Soundtrack Spotlight is a weekly CFD! feature devoted to all things VGM. Every week we celebrate the best in-game music, highlight new releases and forgotten tracks, and bring you the best in auditory awesomeness.

“Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation, preservation, and interpretation of video game music. Its primary focus is www.ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.”

OverClocked ReMix is a community for people who love video game music so much that they aren’t content with simply listening to it. They take it upon themselves to recreate, rearrange and remix thousands of songs from every game imaginable into every genre imaginable, and the results are frequently astounding. It really doesn’t even matter if you don’t like music from games; if you enjoy good music, period, then there’s a good chance you’ll appreciate OverClocked ReMix.

The songs featured in this article are favorites from my personal OCR library, and represent only a tiny fraction of the thousands of songs available, for free, at www.ocremix.org (the bits of italicized texts come from the analysis each respective song is given by the OCR judges). If you like what you hear, I urge you to support the site by making a donation, or by buying one of these sexy, sexy shirts.

Actraiser ‘Fillmore Freestyle’

“This ReMix of the original Actraiser’s first stage action music was a long time coming – I really thought someone would have mixed it by now. McVaffe / Quasi does an excellent job, though, with some brilliant breakbeat work including notable stop-starts and beat-chopping tricks that MAKE the track.”

Remixed from: ‘Fillmore’

Age of Empires ‘Realms of Africa’

“The sheer definition of the instruments – their presence & power – in the intro alone bodes well for the rest of the piece. Loads of ethnic percussion, a variety of plucked, bowed, picked, and wind instruments can’t help but lend an otherwordly, global mystique to this very transitive arrangement. The title suggests passing through various lands, perhaps sharing one or two instruments in common but having a different overall musical culture / vibe. Not to be too retentive, but most of this doesn’t strike me as all that ‘African’ – I’d say our world-weary traveler unwittingly wanders off the continent into the far east for a quick snack a couple times – but there’s chock full o’ pitched and unpitched percussion to give Mr. Asulin’s title some weight, amongst other elements. I particularly liked the intro here – it’s very broad and expansive, hinting at possibilities and creating the right atmosphere for pre-safari thoughts of potential wonders lying ahead.”

Remixed from: ‘Tango Alpha Bravo’

Banjo-Kazooie ‘Malevolent Mansion’

“This one’s monstrous – the quick pace makes the relatively normal 4’37″ runtime seem copious, in a good way. This sorta sounds like crazy evil carnival music… almost an electronica take on the oft-overlooked soundtrack to Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which (not joking) *is* a compliment. Actually, if you harken back toMega Man 2 ‘Nuclear Flash’, which was also a collab between a primarily electronica artist and a guitarist and was also inspired by Pendulum, you’ll notice some similarities. The source material is different, as this has a more Kefka-esque “happy evil” melody, but the production and arrangement have some definite parallels. Specifically, the tendency to switch in and out of half tempo and the integration of guitars, though I’m sure there are others. Great stuff, an over-the-top collab that blends Justin’s guitar in quite well and draws effectively from its influences, resulting in some excellent, evil electronica that’s right for any day of the year.”

Remixed From: ‘Mad Monster Mansion’

Castlevania III ‘A Clockwork Vampire’

“Sometimes people hear a verbatim melody and they mistakenly conclude that the arrangement is minimal, or even a cover, but much can be done under the melodic hood to change the context and feel entirely, without altering a single note of the theme itself. From the beginning, Dhsu’s work displays the dynamics and fluctuating tempo a good solo pianist can and should bring to the table, as a strong, moving left hand underpins the very classical, often chromatic melody line. At under three minutes, this is a rather short piece, but from the more flowing, impressionistic intro to the frantic, impressario passages beginning at 1’35″, and then to the forteVampire Killer cameo towards the end, there’s a good variety, esp. in terms of tone and pacing.”

Remixed from: ‘Clockwork’

‘Dejavu (Vampire Killer)’

Cave Story ‘Escape Route’

“This piece is an interesting combination of slower, brooding rock and more energetic, rhythm-guitar driven, Jethro Tull flute soloing rock. There’s an interesting drum solo about halfway through that’s rather fun, and also exposes the heavy gating effect being applied to the drums, which we don’t hear all that often.”

Remixed from:‘Gestation’

Chrono Trigger ‘600 A.D. in Piano’

“The original lends itself so well to solo piano arrangement, which kLuTz does so well, it’s just a great match-up. Not all originals are so conducive to solo piano, and when such pieces are arranged as such it’s a testament to the arranger’s skill, but it’s just as well to begin with a piece that practically begged for a good ole 88-keys-o’-ivory rendition. kLuTz provides exactly that here with some excellent, ornate runs towards the end that might remind one of some of the soundtrack to The Piano; a comparison in my mind which is highly complimentary to the ReMixer. Recommended.”

Remixed from: ‘Yearnings of the Wind’

Contra ‘Snow Field’

“YEAH! I think a lot of people have been waiting for some Contra badassness ReMixin’, and I know my own quite dated attempt ain’t exactly cuttin’ that mustard, but tefnek is more than up to the challenge with knockout big beat coverage of the theme from the snow field stage that introduces brothers-in-arms Bill Rizer and Lance Bean to the Chemical Brothers by way of extensive breaks, filtering effects, mangled + tangled synths aplenty, well-assimilated acoustic guitar, and copious, infectious groove. Contra’s a little tricky to remix because of the relative brevity and speed of its motif-laden score, but this approach turns that into an advantage by similarly jumping from pattern to pattern and introducing some wild effects and variations at the same time.”

Remixed from: ‘Ice Fortress’

Dig Dug ‘Six Feet Under’

“Definitely a good electro update to a nostalgic classic. Drums are mixed kinda soft and could have been more electro, with some analog chirps and what not, but it’s dig dug, starla, and techno and that’s all most of you should need to know”

Remixed from: ‘Dig Dug Theme’

Donkey Kong Country ‘Blue Vision’

“Atmospheric agua in the form of downbeat electronica from bLiNd, covering the groovy, super laid-back water tunage from Donkey Kong Country. Gotta love the original, and though there’s not much additional arrangement to speak of, Jordan has done good, wholesome things with the instrumentation, choosing impeccably his various replacements for the original SNES timbres and mixing the whole enchilada to a milky, deep, reverberating abyss of music.”

Remixed from: ‘Aquatic Ambience’

Donkey Kong Country ‘West Coast DK Island’

“Fluid, embellishing, quintessentially mellow – to steal a line from Mamet, I’ll put it this way: it’s so cool that when it goes to sleep, sheep count it. The drum fill following the main melody breakout at 2’30″ is well-sequenced, but I could have seen the toms a bit louder and verbed; cymbals are definitely ruling the rhythm section. I’d say this is in Neskvartetten territory in some of its style and execution, which is paying a compliment to both parties. Very creative, and – in keeping with the theme thus far – very indicative of the range of styles this project has brought together under one umbrella. Slick.”

Remixed from: ‘DK Island Swing’

Doom ‘Doomed’

“I could go on and on about the textures in his ReMixes – this ReMix in particular has synths that seem distorted, but they never get ugly – they stay RIGHT on the fringe of being clean and distorted, where the textures shimmer but there’s no grunge or feedback. Beautiful.”

Remixed from: ‘Sign of Evil (E1M8)’

Ducktales ‘The Amazon Session’

“Though from the title you might think this would be laden with jungle breaks or have a more primal sound to it, it actually closely resembles happy Hawaiian music, with a nice jazz guitar that does lead and backing chords, a SLICK jazz brush kit that even takes a solo itself, what sounds like an accordion, a more open, clean guitar, and an upright bass. The arrangement is so smooth, though, that the real magic is how these instruments play off one another, do tradeoffs, carry the track at certain points or take a backstage at others.”

Remixed from: ‘The Amazon’

Final Fantasy VII ‘Jenova for Classical Piano’

“At first we were a bit concerned as this was transcribed from a version of the original that was already arranged to begin with, but Noir aka Eric Barker has done things right, providing a solo piano arrangement that is uniquely his own and, as mentioned above, clearly has roots in Romanticism and Impressionism (especially with the good deal of rather flamboyant but difficult runs) – as the stark title suggests. Nothing is stark about the arrangement itself, which oscillates between technical ruminations and more emotional, dramatic eruptions of forte ascensions and descensions.”

Remixed from: ‘J-E-N-O-V-A’

F-Zero ‘Blue Vacation’

“In the true spirit of OverClocked ReMix, this piece takes a well-known theme, Big Blue from F-Zero, and turns it on its head completely (with panache, as well). Yeah, it’s a carribean, guitar-strumming, island-percussion, steel-drum laden, flute soloin’ arrangement . . . and a half.”

Remixed from: ‘Big Blue’

Mario Kart 64 ‘Rainbow Snowland’

“Dhsu gives us a laid-back (in case the above didn’t convey that) solo piano arrangement of this originally peppy and energetic theme from MK64. Some interesting and more challenging decisions on where to take the chord progression at times, circa 1’25″ or thereabouts, and some excellent attention to varied dynamics and especially pacing. This is, as Judge Cabrera points out, a rather slow, deliberate mix, and it certainly takes its own sweet time to say what it has to say, but this is definitely the vibe the ReMixer was shooting for, I feel – something ponderous, appropo as the score for a movie about thirtysomethings dealing with important life issues… in late Autumn. I like the risks taken and the way that, whilst remaining pretty mellow, the progression and dynamics still do some dramatic transitions and swells. Good, intelligent+emotive stuff from Dhsu.”

Remixed from: ‘Frappe Snowland’

‘Rainbow Road’

Mega Man 3 ‘Blue Lightning’

“Disco Dan uses the length of the track to play around quite a bit, not only with standard additive / subtractive tricks, but with some filtering & variations as well. All the sounds are high quality, and the programming’s there with many a build that passes through resonance and cutoff before coming on full-force. This is good because at almost 9 minutes, if these thigns weren’t true, we’d all be in trouble. For 8 1/2 pounds of MM3 techno goodnes, start your engines now.”

Remixed from: ‘Mega Man 3 Intro’

Super Mario 64 ‘Devastation’s Doorway’

“Audix has since gone back and addressed the EQ criticisms that represented the sole sticking point for most judges, and the finished product is both silky and edgy at the same time, with excellent textural detail, particularly on percussive elements. It doesn’t skimp on arrangement either, especially as it progresses, representing a good blend of both compositional and production prowess. Definitely interested in hearing more from Greg; this is a fantastic first mix that fires on multiple cylinders and should get some traction.”

Remixed from: ‘Koopa’s Road’

‘Koopa’s Theme’

Super Mario Bros. 2 ‘Insomnic’

“I love this ReMix. I think this is the best techno / dance adaptation of this theme I can imagine. I’m gonna be listening to this for decades to come. Yes, yes, yes . . . . I REALLY think you should download this one. Really. This is the first submission from Sirus, whose original material can be found at his site below. I’m not even going to bother describing the mix because you just need to download it, period.”

Remixed from: ‘Overworld Theme’

‘Underworld Theme’

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link ‘Temple Trance’

“Solid 4/4 beat with a few good roll builds, deep + moving bass, and robotic, reverberating trance synths round out the arsenal, with various FX and mucho filtering. When the drum pattern broke at 1’00″ away from the four-on-the-floor thing and added a snare I was happy, as often this genre’s drum tracks become monotonous – bLiNd thankfully avoids that pitfall by throwing in enough breaks to get some variety goin’. Also really liked the rapid-fire arpeggios at 1’32″. Might go on a bit long for some, but then again it is trance, and the core ingredients all make for some good cookin’.”

Remixed from: ‘Temple/Palace’