NekoJonez’s Favorite Gaming Music #26 – I can’t choose!

Previous articles

Last time in this series, I actually was on a podcast with Alexander Sigworth. Now, after 25 articles talking about my favorite music in games, I still can’t decide which tracks are my favorite and which ones are the best. In any case, I think it’s quite clear that this series is mostly about the music in games that I enjoy quite a lot at the time of writing. For those who haven’t read an article of this series before, let me quickly explain the idea. In this series, I talk about a track from a game or I use a track from a game to talk about the game without having to write a full article about it (for now). I limit myself to one track per franchise per article and I try my best to avoid repeat tracks. Also, unless stated at the start of the article, I only pick original tracks and not remixes. Those are for special articles. And per usual, I invite you to leave a comment with your opinion on the tracks chosen and/or the content of this article and/or your favorite gaming tracks. Let’s go.

Etrian Odyssey Untold – The Millennium Girl (3DS) ~ Decisive Battle – End of the World

First impression of the game

So, because I want to talk about as many games as possible on my blog and I try to write weekly articles, I don’t always finish the games I play. This is quite annoying since sometimes I enjoy playing a certain game quite a lot.

Now recently, I started to tackle my backlog bit by bit while also trying to play other games to be able to talk about on my blog. On top of that, I still have a day job and have other hobby’s.

In any case, today I can proudly say that I have beaten my first Etrian Odyssey game. Well, I have beaten this game in late February but hey. After beating this game, I fell into a sort of “post-game depression”. Yeah, I wish I hadn’t beaten the game since I enjoyed it quite a lot. Thankfully, there is still some post-game content and I haven’t done all the quests. So, I still have some playtime left. But, what a journey it was. And what amazing music was created for the final battle which I have selected for this article. Man, I’m glad that I discovered this series since I can’t wait to see what the other games have to offer. Maybe I should finish all the other Etrian Odyssey games I have finished…

Nightmare Reaper (PC) ~ Boss Theme

My article about the game

Andrew Hulshult, you mad lad. There are a lot of retro game shooters coming out and when I see that Andrew Hulshult created the music for it, I get hyped right away. The music by itself sounds amazing and melodic but listening to it while playing the game, it fits the atmosphere like a glove.

The music was one of the reasons why I had chosen this game to be my favorite game of 2020. Currently, the 3rd chapter is in development and various teasers have been shown on Twitter by the developer. They look amazing and I can’t wait to play more. Today I was finally able to beat the second chapter after failing a certain boss battle over and over again. I also started the 2nd playthrough and I have to say that I really feel different from my original playthrough.

I’m nearing 50 hours of playtime in this game and I’m under the impression that this number will only grow once the third chapter has been released. And also, I’m trying to get as many of the achievements as possible. So, that will also increase the number of hours I play this game. Hehehe.

Pokémon X/Y (3DS) ~ Dendemille Town

My review of the game

During my prep for the Pokémon Collector’s Catch-collab, I played a lot of Pokémon. This shouldn’t be a surprise at all. Now, when I read the article that TriformTrinity did on Pokémon X and Y, I dug up my copy of the game and I noticed that a while ago, I started a new save file and I hadn’t finished the game on that one.

So, that’s one of the things I’m currently doing. Playing through Pokémon X/Y again. And honestly, I forgot how enjoyable things are in that game. I got various nostalgic memories while playing that game.

Something strange I noticed is that when I listen to some parts of the soundtrack from this game, for some reason I can’t tell if it’s a track from this game or from Pokémon Sword & Shield. Is this just me or am I hearing things? They have a similar vibe in my opinion. But on the other hand, that shouldn’t be too crazy since this generation is based in France and Pokémon Sword and Shield is based in the UK. France and the UK are neighbors of each other… So, yeah.

Touhou – Luna Nights (Switch) ~ Stage 3 Boss – Locked Girl

The Metroidvania genre is one of my favorite genres. I just love exploring a world where slowly get stronger, unlock new abilities, and go on a great adventure. Usually, Touhou is a sort of shoot ’em up kind of game but this time, it’s a Metroidvania. 

So, this game got released in late December of 2020. After seeing the trailer, I bought the game. Now, since I have this rule in my top 10 games of the year list where I can only select games I started in that year, I waited until 2021 started before I started playing this game. Just in case that if I enjoy this game quite a lot, that I would be unable to choose it in my top 10 games of 2021. 

And I’m so glad I did. The unique mechanics and abilities in this game give a breath of fresh air to the formula and of course, the difficulty spikes you find in every Touhou game are here too. Now, I’m holding a lot of my opinions on the game back since I want to write a full-length article about this game but for now, I want to introduce you to the soundtrack of the game. I’ll say this about it, there is a reason why it sometimes plays on repeat while I’m working or doing chores. 

Wrapping up

So, these are 4 tracks that can be added to the ever-growing list of my favorite game music tracks. After writing these articles, I always check my schedule on the games I’m going to write about. More often than not, I change the schedule around to talk about the games I have mentioned in these articles. 

I really should start creating playlists and share them in this series since I really think that these playlists would make me skip fewer and fewer tracks while I’m working. But hey, maybe I shouldn’t start so many projects while I have so many others running. 

Personal things aside, I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. Have you played any of these games and if yes, what did you think of them? But for now, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope to be able to welcome you to another one. But until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

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First Impression: Nightmare Reaper (PC – Steam) ~ Can You Sleep Through This?

Steam store page – GOG page

I can’t tell you exactly why, but I’m a big fan of old school 3D shooters. Last year, I took a look at Ion Fury and Wrath. Honestly, I think that it’s because these games stuck the right balance between modern game design and old school gameplay. Now, one day I stumbled across this game. A game in Early Access that released last year to GOG and Steam. A game that presents itself as a game inspired by Blood, Doom, and Duke Nukem 3D. That’s quite interesting in my eyes. Currently, only the first episode has been released and episode two is coming in the near future. At the moment of writing, the developer said that they are aiming to release the second episode at the end of the summer. But, is this game worth your time and money? Let’s take a look at this game while I invite you to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

Can you sleep through this?

You play as an unnamed girl who is stuck in a psychotic ward. Her story is being told through small notes that you unlock after beating each level. In order for you to enjoy the game, you don’t need to pay any attention to the story, at all. But, I can tell you out of the experience that it enhances the game tenfold. My imagination and the spare bits of story that I got gave the world-building quite a lot of meaning. My imagination filled in some gaps that made the story quite interesting.

Now, I can understand that some people won’t enjoy a story that is this bland where it’s quite clear that you need to protect yourself on the character or fill in some of the gaps yourself. But, I didn’t find this a problem at all. Since this game focusses itself a lot more on the gameplay than on the story and in that case I don’t mind a “weaker” story.

I always find it quite difficult to review or criticize a story when I know that you don’t have every piece of the puzzle. A story can start off strong and end up quite weak. Currently, I’m quite interested to see where the story is going to go and if it wraps up with a nice conclusion or if it leaves it up to the player to figure out.

As I said before, the story is mostly told through small notes that you can read on your table after beating a level. You unlock one note for every level you beat. Each note builds on the previous note painting a more complete picture of the situation. There is no voice acting during these notes, but that doesn’t mean that there is no voice acting in the game.

The girl you play as is voiced by Marie-Claire Lavertu and I haven’t found anything about her. Now, this might raise some red flags but don’t you worry. The voice actor nails the voice acting of the main character flawlessly. The grunts, the smirks, the laughs… It’s all done pretty well. She did a pretty amazing job of bringing this troubled character to live without saying one line. I wonder if she also did the screams of the other patients you hear when you are in your room.

So, how do you play this game; since you start off in a hospital room? Well, as the name of the game suggests, you are going to reap some nightmares. So, it’s time to go to sleep and you get transported to a randomly generated level where your goal is to beat your enemies and reach the goal.

Retroception

This game features randomly generated levels. Well, to a degree. The developer created a whole slew of rooms and the random level generator just fits them together in random order.

So that means, that you might find the same layout once or twice but in most cases, each level and each playthrough is quite different. But, this isn’t the only thing that stands out in this game.

The Steam Store page boasts that this game has over 32 weapons and is going to have 80+ weapons. Now, before you think that this is going to be an overload to manage them all… You don’t have to manage them all. That’s because you can only carry over one weapon from one level to the next. Yes, one weapon.

It gets even better, each weapon might have special abilities and has a certain level. So, you need to think and strategize about which weapon you want to keep and which weapon you want to sell for those precious coins.

These coins can drop from destroying the environment, defeating enemies, selling weapons at the end of a level, finding treasure, and playing the Gameboy Advance Skilltree minigame. Oh yes, the minigame. One doesn’t simply unlock new powerups in this game, you have to earn them by first having enough coins and then beat the mini-platform level. Only when beating a level, you lose your coins and earn your sweet powerup. Trust me, these power-ups are worth it! After defeating some levels, I felt more equipped and stronger to beat my enemies.

If I would take a look at all the enemies and weapons, I think I would be here all day. Let’s first talk about the weapons. You have swords, staffs, shotguns, rocket launchers, tomes, pistols, rifles… It’s a whole lot. Personally, I rarely used the bows since I found their fire rate a bit too slow since this game can get pretty hectic and intense with some enemies and a strong gun fits my playstyle more in these types of gameplay situations. And my preferred weapon was a double-barreled shotgun with the chance to shock my enemies I picked up in one of the earliest levels.

Obviously, I’m going to talk about the enemies right now. You have a whole range of enemies. From hit scanning enemies to enemies that take you with melee attacks. It’s essential for you to learn the patterns of each enemy so you can play accordingly for which enemy you should take out first.

There are some enemies I absolutely hated during my playthroughs. These Dragon Plants that not only spit acid but also spit little egg projectiles that hatch smaller dragons. These didn’t die fast enough for my liking. And then I’m skipping over the enemies who throw what I assume mutated blobs of themselves to you and these blobs track you and when they explode… You lose a LOT of your health. And these blobs are so freaking small and annoying to kill…

Now, would I remove these enemies? Absolutely not. They ramp up the difficulty of this game to a very rewarding level. For having so many different possibilities, I’m surprised how much work there has been put into the balancing of the game. New enemies are introduced one by one so you can get used to them, learn their patterns, and try to manage them in the chaos of a whole enemy filled room.

The “punishment” for death in this game isn’t that harsh. Thankfully, since you will die quite often since this game can be quite rough. But I mean that in a good way. The punishment is that you have to restart the level with the weapon you choose to keep from the previous level. But, you don’t lose your gold. So, if one level is a bit too tough, you can grind up your coins, beat a few skill tree mini-games and try again with some new powers.

During my playthrough, I regularly felt the urge to play just one more round, to try to beat that annoying level. I found that most of this game is quite fair and balanced apart from the fire boss. I’m sorry but I find that boss battle just too difficult. That boss hits a bit too hard. My biggest complaint is that this boss appears after quite a challenging level and then you have to try and beat quite a difficult fight. Thankfully, the developer said that he is going to take a look at how the fight can become a little bit easier. And also, he has given us some helpful advice to beat it. It’s the biggest frustration I have with this game since I have gotten so close several times… But one of these days, I’ll do it and defeat that – CENSORED –

So, would it surprise you if I said that I’m not even done talking about all the mechanics yet? Oh, I haven’t mentioned the power-ups, the random events, and the possible bonus gold you can earn by killing all the enemies, finding all the gold and secrets… Well, I’ll leave these interesting and fun game mechanics up to you to find out. There must still be something to discover when you play this game after reading this article, right?

Shoot everything

You might have noticed by looking at the screenshots, that this game doesn’t have the most modern graphics. This game goes for a more retro aesthetic with some modern vibes. And the game succeeds in that quite well.

In the visual presentation, I find this game quite exceptional. I really like the visual presentation and animation of this game. From the enemy design to the animations on the weapons, I really think they are well done. Especially, when I saw some early footage of the game and compare it to what’s on offer now, it’s impressive how far this game has come. The only minor complaint I have in the visual department is a timer. Yes, a timer of how long your power-up is lasting. Since there is no inventory in this game for power-ups and health pickups, so it would have been nice to see how much a powerup is going to last when you want to use it to rush a boss or a difficult room.

To finish up my thoughts on the visual presentation, let’s talk about the UI. Overall, it’s quite well done but there are a few minor things that I would change. First of all, the “Reset Default Settings” is a great future but I would rather have that feature reset for example only the game features instead of resetting everything. Another minor complaint I have about the UI is there are no page numbers on the achievement page.

Speaking about achievements, it’s lovely that these give you coins in-game but I find them to also have them as Steam achievements. I mean, there are over 80 already. Maybe this is just me, but I almost got an achievement in every round, if not two or three. Maybe I look at achievements in a totally different light but I found them not rewarding to earn at all.

There is one thing that I haven’t talked about yet and I usually talk about quite early in my articles and that’s the audio of this game. First of all, let’s talk about the sound effects. The sound design of this game is close to perfect. On quite rare occasions, I didn’t hear some trap or pickup sound effects playing, especially during fights but that isn’t such a big deal. These fights are hectic enough when you try to manage large groups of enemies, the sparse health pickups, and the great sound effects of the enemies and weapons.

But I want to talk about the amazing soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult. Now, if this name doesn’t ring a bell. Well, let me just say he created the soundtrack of a little game called Dusk and Wrath: Aeon Of Ruin. Let me just say, if you enjoy the DooM 2016 soundtrack, oh man you are going to enjoy this quite a lot.

Overall, I would recommend this game to people who enjoy retro games and shooters. At its current state, I found this game quite addictive and I had a hard time putting this game down during my summer holidays. Before I knew it, I had put in 11 hours in this game and I’m not bored with it yet. I can’t wait to see what the second episode will bring to the table.

To be honest, I had a really hard time finding negatives to say about this game apart from the fire boss being too tricky for my liking. All the other things are things that are either quite minor or can change because this game is still in active development. I’m going to keep an eye out on this game and maybe you too.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future one but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Review: NG – Spirit Hunter (Switch) ~ Let’s Play A Ghostly Game, Shall We?

Official Nintendo subsite

I have to admit that this year was an extremely crazy year in terms of games for me. So many amazing games have been released and still have to release. When I reviewed Death Mark last year, I was extremely hyped when I learned that a sequel was in development called NG. It was extremely difficult to find even a shred of information about this game since the abbreviation NG stands for various things like a name to companies. In any case, I didn’t have high hopes that this game was coming to the west. Image my surprise when I saw this game in the “Coming Soon” section of the Nintendo Switch eShop. I patiently waited until the release date and when the release date came, I bought it during my break and let it download while I was at work so I could play it right away when I came home. Now, was it worth it? Is this game as good as the previous game or should you skip this game? Let’s take a look at this game, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Let’s play a Ghostly Game, shall we?

This game is the 2nd game in the Spirit Hunter series. The first game was Death Mark. This game isn’t a sequel of that game nor is it a continuation. This game just takes the whole gameplay concept and puts it into a new story and setting.

The story of this game is quite interesting. You play as the protagonist, that you can name yourself. His mother died a few years prior to this game and now he is living alone. His aunt took him in. She is a horror novel author and she runs a bar on the side. Her daughter became quite good friends with the protagonist. One evening, the protagonist finds a black postcard at his doorstep inviting him to play a game with a Princess. He simply ignores this because he thinks that it’s a simple prank.

But, that’s a mistake he is going to regret since not too long after he encounters his first ghost. After that, a ghost kidnaps his cousin and invites him to play a game. If he doesn’t play along, the curse will kill him.

Now, if you have played Death Mark, the curse works quite similar to the Death Mark of the original game. This curse is a sort of time limit in which you have to solve the case of the spirit you have to defeat or purify. Unlike the previous game, the protagonist doesn’t have one evening to deal with the spirit, but he has a bit more time.

While I would love to tell you more about the story of this game, I don’t think that’s a great idea. Since the story is that more enjoyable the less you know in advance. The twists and turns of the story are just amazing. The writing, the jokes, the pacing, the horror… everything comes together quite nicely in this game and I’m bumped out that I have finished this game.

There are some mechanics in this game that even give some replay value to this game. Now that I have finished this game, I want to replay this game and take it in a totally different direction to see where I end up.

This game has some minor Japanese voice acting as well. This isn’t overused at all and it’s used to add some punch to certain dialogues. The voice acting itself is done quite well, the voice acting of the ghosts are personally my favorites. The creepy effects and distortion the developers added to the voice acting is just amazing.

The slider of spooks

An extremely nice feature is the different modes you can play the game in. Like Death Mark, this game contains some jump scares and spooks. They are extremely well crafted and in most cases fit the story nicely. Also, they trigger when you investigate certain sections so it’s quite possible to miss multiple spooks. Some spooks mess with the text or the screen instead of a ghost popping up.

These different modes affect the amount of jump scares and spooks that happen. When you dislike these spooks or jumps scares, you can tone them down and even turn them off completely. I played through this game with all the jump scares intact and I have to say that it added quite a lot to the atmosphere of this game.

The atmosphere is quite creepy, to begin with. The writing draws you into the game and the amazing artwork and illustrations make the world come alive. There isn’t a lot in terms of animations but the beautiful artwork more than makes up for it. For example, the artwork of some death scenes is just extremely well done.

The character portraits, the design of the spirits, the design of the environments… It’s clear that quite a lot of thought and detail has been put into it. I’m quite thankful that the developers added a button to hid the on-screen UI to take screenshots of those amazing scenes to make them even more memorable.

Something that I find a tad bit irritating was the decision to make the “L” button the skip dialogue option. I think that another button like one of the arrow keys on the D-pad would have worked better. Since I can’t count on my two hands anymore the number of times I accidentally pressed the button and skipped a bit of the text. Thankfully, there is an easy way to bring up the log and you can re-read what you skipped.

Everything goes in that log that appears on the screen. From you trying to use an item to decisions you have to make. For some reason, I wasn’t always able to bring up this log easily. In most cases when the log refused to open, I was trying to investigate something. So, quickly going out of investigation mode was the solution.

Speaking of this mode, this is the only mode that allows you to save your game. You are unable to access the save menu while in a dialogue section. Thankfully, the dialogues aren’t Corpse Party Blood Drive long, so an investigation section can be right up the corner.

One thing that I found a real shame is some minor bugs in the UI of the options menu. In one option, the text overflows its checkbox and in another option, they forgot to remove a character at the end of the description. These are minor mistakes that can easily be patched out.

Gameplay-wise, this game is quite addictive. You have to explore the different area’s to either purify or destroy the spirit haunting the place. In order to do this, you explore at night with a partner and search for different subsections of this area.

You explore parts of a town, an office building, and various other locations. You search these locations for clues and items to learn more about the spirit and try and defeat/purify them. The better you explore and investigate the area, the more information you have in the fight with the spirit. If you have played Death Mark, you will feel right at home since it looks quite similar.

I found the gameplay of this game quite addictive. I wanted to keep playing and experience the story to it’s a full conclusion. And yes, now that I have beaten the game, I’m considering playing through the whole game again and trying to take a different route to see where it leads me. I know that this game has multiple endings, but I would love to see how much endings there are.

One extremely welcome improvement over Death Mark I have to mention is that when you want to swap partners, you can do that more easily now. You don’t have to go the whole way back to the mansion, you can easily go to the start of the place you are searching and ask the person directly.

Think quick!

There are some more things to do in this game compared to Death Mark. The items you choose still decide the outcome of purification of the spirit of destruction, but there are more things that matter now. Speaking about that in more detail would spoil certain story sections.

The whole spirit fighting mechanic has been reworked. Now, you don’t have to combine items anymore to attack the spirit, but you have to use your items in the area and analyze the situation. I love these spirits fights a whole lot more compared to Death Mark. The improvements these fights bring to the table are just amazing. It brings a bit more challenge to the table.

On top of that, there are now 2 styles of quick decision-making sections. Both work extremely similar and have the same outcome when you fail. A Game Over. One of these styles is a crisis choice, as you can see in the screenshot in this section of the article. Like Death Mark, the “1000” ticks down as soon as you are able to make a selection. Unlike Death Mark, you can’t find charms to increase this time and it also resets back to 100 each and every time you encounter that section.

Now, this game is quite lengthy. To beat the game, you will need to put give or take 20 hours aside. Let’s not forget to mention the fact that this game is somewhat replayable due to the “emotional reaction system”. Now, you can react with different emotions in certain sections. I have no idea if this makes a difference to the story. But, I have tried it one and it makes the characters react quite differently.

Something that does matter is during some sections you have to make harsh decisions that affect the story to a big degree. I wish I could talk about them, but that would spoil the big parts of the story and that’s something I’m trying to avoid in this review.

Another interesting game mechanic is the “D-Man”. This strange man texts you riddles that you can solve to find cards. These cards contain throwbacks to the previous game or add to the lore of the game. These are a joy to read but contain some spoilers of the previous game. Thankfully, only about the DLC bonus case, so it isn’t THAT bad. Now, the search for these cards works in a very unique way. As soon as you get the text, you have to look around in the area you are in. As soon as you exit the area, you will be unable to search for that card again. You’ll also lose the items you obtained and needed to find the said card. So, be careful.

An easy question to ask is, how difficult is this game? Well, this game is tricky. There are some sections that took me several attempts. In most cases, it was because I overlooked one item or didn’t check my area thoroughly enough. Thankfully, the game is quite forgiving with checkpoints and when you fail a crisis choice or spirit encounter, you can easily restart the whole fight by selecting the wanted option in the “Game Over” menu.

One of the biggest mistakes in this game is the save system in my opinion. I feel that it’s a downgrade compared to the system of Death Mark. There is no autosave, there are fewer save slots and there is less information on the save/load screen compared to the previous game. This is something I wish that will be improved in the possible sequel. Yes, a sequel has been sort of announced/confirmed. You can read more information on the article that Gematsu published a month ago.

The controls of this game are quite simple. They are easy to grasp and master. The only minor thing is that in some areas the spotlight isn’t bright enough to see where the spotlight is on the background art. Thankfully, this happens in only a few places, so it isn’t THAT bad.

Something I’m a bit mixed about is that this game doesn’t have a lot of music. Most of the music is also re-used from the previous game or sounds extremely similar. The music is amazing in this game and I wish I able to buy the soundtrack somewhere. Since I want to add this soundtrack to my music library when I’m relaxing or writing other articles.

And with that said, I said everything I wanted to say about this game. I have left out a few things so they can be surprised at you when you play this game. I think it’s high time for the conclusion of this article, don’t you think?

Conclusion

The bad:
-Some minor UI elements that could easily be fixed.

-The save feature could have been expanded quite a bit.
The good:

+ Amazing writing and story.

+ Great visuals.

+ The ability to disable the jump scares if you dislike them.

+ Great challenging puzzles

+ ….
Final thoughts:
This game is quite an improvement over Death Mark. Last year, Death Mark was one of my favorite games of 2018. This game is one of my favorite games of this year. This game is the perfect game to play during Halloween. I can’t recommend this game enough for fans of Death Mark, fans of horror games and fans of visual novels. I would even recommend this game to fans of adventure games.

This game is one of the best visual novels I have played in a while. And it’s up to high competition like Ai: Somnium Files. This will be quite interesting in my “Top 10 Games of 2019”. Take it from me, give this game a try. Because it’s totally worth playing and experiencing this game.

Of course, this game has some shortcomings like the bare bones save system and some minor annoyances with the controls but these are easily overlooked and don’t hinder the enjoyment of the game too much or even at all.

Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this game as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 100/100

NekoJonez’s April 2019 Update

It has been quite some time since I wrote an update article. A lot of things are happening and I think it’s high time that I update you all on my life and all that. There are going to be a lot of changes and big updates in this article. Especially because I’m nearing my 8 year blogging anniversary next month. Also, if you want to keep up-to-date with my latest updates on my life and the things I do, I highly advise that you follow me on Twitter. Since that’s the platform I use the most to communicate with my readers and other bloggers for updates and things of that nature. But, some of these updates haven’t appeared on Twitter yet, so, let’s not stall any further and let’s get into the updates.

 Personal life things

 So, a lot of things are happening in my personal life. I wrote this update article on Friday the 26th of April. Today is the night of the premiere of the play I have been practicing since late December last year. We play it 6 times. Tonight, tomorrow night and on Sunday in the afternoon. We also play next weekend. Because of the frequent amount of rehearsals, I focused my attention more on the play then on playing games or working on my blog. That’s why articles have been so slow lately. On top of that, this whole week I have been out with a nasty cold. Luckily, I have been recovering quite well.

Another big change in my personal life is a huge job change. On Monday, I’m going to start working in a local computer hardware store. I’m quite excited to start in my new workplace. Because I’m starting in the upcoming week, I’m not going to talk too in-depth about my new job yet. So, that’s also a huge focus of mine. I’m preparing myself to start working there by reading up on the latest tech news and things of that nature for what I think are obvious reasons.

Now, another huge change in my life is the fact that I’m not going to college anymore. The reason for that is that I got my degree. I’m now a graduate computer scientist with my specialty in networking and repair. This actually happened in late December of 2018, but I haven’t written an update article since then, so I wanted to mention it here.

Last year, I wrote in various update articles that my bad mental health. So, because of my new job, my finding a girlfriend, completing my degree and various other things, I’m happy to announce that I’m finally out of that bad mental health state. A lot of my friends are telling me that I made a 180° flip. While I’m not going to talk too much in-depth on my blog, but let me say it like this; thanks to the support of friends, family and my support network… I have been looking for solutions to tackle the things that were making me unhappy in the first place. I’m so thankful for everybody’s kind words and advice that I can’t thank you guys, girls (or whatever gender you prefer) enough for everything. 2018 was extremely rough for me, but 2019 looks like it’s going to be an amazing year.

With all of that said, I think it’s high time to talk about the updates concerning my blog and things of that nature.

Blog & brand updates

 First of all, if you go to my YouTube channel, you might notice that I have a lot fewer video’s then in the past. That’s because I have unlisted most of them. The reason for that is, I didn’t feel happy or content with the quality of those videos anymore. From low frame rate footage, badly edited videos to horrible microphone quality… I might have been happy with it when I was creating these videos, but nowadays, I feel they don’t represent me or the quality I want to bring now. So, that’s why I also deleted the video’s from my blog as well. Now, will I put these videos back publically? Well, at the moment of writing I think that the chances are quite low of that happening.

In the future, I’ll be using my YouTube channel to upload glitches or weird things that happen in the games that I have been playing. So, if I want to share a bug, exploit or something of that nature, I’ll create a video about it and share it on my YouTube channel. I won’t make an article for each and every video I create, but I’ll tweet the video out. Now, will I search for these things to have some sort of consistent upload schedule? No, not at all. I feel that I’m way better in writing articles and maintaining a blog then I’m at creating videos. Besides that, I don’t have enough time to create videos, write a blog, work full time, spend time with my girlfriend… I think I’ll exhaust myself too quickly that way.

Now, something that will happen sporadically in the future streams. Because I bought an AverMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus (what a mouthful), I’m now able to stream almost everything from the original hardware. At the moment, you can find a few archives on my Twitch channel of test streams I did. So, whenever I fell like sharing my gameplay experiences with my you guys and girls, I’ll be doing that over Twitch. Thanks to this, I’ll be able to create better screenshots and video’s to support future articles.

You might have noticed that I have been publishing fewer articles in 2019 when you compare it to last year. This has a lot of reasons. One of the main reasons is that I have been focusing on improving my bad mental health state. The results of that, you already read earlier in this article. Another reason for a fewer amount of articles is one that you might have noticed already. My articles are getting longer and longer, more in-depth. It’s simply because I’m spending much more time and effort into writing each and every article. In the past, I have been able to research, draft, write and finalize an article in 2 or 3 evenings. Now, it takes me at least 3 evenings to complete an article.

I have been thinking about reducing the number of articles I write as well. I have been thinking to reduce the number of articles to 2 articles each month instead of 4 articles. So, I can spend even more time on each article instead of rushing 4 articles through the door. While I tried doing that, I miss writing articles so much, I write 2 additional articles anyways.

Usually, I write during the evening or on the weekends. Because at those times, I’m able to focus on the creation of an article. But, this is also going to change. I’m going to work on Saturdays. Now, I do have another day off and this is Thursday. So, it’s quite possible that I’ll be publishing articles on Thursday in the future. Because I’ll be starting an article on Sunday and then being able to finish it on Thursday. I’ll have to wait and see how it’s going to turn out. It’s also possible that I’ll still be publishing on Sunday as well. Only time will tell.

Another thing I want to mention and talk about are the collabs. A lot of blogging collaborations are happening on a lot of my friend’s blogs. But, because I have been so busy with other things, I have missed a lot of them. So, until I have been able to get used to the new rhythm of my new job and the big life changes, I’ll be keeping the number of collaborations I’m contributing with to a real minimum. That way I can grantee I’m able to give my all during the collaborations and not burn myself out.

So, a good summary of what I have been saying in this article is that I have been cleaning up my blog to make it look more professional. There are also a lot of big changes in my personal life, a new job, a girlfriend, a degree… so I’ll have to get used to the new rhythm. This might cause scheduling changes, fewer or no collabs for the time being and possibly fewer articles. I’m also putting more time and effort into writing the articles as well. And because I bought an AverMedia device, I might live stream some gaming sessions of games I’m playing.

I have to admit that it has been strange writing an update article when I haven’t written one in almost 6 months. In any case, that’s everything I wanted to talk about. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: Etrian Odyssey Untold Stories 2 – The Fafnir Knight (3DS) ~ A Coocking Guild?

Wiki entry

This year I went on various trips. One day, I went to Brugge. When I was walking in the shopping streets, I went into a game store and saw this game there for like 10€ second hand. Because I enjoyed Etrian Odyssey Untold Stories, I wanted to know how the sequel was like. I know that I haven’t finished the original, but I have gotten quite far. More Etrian Odyssey in my collection. In any case, I think it’s time that I talk about this game since I have put in quite some hours into it. If I may believe the activity log of my 3DS, I have put in 40 hours into this game. That’s a lot for me. So, why did I put in so many hours? Let me explain. As usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Side note: This game is a remake of Etrian Odyssey II for the Nintendo DS.

A Cooking Guild? 

So, this game is a prequel to the first Untold game. You play as the Fafnir Knight, who is nameless since you decide the name for the character. On your journey, you meet up with 4 other adventurers by the name of Flavio, Arianna, Bertrand, and Chloe.

Your main objective is guiding Arianna through Ginnungagap to complete a ritual. You aren’t exactly told what the ritual is and what it means, but the further you get in the story, the more you uncover.

Each character has his or her motives to join you and be in the group. While they all fit a stereotype; the player character is the overpowered character, Arianna is the scatterbrained klutz, Bertrand is the warrior with a past he doesn’t want to reveal… The mixture of all these stereotypes makes for a great party. The writing and personality of the story are really good.

The voice acting is also pretty good. Something that surprised me is that shopkeepers start to have a small conversation with your characters if you want long enough. I actually discovered that while the game was open and I was writing this article. The conversations can be really funny and fit the personalities of the characters as a glove.

The story is keeping me on the edge of my seat. Yet, I do wish there was some log of the things that happened or what you are supposed to do next. Since there were a few times I didn’t play this game for a while and just started exploring randomly.

While you can get a vague idea by looking at the active missions and quests, I feel there should have been a location where you could ask what to do next. Even when you have downtime and you are free to do whatever you want since the next story quest requires your party to be a bit stronger.

In any case, in this game, your Guild Hall is something quite special. You operate from a restaurant. A game mechanic I really adore in this game is that the different items you find in while exploring the labyrinth all contribute to the restaurant.

And this restaurant is extremely important in your game. Regina, the cook of this restaurant, found an old recipe book from an old chef, who passed away. This chef was one of the greatest in the kingdom and Regina wants to recreate as many dishes as she can. Now, the recipe book is written in a cryptic way, so you have to read item descriptions to figure out which ingredient you need to develop the dish.

Besides that, you can let Regina cook a dish to give your party a certain buff before you go inside the labyrinth. This can be extremely helpful to when you are gearing up for an extremely tricky boss fight or when you need a certain boost to defeat some tricky enemies.

But wait, the importance of the restaurant doesn’t stop there. You can also develop the town, which will make the shops sell better items. So, you need to make sure that your restaurant is stocked up so you can create the right dish for the right area. Also, you can invest money in the town…

I think you get the idea. There is a lot of depth when it comes to the restaurant. It’s a very addictive balancing act to know which items you should sell to the stores to be able to buy certain items and which items you need to keep to have the ingredients for the restaurant.

The Fafnir Knight

Besides the great depth you have in the restaurant, the general town provides you with stores and various important locations. You can spend hours managing your party and upgrade it. Looking for the right items and the right builds for your party is extremely important. Be sure that you make your builds carefully and that you stock up on enough items before you go exploring the labyrinth.

Since this game can be quite unforgiving in the labyrinth. Expect when you play on the picnic difficulty. When you play on Picnic difficulty, you don’t get a game over when your party is wiped out. You just get kicked out of the labyrinth. Also, some items won’t deplete so you have a come casual experience with the game.

On standard, you get a pretty challenging game that is more fit for gamers who are into RPG and Dungeon Crawlers. You do get once chance to restart when your party is wiped out.

On expert mode, well, the game gets even more difficult and the game describes this mode as “for the real masters of Etrian Odyssey, or masochists”.

The difficult has barely any influence on the game, apart from you being unable to earn in the picnic difficulty. Also, you can change the difficulty at any time while you are in the town. You can’t change the difficulty while you are exploring in the labyrinth.

The goal of exploring the labyrinth is to get as far into the labyrinth as you can. The further you get into the labyrinth, the more difficult the monsters get. Every 5 floors have a certain theme and on the 5th floor, there is a final boss that tests your abilities. This boss also fits the theme of the area extremely well. So, try to learn from the behavior of the enemies and their weaknesses.

So, this isn’t just your typical dungeon crawler. There is a reason why this game is on the DS. That is because it has two screens and a touchscreen. You see the dungeon itself on the upper screen and you have a map screen at the bottom. The catch is, with the Etrian Odyssey series, that you have to draw the whole map yourself.

You can do this in a lot of ways, but I have my own style. For example, I draw walls where I’m unable to pass. So, if there is a column in the middle of the room, well, I draw walls on that square on the map. I have seen others use another color for those spots.

Anyways, before I go on a whole ramble about how I make the maps in the Etrian Odyssey series, I do have to say that this is the mechanic I love the most in this game. A good map is important to your survival since some strong monsters are running around in the labyrinth and if you draw everything, you can also find escape routes and shortcuts more easily.

These things can help a lot with finishing quests and missions pretty easily. The side quests are a lot of fun to do and you can find them in various buildings in the town. I highly recommend that you do them since they can help you sharpen your skills and find out something you didn’t know about the labyrinth.

Exploring to explore

I have to admit that sometimes I just started walking around in the labyrinth because I just had so much fun. My goal was just to wander around, fight enemies and check if I found everything on my map.

When you fully explored a floor, you are able to quick travel to that floor if you place a stairway on the map. But, these things get explained while you are playing the game.

The game doesn’t work with random encounters. You are on the “clock” so to say. I’m not talking about the day and night system present in the game, but after a certain amount of steps, you encounter an enemy. But be careful! There are big boss monsters running around in the labyrinth too. When you have an enemy encounter close to such a boss monster and it notices your party, it can enter the fight as an additional enemy to make your current fight became a bit more difficult.

Speaking of fighting, each character has his or her own strengths and weaknesses. So, make sure that you use that to your advantage. Also, use the points you get from leveling up your character to your advantage. Since you don’t learn new skills by leveling up, you have to distribute points. Be careful how you distribute them since they matter and you can’t undo them easily.

I can talk for a while longer about the gameplay of this game, but I will say this to wrap it up. This game has a lot of depth and has so much to manage that it can become overbearing. Knowing which enemies are weak against what is a challenge and a half to remember. That’s why I’m so thankful that the characters actually give hints before a battle starts.

Because this is such an expansive game, you expect the controls to be flawless. Well, there is something I think could be improved in the drawing controls. It’s something I had a lot of trouble with in previous Etrian Odyssey games as well. That is the fact that removing placed icons is a hassle. It’s very tricky to move icons once they are placed.

Overall, the controls of this game are pretty good. Every button is used to its fullest. The UI is also great to use. There is something I think they can improve when it comes to the UI and that is a search option in the Monstrous Codex and the Item Compendium and make those list sortable. That would have been such a great help.

The visual presentation is a feast for the eyes. When I’m playing this game I sometimes just stop and look around with the circle pad to take in the gorgeous artwork and the detailed environments. The theming of this game is pretty well done. On the jungle floors, you get various patches of patches of grass filled with thorns. On the winter floors, you have a lot of the area that there are icy spots you have to slide and you can’t suddenly take a turn then.

The animations in this game are pretty decent. You can compare the style of animations in this game with a Pokémon game. It’s a similar concept. Most of the animations are present during the battles. I wish that the characters inside the towns were a bit more animated while they speak since now they are extremely pretty 2D characters.

All of this is topped off with an amazing soundtrack, a soundtrack I’m actually interested in buying it. I really enjoy listing to the soundtrack of this game that much. Together with the sound design of this game, I think you have a feast for the ears too. One of my favorite tracks in the game is “Bloody Fight – Betting it All”. It’s such a great track when you are fighting those bosses.

This game is a blast to play. If you are into RPG’s and/or Dungeon Crawlers, it would be a shame if you don’t play any of the Etrian Odyssey games. If you want to enjoy this game and don’t want to be afraid that this game is too difficult, play on the picnic difficulty.

This game can be extremely challenging if you don’t build up your party the right way. If you don’t use your upgrade points wisely, if you give bad items to characters, don’t use boosts or grimoire stones… If you want a challenge, don’t use a guide for this game. Otherwise, I think it’s perfectly fine to use a guide to help in on your quest.

I love the Etrian Odyssey series and I can’t wait to finish this game. I can recommend it to everyone who is looking for a game they can sink hours upon hours into and a game that challenges your skills as a gamer and an RPG/Dungeon Crawler fan.

That’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

 

Gaming Music – My Favorites #13: Not unlucky.

Link to my previous music articles.

It has been a while since I wrote one of these, is it not? Well, it’s time to fix that. I wanted to do something special for the 13th article of this series, but the only thing I was able to come up with is 13 tracks. I’m sorry, but that’s a bit overkill. Anyways, for the people who don’t know this series on my blog… In these articles I talk about some game music tracks and why I think they are really good. I try to always link to a sort of extended version or at least a high quality one. I have a rule where I can’t talk about more then one track of a game (series) per article. I think I might have broken my other rule of trying to always get unique tracks. If you see me do that, feel free to point it out! That way I will try to do something unique in the next article. Anyways, enough talk! Put on your headset and get ready for some, according to me, amazing game music! (And as always, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the music, games and/or your own favorite game music.)

Europa Universalis 4 (PC) ~ Battle of Lepanto

I think this is one of the best tracks in the entire EU IV soundtrack. It starts off kind of calm but around the 2 minute mark, that completely changes. When I close my eyes while listing to this I imagine an epic battle, where the camera slowly pans around like in those medieval war movies.

The chanting is perfect. It adds some additional flavour to the track and it makes it that more exciting to try and win your battle.

And what I adore even more about this track is that near the end, it goes to a calm-ish vibe again. Like it wants you to take a step back (or zoom out) to look how the situation is. Maybe I’m looking way too deep into this track, but it’s the vibe I actually get from this masterpiece of game music.

First Impression of this game.

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl (3DS) ~ Battlefield – Dyed in Scarlet

If you read my previous article, then you should already know that I’m enjoying this game quite a lot. I also praised the music for being ear-candy. If I didn’t, well, then I do it now.

This is the music that plays when you fight one of the bosses. And this sounds just amazing. It really sets the mood for an epic battle. And let me tell you, the battle with that boss is tough. You won’t be able to beat it that easily. The build-up to the boss is also incredible. Making the music sound that much better.

I have to admit that once I just put my 3DS down to enjoy the music and forgot about the battle I was in for at least 5 to 7 minutes. Now, that is proof that this is good music to me.

Kirby’s Dream Land (GB) ~ Bubbly Clouds

When I was looking through my game collection for some inspiration for this list, I found this gem of a game. I got this game as a present from my aunt. I was a bit jealous of my sister, since she got the sequel, where the copy ability was present.

But did that stop me from enjoying this game? Oh hell no. The first time I finished this game was on one of those long car rides from Belgium to Austria to have a nice relaxing walking holiday in the summer. Man, I remember bringing my gameboy into the mountain woods and play this game. Reaching this level, the 4th one if I recall correctly, and then looking around me to take in the scenery… Those are some amazing childhood memories.

SmoothMcGroove did his magic on this tune. Go listen to it right here. 

Doom (PC) ~ E1M1 At Doom’s Gate

So, first of all… this is one for you buddy. MiseryLC, my best friend loves this game to death. And I think he has a very good point. I used to play the demo of this game over and over again.

I haven’t grown up with any oldschool console or PC games. I grew up with a Gameboy. But each time I felt like playing some old school games, since my pc couldn’t handle newer games… I kept coming back to idSoftware.

This song takes me back to those memories. But lately, it’s reminding me of the amazing friendship I have with my best friend at the moment. Also, his birthday is in the near future. Here is to more years to come man! We shall make it a wonderful day!

Editorial note: the game I actually played the most is the more fantasy based game: Heretic. Just something in that game was a bit more interesting to me then Doom. I’m not saying it’s better then Doom… Nah, in my eyes, they are equals.

 Ace Attorney – Miles Edgeworth – Investigations 2 (DS) ~ Objection 2011

First Impression (of the fan translation)

Man, is this a great game. Finally, we get a better look into Miles and his friends’ personalities. If you thought that the first game was great, then go play the fan translated sequel.

The music is also just great. I love hearing the familiar, yet very fresh tune. One of my favorite tracks in this game is the one I selected for this article. It plays when you finally proved the lies you expose. It’s so upbeat and adds to the rewarding feeling you get.

Also, I have almost fully finished the game. So, that means I might write a full review on this game in the near future. So, stay tuned for that.

Wrapping up

So, there you have it. 5 songs added to my ever growing list of amazing game music. I hope you enjoyed listening to them. If you have suggestions, never be afraid to contact me.

I love gaming music. Quite a lot. To the point that I listen to this amazing website called RadioNintendo, every day at work and lately when I’m writing articles. Well, certain articles…. because with articles like reviews, I play the game soundtrack in the background so I can better visualize the game while writing.

But check the site out guys, the owner is quite a cool guy and the small community is starting to grow over time. It’s quite lovely to see. While the site might have a hick-up here and there, it’s some quite impressive coding.

In any case, I think I’m going to wrap up this article right here. Thanks for reading and until the next one. Until then, take care & game on.

First Impression: Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl (3DS) ~ Dungeon Crawler with own maps

Official website

Back when the 3DS wasn’t released, I played an overload of DS games. More then I care to admit. There was one series I wanted to get into but actually never gave a fair chance. That was Etrian Odyssey. So, two weeks ago, I decided to pick up one of the 3DS games. Since the core game mechanic interested me. Now, I haven’t played many other games besides this the last two weeks. But why is it so good to me? I will explain in this first impression. I hope you are ready, since we are going to the labyrinth. Wait, no… This is real life, not the game world. So, I have to say my usual sentence. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and or the content of this article. 

Going old school

Alright, first of all. I’m blown away by the story. Most of all, I think this is one of the best writing I have seen since I played Corpse Party. Sometimes the writing is as if you are reading a book. While nothing that much happens on screen, the short yet extremely powerful descriptions you are given are enough to immerse yourself in the world and give you the feeling to be there in the world.

The characters are also memorable. The story goes about a girl that lost her memory. But, strangely, the story wasn’t the main focus of the story until the point I played. It was something different. There are other side stories that are all leading up to one interesting setup. It’s almost like a real life as an explorer. There are so many things going on and you try to make the best of it.

The characters are what makes the story even more interesting. They might be your typical hotheaded mage, wise healer, strong (female!) tank and silent main character. Yet, they have been written in such a way that it doesn’t bother the story. The characters even get fleshed out and thrown in day to day situations.

But enough about the story. I can’t praise it enough. What I love the most about this game is the fact you have to draw your own map on the touch screen. This takes me back so many years, when I was first playing The Legend Of Zelda on my cousin’s NES. We both started to draw maps together and tried to find and share secrets that way. The wonder I get when I find an unexplored part on a floor I thought I completed is just amazing.

Music to enjoy.

So, this game has a very nice map creating tool. It doesn’t punish you by not allowing you to the next floor until every square has been discovered, it rewards you to try and get to hard to reach area’s with amazing treasure.

I’ll talk a bit about the gameplay later. First, I want to talk about something else. The music of this game is really well done. In fact, I even replaced my main ringtone with one of my favorite tracks from the game.

Another thing that also shines in the sound department is the voice acting. The voices are really well done and add a lot of character … to the characters. They also are really helpful. The shout what they think is the enemies weakness in battle. This is where I have some minor nitpicks. The battle system is where some polish of this game … well, I has some minor mistakes.

The “auto” feature doesn’t always chooses the best option to attack and looking up a monster while fighting can’t be done in sub menu’s. That are just two examples of issues I have with the battle system. The randomizing of the characters don’t bother me that much, since that brings some element of luck to the game… Which I really like.

The presentation of this game is what I really think doesn’t need an upgrade. I have barely anything negative to say. Apart from some lazy recoloring of some enemy models, I think they made some eye candy to enjoy while playing this game. If only the added some more ambient sound effects into the game to make it a bit more alive then it already is.

Enjoying this game like mad

To say that this game is perfect would be a lie. There are some minor annoyances, like the deleting of icons is kinda tricky to do… But most of the things I find are mostly minor. Even the controls, I can’t seem to find any major issues. They are responsive and work pretty well.

I could argue that there isn’t anywhere to heal your party for free, but that just adds the strategy element of this game. You need to keep exploring and find enough items and treasure to sell so you can keep healing.

That price always goes up, from what I understand… along with the levels of your party members.

Is this game for everybody? Well, that seriously depends on what mode you play. I’m playing classic mode. That means I get the full story yet the game is a bit more challenging. I wanted to play a game that could kick my ass if I wasn’t ready for a battle or if I wasn’t paying enough attention. It delivers on that front. With some well placed traps and the introduction of really strong enemies really early, I’m always on my guard.

From what I read, the story mode is much more forgiving. But I wanted a challenge and I’m getting it for sure. And I’m enjoying it. That much, that I had trouble with writing a really coherent article. So, I tried to talk like an excited friend that tries to sell you on this game. I hope I succeeded in that. Even when you aren’t interested in this game, I highly recommend you watch a let’s play episode or something since the game is so well put together, I think it’s a shame if you would to miss out on this. So, I’m going to wrap up this article right here. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And hopefully, I would like to welcome you at another article. Until then, take care.~

Gaming Music #8 * SPECIAL *: Remixes and game related tracks.

I listen to a lot of music, maybe too much. From soundtracks to hardstyle. From classic music to dance. Apart from dubstep and metal, I love all kinds of music. I’m really drawn to melodic music. I’m sorry for the fans of dubstep but most of the times, a sudden bass drop kills the melody for me. And metal, sorry guys, I’m more fond of the electronic music. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t care if my friends play music of those genres in my neighborhood, it’s just that I will never listen to it myself. Out of that love for music, I started my gaming music series. I talk about my favorite tracks in gaming and why I love them so much. Normally I have a rule for 1 track per game. But I’m allow to select multiple tracks over the other articles. This rule still be will here. The other rule that I can’t select a remix is going out of the window. Now, in this article I will talk about a few songs that are either remixes of somebody, not by the creators of the game, or a song that’s heavily game influenced. Now, feel free to leave a comment with your favorites and or the opinion on my selection. 

#1: Secret Of Monkey Island – Main Theme (Dubmood / Chiptune Remix)

Link

Muddy, this is one for you. MuddyMaster and myself enjoy the chiptune quite a lot. A while ago, I posted a picture of a Monkey Island game on the forums. It turns out that Muddy knows and likes the series as well.

And who doesn’t? The amazing writing, the great adventure, the sometimes self-aware characters, the brilliant puzzle design… Man, too bad that LucasArts is closed.

This nice track is often my alarm when I need to wake up. I had people make fun of me, since this track sounds like a theme song from the old consoles. Honestly, I don’t care. While I can’t find the artist of this track (feel free to let me know) I think this is a well crafted remix.

When I was playing around with Audacity, I found out that there is a small silence in the track. A trained ear will hear the gap easily. But when you are relaxing, there is a big chance you will not notice it. And now, because I mentioned it, you guys will most likely all notice it.

Anyways, this track is an awesome way to start! I hope you guys are ready to listen to some great music. Dj, next one please!

#2: S3RL – Pika Girl (Handz-Up / Dance / Tech)

Link

I still remember a few years ago, when I heard “Pretty Rave Girl” from this artist for the first time. The video didn’t credit the artist and most of the times, people claimed that Basshunter was the creator.

After some digging, I found out, this year that the artist is S3RL. And when I heard this track, I was instantly in love with it.

I have one minor complaint. The healing sound effect is out of place the first time. The music comes to a way to abrupt stop. While this isn’t a real remix by definition, this track is really game related.

The lyrics made excellent use of the Pokémon terminology. In addition to that, the track tries to mix the show in with the actual games. Now, that’s something I rarely see happening. Or is that just me?

#3: Castlevania – Blood Tears Remix by Lyude (Rock)

Link

Shame on you when you don’t know Castlevania. This game is a game that nearly every time comes to mind when I’m playing platformers. Now, let me be clear. I don’t like Mario style platformers. They are a simple as going from point A to B.

But the Castlevania (2D) games at the other hand mix amazing RPG elements into the formula. I’m not really interested in the vampire story line that much, but it’s a great setting for the gameplay.

While this remix is rather short, I often play it on a loop while writing. When I’m writing articles where I don’t listen to the soundtrack of a game I’m writing about, I have a playlist ready. And this track is pretty high up that list. The pure energy that comes off this track, it’s amazing. Give it a listen. You won’t be disappointed.

#4: Gerudo Valley (Zelda series) – Remixed by IncredFX (Electro)

Link

Remember how I selected the original of this track in a previous entry of this series? Well, there are a lot of dubstep remixes out there of this amazing song. Yet, this electro remix takes the cake for me. It has an amazing bassline and above all, a great build up.

While you can clearly hear the actual music in the remix, it stays true to the fact that’s it’s a remix and some nice electro melodies are mixed in to it.

I really love this track. I wish I found it earlier. Also, you can download a highly improved version in the description of the video. Believe me, it’s totally worth it.

I admit that I have been dancing a little while writing this. Dancing on this amazing tune. Yes, it’s pretty clear by now. I can’t stress enough how much I like the style of this track. I have no real negative thing to say about this track. Although, I should have gone the extra mile and looked for a better screenshot to put here. Well, it’s a track from the Zelda series and a picture from the Zelda series… I think I can get away with this.

Closing words

And I think I’m going to end my article here. I know a ton more songs I want to mention, but I think I will keep those for the next special. I hope you enjoyed this special music article. I really enjoy writing articles like these.

If you ask yourself why I keep my article at this length, well, to keep it “bite-sized”. This way I force myself as well into putting the most important info in the article.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this article and hopefully I can see you in the next one.