Oh, man. So being the super nostalgic loser that I am, I totally spazzed when my brother shared this amazing find with me. I love oldschool Sonic like whoa. All those hours I put on the Sega Genesis? Probably 75% of it was for Sonic. I’ve never really known about this apparently awesome music arrangement community, but it really makes me feel good to know that there are people out there that still remember these old tunes and are actively remixing them and re-arranging them for the times.
The site, Overclocked Remixes, among other video game titles like Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger, features three Sonic-centric remix albums. They are albums for music from Sonic 3 & Knuckles (best game ever), Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and… an entire 18-track project album dedicated to the music from the Ice Cap Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, lol. All the tracks also stream for free on last.fm. It’s all very awesome.
A ton of really talented people have contributed to these albums, and I really love the variety, especially on the S3&K album. My favorite tracks right now, I think, are “Dead Batteries,” which is remixed from the Flying Battery Zone, and “Scrambled Eggman,” which is remixed from the boss music. Some of these remix titles are really hilarious too, lol, like “Caution: Echidnas May Eat Your Brain” for Knuckles’ theme, since he was a bad guy for much of the game. :P Really freakin’ love this remix for Lava Reef Zone too (“Lava Passion”), though there’s a slightly more awesome remix of it by someone else that wasn’t included on the project.
The sheer number of tracks on the ReCapitated Ice Cap Zone remix album is really impressive. The music for the zone is nice, certainly, but I personally never liked it as much as Lava Reef or even Hydrocity. Still, I might change my mind after I make it through all eighteen tracks!
I’d really love to see similar remix projects for Sonic CD and Sonic 3D Blast. The former was a really underappreciated game in my opinion, since not very many people bothered with the Sega CD platform and the PC version wasn’t nearly as awesome. It had great music all around; after all, it was where the “Sonic Boom” theme debuted. And really, as far as the Japanese/American soundtracks go (they are completely different), I prefer the American version. The main reason is because of the boss music. Sorry, guys. Sonic CD’s boss music was just 100% better in our release. ;3 Sonic 3D Blast wasn’t really nearly as a great a game, but it still had some pretty awesome music (more awesome boss music!). Besides, all its isometric goodness was a first forray into the 3D realm, and I still remember the commercials on TV raving about that, haha. There’s no official project for either game, but individual tracks can be found on the site. Check them out~!
Oh, yeah. OCRemix is amazing. I have about 200 tracks from that site sitting in my iTunes. You should check out the Chrono Symphonic album. A lot of great talent on that site.
Will definitely be checking out the other stuff after I stop looping Sonic, lol. Blasphemous as it may be, I haven’t played most of the other games featured, including Chrono Trigger, so yeah. I don’t doubt that it’s good music all the same though.