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Five years ago, we released a pack of charts for Clone Hero called the GaMetal Power Pack.

I’ve been getting emails and the occasional questioning comment over the years asking if we’d ever make a second one… and so we did just that! This new pack includes over 70 charts created by pro charter Miscellany, as well this special new track.

The concept to make a new “Boss Battle” track was the brainchild of Jason Paradise, who brought it up in a discussion we had several years ago, as early as the creation of the first pack back in 2019. I wasn’t able to get around to it then, but figured I could throw something together if and when we got around to making another pack.

At first, I was going put together an arrangement with some of my more popular solos from older GaMetal songs, but what I ended up with sounded like a miniature version of the solo medley from the first pack, so I tossed that idea and decided to do something else: a bunch of soloing over one of my favorite game songs, Fierce Battle (which has now officially been renamed to “Battle to the Death” which I must admit is awesome) from Final Fantasy VI.

Originally this was only going to be the musical portion (the first 2:20), but this was taken a huge step further when the pack’s charter, Miscellany, suggested I add a guitar-only “sudden death” section to go all the way with the GH3 Boss Battle influence.

Thus, “Battle to the Death” was born! I specifically wrote all of the guitar work in this song to be incredibly difficult for Guitar Hero-likes to challenge the craziest of 5 fret rhythm game players, so there’s a whole lot of speed shred and Guitar Hero-specific trickery throughout this entire arrangement.

GaMetal Power Pack 2 is available to download (free of course) over here at CustomSongsCentral, enjoy!

Quick note: there are two different versions of the charts for this song, a “true boss battle” version (seen in this video), and a single-player version with both leads combined (the toughest version).

*I know that pure guitar shred is not for everyone, so for the streaming releases, I’ve provided three different tracks: the “full version” (which is what is heard in the video), and a 2 track split with the musical portion (first 2:20) on one track and the Guitar-only sudden death section on another!

 

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It’s medley time again! Those are always fun, right?

This time we’re going with the best selling handheld console to date: the Nintendo DS.

The following 20 songs are featured:

• DSi Startup Jingle
• Overworld (New Super Mario Bros.)
• Realm Overworld (The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks)
• Ebony Wings (Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia)
• Airship Fortress (Mario Kart DS)
• Normal Battle (Pokémon Conquest)
• Someday (The World Ends With You) Ft. LaceyJohnsonMusic
• Right There, Ride On (Sonic Rush)
• Big Swell (Sonic Rush Adventure)
• Level 1, Garden (Scribblenauts)
• Gentle Breeze (Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2
• Heavy Metal (Henry Hatsworth)
• Professor Layton’s Theme (Professor Layton and the Curious Village)
• Tremolo Hunter (Fossil Fighters Champions)
• Lethal Lava Land (Super Mario 64 DS)
• Here Come the Squeaks! (Kirby: Squeak Squad)
• Bathtime (Nintendogs)
• Munchy Monk (Rhythm Heaven)
• Fight and Away (Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days)
• SHOWTIME! (Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story)
• A Tight Spot During Battle! (Pokémon Black / White)
• Victory! Champion (Pokémon Diamond / Pearl)

As with all console medleys, the song list was mostly made up of requests from the GaMetal Patreon community, with some of those being random and some hand selected by myself. I always try to do my best with new console medleys to cover as many bases as I can (while also keeping in mind any more songs than this I would die irl).

We hope you all enjoy this first GaMetal DS Medley!

 

PS: I’m aware that I’ve missed a few key entries in the DS library such as Elf Bowling or Deal or No Deal, as mentioned it’s already grueling doing a 20+ song medley and I would die from exhaustion irl having to do more than that, so bare with me, perhaps they’ll show up in a second medley!

 

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Here’s another banger for you from the forgotten games category, it’s Frost Dragon from Brave Fencer Musashi!

I was sifting through requests to find something interesting to do from a soundtrack I haven’t done before, when I came upon this song. The main guitar riff was killer! Then this sort of weird wobbly choir synth-y instrument comes in and takes over the melody and makes things… well, weird. I’ve replaced said synth with guitar (surprise surprise) and a Chinese Erhu Violin which I felt fit the vibe really well (and definitely wasn’t as strange).

I’m aware the most popular song from this game is probably Midair Giant Playground, but Frost Dragonwas definitely a song that deserved a new arrangement in my opinion!

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For royalty!

The request here was for both songs, which I think works out because these 2 might be the shortest stage themes in the game. In the Halls of the King has one major difference however (get it?). Other than that, the usual things (slight instrumentation / backing rhythm line differences) and a slightly different final section, they’re practically the same song.

No other interesting notes from me on this one, just another awesome Shovel Knight tune!

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We’re once again hitting up the Tekken 2 soundtrack, this time for the theme of Lei Wulong!

This song was chosen by Ms. Atma for her annual Valentine’s Day song choice. As you might have been able to guess by now, this is her favorite game soundtrack! It’s also one of my personal favorite fighting game soundtracks, so I always have fun doing songs from this OST.

There are two versions of this song, the PSX version (titled The Place, 1997) and the Arcade version (titled Lei Wulong, Super Police). This arrangement is based on the PSX version.

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It has been 4 years since I chose to do a Mega Man Zero song… I knows that find my purpose, I should cover Departure from Mega Man Zero 2!

I actually didn’t realize until I posted this cover that I haven’t done a Zero song, Falling Down, since 2019, and in addition to that, the only other one I’ve done is Cannonball.

For this arrangement, I took a lot of inspiration from the Mythos version, but also tried to combine it with aspects from the original, for instance, the straight up silence and guitar pick scrape at 00:58. I also don’t believe the organ line that’s playing the 3 quarter notes each measure during the verse is present in the Mythos, which I’ve included here (it’s tucked into the background), and I moved the synth solo to the end of the song here. I just really like how cool that pre-verse riff is and wanted to emphasize it at least one more time.

 

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At long last, after several SMRPG arrangements in celebration of the remake released last year, we’re taking on the most requested SMRPG song of the moment: Fight Against Smithy, and Fight Against Smithy, Who Likes Transforming! (Now known as “Battling Smithy” and “Battling Smithy’s Many Forms” in the remake.)

I had actually planned for this to be the 2024 finale, but as the end of the year was getting closer, I decided to end it with Serpent that Devours the Horizon instead. I then planned to finish it up and release it after Pizza Time, but decided to put a little bit of space in between the two.

I based these arrangements off of the new versions from the remake, which doesn’t change much of the original composition or song structure, but added a few small things here and there (for instance, the short strings melody at the end of the Fight Against Smithy), and (IMO) drastically improved the instrumentation.

Although this is the final battle, I’m no where near done with Super Mario RPG remixes, especially since the remake has revived interest in the series, and in the best possible way (it’s a beautiful remake!). So you can count on more in the future, for sure!

Lastly: for this double remix we’re also joined by our familiar friends Ro Panuganti and RichaadEB for a couple of guest solo spots, be sure to show them some love over at their channels!

 

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NEVER LET UP!!, that’s going to be the motto for us here this year, because we’re going full pedal to the metal in 2024!

This was a mid-tier Song Ballot entrant last year, placing at #12 overall, and the #1 most requested Mario song. It’s been a commonly requested M&L song for quite some time, and since it’s been a while since our last one, I decided… why not?

The original has a LOT of different things going on at once, so this one was a bit tricky to mix just right, but I never let up in trying my best.

 

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It’s not a year of GaMetal without a few seemingly random SNES-era JRPG songs here and there, right?

Mystic Ark is a sequel to 7th Saga, an SNES game which you may have heard of before (if not played). It was only released in Japan.

If you’re a fan of some past GaMetal arrangements like Spirit Chaser or SMT II Battle Theme, be sure to check this one out, this game has a similarly rockin’ soundtrack!

 

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This year I decided to follow up a strongly requested song with another one, coming in at the #6 most requested song overall, from the #2 most requested series (which almost always lands at or near the top): Morpho Knight from Kirby and the Forgotten Land!

Kirby always has a strong presence in the song ballots, and 2023 was no exception. I rather enjoyed this track when I heard it, so I felt it’d be a fun song to do.

I know there are a lot of folks out there that missed the old crazy bass line from the original Morpho Knight theme from Star Allies, so I made sure to throw that in this arrangement as well, and thankfully, with this song’s slower tempo, it’s far more realistic for me to play here!

 

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It’s 2024, and it’s also… Pizza Time!!

Last year’s most requested series from the 2023 GaMetal Song Ballot was none other than the hit indie sensation Pizza Tower. The game brought along with it a soundtrack that has been revered by VGM fans.

I personally recreated all the voice samples for this arrangement to get it feeling as close to the original as possible (plus ya know, licensing concerns!).

This was a really fun one to do! Being such a popular game from the last ballot, we’ll surely have more time for Pizza in the future.

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And so 2023 ends with a song that’s received numerous requests over the course of several years… one of the greatest final boss themes in gaming, The Serpent that Devours the Horizon from Bravely Default!

A quick note: this song has gone by a few different names, mostly Serpent Eating the Ground, but I’ve also seen mixups of this variant and Serpent that Devours the Horizon as well (such as Serpent Eating the Horizon or Serpent Devouring the Ground, etc). The official title of the track, according to the official soundtrack release, is Uroboros, the Serpent that Devours the Horizon…. although, in-game, the final boss is spelled Ouroboros, so unless there’s some fun Uroboros fact I’m unaware of, I assume that part is a typo. I’m rather fond of the official interpretation, so I’ll personally be labelling this version as Ouroboros: The Serpent that Devours the Horizon.

The requests for this song, as usual, started with my first cover from the game’s soundtrack back in 2015 with That Person’s Name Is (actually titled That of the Name). 4 years later I introduced the GaMetal Song Ballot. While Serpent didn’t have more than a handful of votes on the first ballot, it did place #8 overall the following year in 2020, #9 in 2022, and #14 in the most recent 2023 ballot. Most of the popular songs that I don’t get around to covering tend to fall off when the next ballot comes around, but Serpent has managed to maintain a strong presence in ballot requests over the years.

I felt like this song was already perfectly arranged, so aside from the intro, I didn’t change too much about it. It would’ve felt wrong to me to change some of the instruments handling the melodies at certain points of the song to lead guitar, especially when they tended to be followed up by a lead guitar section any way.

I hope you all enjoyed the song line-up for 2023! I’ve got some awesome things planned for the years ahead, so stick around!

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I almost didn’t do a Winter Special this year… but, at the last minute, I decided to see if I could squeeze one out real quick. I went with one I felt I could get done quick enough to continue working on the other songs I have planned, so here’s our third full stage theme remix from Mega Man X: Chill Penguin!

Complete with a new section to give this arrangement an extra Wintry-feel. 🐧

 

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A little over eight years ago, I started the GaMetal Patreon campaign (still goin strong, come join us!) A few months later, we reached about 30+ Patrons, and I decided to do a new console medley: our first ever SNES Medley, and give EVERYONE a song entry.

That medley ended up being enormous and extremely long… but still there were a few key games and songs missing.

Last year, we put together our 10th NES Medley, NEStalgia X. I thought this year, we could take a little break from the NES Medleys and revisit the Super Nintendo for our first console medley sequel that isn’t the NES.

Enter SNEStalgia II ! This one isn’t as long as the first SNES Medley, and there’s always going to be a notable game or two that might go untouched on, but I’ve still got plenty of awesome songs for you!

The complete song list:

• 00:00 Intro (Killer Instinct)
• 00:48 Snakey Chantey (Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest)
• 1:22 Beach (Plok)
• 1:57 The Oracle (Secret of Mana)
• 2:21 Overworld (Super Mario World)
• 2:57 Seaside (D-Force)
• 3:20 Cold Man (Rockman & Forte) [Mega Man & Bass])
• 3:57 Battle 7 (Ballz 3D)
• 4:26 Space Ship (Gundam Wing: Endless Duel)
• 5:10 Old Enemy (Shin Megami Tensei If…)
• 5:56 Boy Meets Girl (Earthbound)
• 6:37 Flower Garden (Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island)
• 7:16 Johnny C. Bad (Final Fantasy VI)
• 7:54 Vegas (Top Gear)
• 8:25 Super Pipe House (Super Mario RPG)
• 9:01 Battle Course (Super Mario Kart)
• 9:36 Ending (Kirby Super Star)

Thank you to the GaMetal Patreon community for helping me put together this spectacular second entry in our SNEStalgia series. Maybe we’ll even do a third next year! 😉

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It’s been quite some time since I last did a new song from the original DKC trilogy… 5 years, actually (discounting the Stickerbush Symphony remake a couple of years before this). I thought this time we could do a song from the under appreciated DKC3 soundtrack, Nuts and Bolts.

When I was looking into a DK song to cover, the heavy riffs and guitar effects of this one had me sold. I made sure to do my best to emulate the iconic “RAAAAH” whammy dive at around the 30 second mark. 🍌

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At long last, Mother 3 has been localized for GaMetal! Oh wait, Natural Killer Cyborg… forgot about that one. Well… localized AGAIN!

I put this one on a GaMetal Patreon Halloween Poll a few years ago but it didn’t win. This year, I stuck it back in that larger Discord poll I mentioned in the Darkest Night song post, and it did well enough to be part of this year’s official poll.

The official poll ended up being one of our tightest polls of all time (the broad Discord poll method ended up working near perfectly), with 3 songs duking it out till the very end. It wasn’t till the final hours of the last day that Master Porky’s Theme ended up edging out a victory behind two other strong contenders. RIP to the 4th contender which did not do so well (as I said, near perfectly 😅).

This song might not have an immediate “Halloween sound” to it, but I’ve always felt it fit the aesthetic well enough to warrant poll inclusions. This song manages to have a sort of unsettling feel to it even throughout the more powerful/intense first half. Things get a lot creepier during the part that is later used for the Absolutely Safe Capsule theme.

Then there’s the game itself. If you’re not too keen on the ending of Mother 3, I won’t spoil anything for you, but it’s when you sit and dwell on it for a bit… it’s a very disturbing thought.

Just for the heck of it I also threw in Porky’s Porkies near the end because I like that song a lot and wanted to extend this one a little bit without having to go through an entire second loop (which didn’t feel all that necessary).

So there you have it, Halloween Special 2023! Also, it was very nice of Ne-, I mean, Sans, to join us for the video on this one.