ReMix:Mega Man 2 "A Breath of Fresh Air" 5:33

The chiptune tag team of Elrinth & PsyNES are back in action with more Mega Man 2! However, the duo didn't resurface just with the blue bomber and Air Man in dance mode, no sir! Elrinth & PsyNES have got another "two" game in tow with Mega Man 2 as they weave in the final battle theme of Double Dragon II! PsyNES loaded up the save file after leaving the progress untouched for over a decade:

"Here is a new Elrinth & PsyNES collab remix. It has been a long time since the previous one! If this gets submitted to the site, it will be an OC ReMix exclusive, never released anywhere else! Probably later on my YouTube/SoundCloud too, but not in a while.

This remix was started by Elrinth back in 2013, I think. Elrinth made a really good start for the remix and I thought we could finish this pretty quickly... but here we are, 10 years later. :D

We had big plans back then, but all fell apart, I guess. We were supposed to make a Mega Man 2 remix album, and I was planning to do a Mega Man 3 remix album myself (both may still happen, but who knows when). Sadly, the collaborations work got slower and slower for various reasons and, in the last few years, it's been only me trying to finish the unfinished remixes we started, and this is one of them.

In the intro part, there's some Double Dragon mixed in there by Elrinth, but not enough to actually take over the "Air Man" part. It also comes back later around the 2-minute mark.

I think the first version of the remix Elrinth sent to me was already like 2 mins long. After that, it's been mostly me remixing the tune, adding effects and length, etc. There were a few times Elrinth still added some stuff, but can't really remember what. The 4:40+ part is actually taken from my first PsyNES Mega Man 2 "Air Man" remix that I made back in 2009! Holy poop, it's been a long time. Elrinth just actually said that it's his favorite part of the remix. :)

Oh well, that was some comments and history about the song/our collaborations. Hope you all enjoy the tune!

Love from Elrinth and PsyNES! <3 Renoise still rocks. 8)"

Like me, MindWanderer looooooves the extra Double Dragon source tune here, saying "When I saw what games you were combining, I knew instantly which track from Double Dragon 2 you were using. Best track in the game, IMHO, and so unique compared to the rest of the soundtrack." You can't go wrong arranging Double Dragon II, so bring it, people, we want it! And speaking of "we want it", that's how I view any time judge Chimpazilla weighs in on things with her unique reactions and flavor; Chimpazilla had me rolling with her vote, so here were go:

"That's. A. BIG. Kick. So big. So, so big. WHAT DID YOU SAY you'll have to speak louder, this kick is just so so big. I mean omg, what a big kick this is. Did I mention the big kick?

Those are some huge saw stacks. So many frequencies. All of the frequencies?

Master is LOWD. Sounds crispy, but could be all the saw frequencies? There are so many of those. [...]

The arrangement is stellar, the mixing of these themes is terrific. The writing is great. Lots of fun little variations as the piece moves along. [...] I love it.

And huge kicks are the best kind of kicks."

As far as this track goes, the pulsing beat, like the master, is undoubtably "LOWD" like Chimpa alluded to, so I know exactly where the Js were coming from; I can look past it though, even if it's all too much for "old man" me. :-) We have interesting beats at 1:02 as well, and the bassline arranges the "Air Man" melody briefly until the main melodic line arrived at 1:14. After a ton of energy flowing towards the halfway point, 3:15 has some different original writing that briefly references the source until winding back with "Air Man" at 3:42. Very nice dropoff at 3:59 to ice the pads and leave some cleaner textures fronted by chiptune, which was an awesome changeup in the feel of the track. Wonderful job layering up the chiptune lines at 4:24-4:37 to fill things out before simplifying the textures again; VERY cool dynamic contrast for these final sections heading towards a ramp up for the finish. Heard the DD2 cameo again at 4:56, and I liked the subtle vox-like padding added in there as well. You wouldn't necessarily think to combine these two themes in any way, but it's a comfy, groovy, and powerful fit, expanding upon a wonderful set of Mega Man 2 collabs by Elrinth & PsyNES. Nice work, boys!