon Road (Daytime)

And usual my own custom MIDI:

https://www.vgmusic.com/file/1b69875ce356f06140b61b70e71f9e50.html#disqus_thread

Source: Mystical Ninja Goemon - I Am Impact (N64)

"For my next choice, “I Am Impact” from Mystical Ninja Goemon on Nintendo 64. This was one of my favorite video games growing up—you could unlock a menu that allowed you to play all the music from the game! There are a lot of huge winners in this game’s OST, one of my favorites being “Kai Highway.” Ultimately, though, it was always “I Am Impact” that was my biggest ear worm. With its over-the-top instrumentation, high energy, goofy vocals and lyrics, I was humming this almost everyday as a kid. The source material is fairly simple, but there is so much that can be done with it! I look forward to hearing all of your beautiful voices!"

(Studionimbus)

Source 1: Final Fantasy X (PS2) - Seymour Omnis Battle

Source 2: Final Fantasy X (PS2) - Challenge

"In the interest of getting my source to you as expeditiously as possible, I will go ahead and submit the two that I have in mind.

FFX was one of my all time favorite games to play when I was younger, and I loved the music even more! I believe that "Seymour Battle" and "Challenge" have a lot of great source material that can easily be blended into a great track, and are directly related as Seymour is battled in one form or another with both themes playing.

Like much of FFX's OST, both of these songs offer a great mix of orchestral, dance, electronic, and rock stylings, and I look forward to seeing how others will mix them together!

I've included both the original PS2 midi and sound fonts in order to provide the best reference material possible. Good luck, all!"

Seymour Battle:

https://compo.thasauce.net/files/materials/PRC435_Seymour%20Battle.mid

Challenge: https://ocremix.org/community/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=916&key=e6ead2a0442eb9fddec82eec8c91781d

(Studionimbus)

Note:

In the attachment there's a ZIP which also contains a MID from the second source.

Source: Scorcher - Suburbs (SEGA Saturn)

"The last few rounds have been pretty organic in sound, so let's go 180 an really go all out in electronica. This is also pretty lengthy, structured almost like a full song running at 7 minutes.

The game we are talking about is Scorcher, a futuristic racing game involving motorcycles. It's not a commonly recognised game, only certain diehards might even know about it, and if you actually play the game, your getting not much of a immersive experience. It's a fun game, but that's about it. It's got a pretty negative rep, both for it's difficulty, and the shortage of race tracks. However you may notice it's developed by Zyrinx, who are known for their beautiful graphics, and difficulty curve. Zyrinx eventually became IO Interactive, after the parent company went bankrupt. The game company might be familiar to some as it houses their own inhouse composer Jesper Kyd. This game is one of his lesser known moments, as people usually think Hitman or Assassin's Creed when Jesper Kyd comes to mind, which is sad, because this soundtrack should not be ignored.

Scorcher also remains the most technical video game in terms of Graphical developments. Some say it's the most attractive game at the time, this company was really renowned for their super hi-tech advanced graphical capabilities. Honestly not much else in terms of the game, no significant history behind it. Instead we should move on to music, which is a must listen. 

The soundtrack plays to the strength's of Jesper Kyd, who at the time was heavily digesting rave music, which you can clearly tell it's from that era. Now since this was released in 1996 a lot of the music does kind of feel representative of it's time, but there are tracks you don't often hear in a video game. The Downtown level really goes for a full industrial techno approach, but that's not the track i picked. Instead i went for a track called Suburbs (Which are the names of the stages). This one is a full on 90's hard trance number with lots of bass. It's like a bass overload lol. It has a lovely well developed but simplistic melody, some great developments throughout, and a breakdown where it goes into a full rich chord sequence and ambience. Now yes this is quite the repetitive tune, most of it is 1-4 bars of material looped for quite some time, but the beauty of electronic music, is that it gives you the canvas to create and explore. You can add to this, make it rich and exciting. The tune is amazing on it's own, it's so groovy, but with the hands of you guys, it will become something magical. Hope you do this one justice.

Note: There is also a PC port of this game, which not only transforms all the tracks into CD audio, it also includes 2 exclusive tracks, which are pretty cool too. However the Suburbs track is exactly the same on both versions, so there's not much to worry about. I thought that since it's CD audio the sounds would be different, however it's not. Just writing this to avoid confusion.

GAME: Scorcher (Sega Saturn)

Source: Suburbs

Also note: It's listed as Track 2 on the video, but that's an error on the uploaders behalf. The actual name is Suburbs.

And as expected from me, my own custom MIDI:

https://www.vgmusic.com/file/5a205b4c6e69423db812f381612e3bc6.html#disqus_thread

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Undefeated Heart

"I chose a song from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Undefeated Heart. Tactics Advance was a big part of my childhood gaming, I spent dozens of hours on the spin off game and fondly remember the playful OST. My siblings and I used to joke that the fight music sounded too goofy to battle to, but it all contains some of the signature grandeur of the legendary FF series. This track still has a playful vibe to me, but some resolute heroism as well. I bet we'll get some great compositions with this piece!"

(Wassup Thunder)

Source: Golden Sun: The Lost Age - "Gaia's Rock"

"Gaia's Rock" From Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Lots can be said for the game's soundtrack, and this is a personal favorite, ripe for some creativity."

(Souperion)

Didn't receive a source for this round so I pick one myself. A difficult source this time, because it's from Godzilla and those MIDI's are difficult.

Marcusg, you still may pick a source, send it to me so I can use it for this or the next PRC.

(Bundeslang)

Source: Rush'n Attack - Stage 1 (NES)

"My source is Rush'n Attack Stage 1 (gotta love NES/Arcade era soundtrack naming conventions!)

I searched among old NES and SNES tunes for the next tune, and came across an old childhood memory: Rush'n Attack, an old konami military-vibe side-scroller arcade of jumping, knifing and shooting bazookas. I found out the game was really well received and acclaimed in its time. Anyhoo, It's first stage theme has some nice melodies, with a kind of militaristic vibe. I really appreciate good old fashion NES era melodies. It's short, but has like 4 small sections that I think will be great to mess around with. Have fun with this one!"

(Wassup Thunder)

Source: Ape Escape - Coral Cave (PS1)

Ima hit you hard with the nostalgia. This was one the games that takes me back so long, one of the finest PS1 games.

I'm obviously talking about Ape Escape, which was very innovative at the time, because it had a unique idea. Basically you had to catch monkey's to complete a level, with each level being expansive and well though-out. You had multiple tools at your disposal, as well as villains to fight at the end.  The game is made by Japan Studio and has undergone many remakes, mostly in updating the graphics, but with some remakes adding new tunes, and minigames. Only 3 games were made tops, with the rest of the games being spin-off's or games with multiple characters from different franchises. I don't know why they stopped at Ape Escape 3, maybe something killed it i don't know, but i will say when i was young i was playing this a lot, it's a fun game for sure.

But why focus on the game? The soundtrack is among the finest in the PS1 catalogue. Perfectly unusual blend of cartoony melody ideas, synthetic percussive ideas, and the most obviously, jungle breaks. Rich in Techno and Jungle, but also rich in light-hearted fun in some areas. A lot of the tracks are super simple, mostly looping 1-2 bar phrases, while some go for more heavy melodic ideas. The more i talk about it, the more i would love to put every song on here, but alas i can only choose one. 

The music was done by Soichi Terada, who (Except for the second game) has composed pretty much all of the games in the series. What's also interesting, is that he wasn't even a composer at this point, he was a producer making electronica albums for his own record label, Far East Recording. So this game was a turning point into VGM. All in all, you have to check this dude out, he's so good. I had a hard time picking one track from the game, but in the end i choose to go with Coral Cave. Very relaxing, but also very simple. Only 2 chords are used throughout the whole piece, with the main traction coming from the dynamic melody. Creativity will be needed for this one, but that's good, as music doesn't always need to be expansive (The Bomberman round showcases this well). Hope you do this one justice.

GAME: Ape Escape

Source: Coral Cave

So here's the video:

And as expected from me, my own MIDI:

https://www.vgmusic.com/file/ab08d1620f0b0a3dce1d24d7de2737ba.html#disqus_thread