ReMix:Graffiti Kingdom "Down Where Evil Dwells (El Hijo del Diablo)" 5:07

The devil made us do it! For OCR #4666, the TheManPF's second solo arrangement burns so hot! No, it's not from Cuphead, because in this case TheMan DID make a deal with the devil. :-O This time, TheManPF arranges the chillest final boss music in all of VGM, Yasunori Mitsuda's battle theme against Tablet of Graffiti Kingdom! TheManPF chanced upon this inspired source tune while researching Mitsuda's music for Dwelling of Duels:

"This is a symphonic rock/electronic arrangement of "Final Battle" from the 2004 video game Graffiti Kingdom. This arrangement was done as part of the Yasunori Mitsuda month in Dwelling of Duels back in July 2022, and got 11th place out of 26 tracks.

I never played Graffiti Kingdom (or any Mitsuda game, for that matter). I purposefully looked for what looked like the most obscure source I could pick and found this little game called Graffiti Kingdom that has some pretty cool tracks. No one has ever heard of it which is partly the reason I decided to cover it, I like to do deep cuts. "Final Battle" plays in the true final boss, which, as far as I know, seems to be the son of the main villain, the devil.

For this arrangement, I basically go through the whole source in 3 "loops", with the 3 sections of the original playing in order and repeating two more times, each time adding something new or transforming it in different ways. The image I get in my head from this arrangement after finishing it is the idea of someone's slow descent into hell, which is why it starts creepy and tense, and slowly gets heavier.

This is a solo project. I did all the arrangement, sequencing, mix, guitar playing, and a bit of lowkey vocals. Everything that is not guitar or vocals is sequenced VST and/or samples."

Where do I recognize that subtle swishy SFX brought in at :31? Mega Man X dashing around? In any case, loved the bassline presenting that anchor to the source tune at :31, allowing TheManPF to riff and build over the top of it until 1:10. Loads of good sound design things swirling around with this one. I do wish the bassline cut through more at 1:44, because that writing's very good and helps give the piece more movement.

Great dropoff at 2:03, followed by some grungier guitar at 2:21. At that point, I'm envisioning a confident spy breaking in somewhere and easily dispatching evil people getting in their way. Then they spot a tricky hallway at 2:41 and collect themself before the action gets going again at 2:56. I could entertain myself all day setting VGM arrangements to movie action. :-D 2:56-3:22's section had some amazing guitar soloing. Judge prophetik music was into the way things got grittier with the guitar in the final third of the way, and how TheManPF preserved much of a character of the original theme:

"there's some really heavy fun parts starting at 3:33 onward. drums are way more complex, guitar lead is way more complex, and the driving energy is great. bass is a little light here but at least i can hear it. this goes to an outro using a plectral instrument with some reversed tails and then it's done.

i love the exploration that this track has throughout. this is a quirky original, and you committed to that with your approach. [...] the guitar work is great and the overall approach is really interesting. i was a little on the fence early on but you won me over by midway through the track."

Before we kicked off the track's final third, I've gotta give a round of applause for another strong dynamic shift at 3:22, just a textbook example of a 10-second change that serves as a great energy reset and transition to another intense section with different textures. You could say the devil's in the details. ;-P Nice closeout idea with the plucked strings from 4:45 and a touch of final ethereal effects. Not that it has Hamauzu's sensibilities in there, but I was picking up some Hamauzu-adjacent vibes from this Mitsuda composition, a extremely cool source tune choice varying between 6/4 and 4/4! I appreciated the variations on the "Final Battle" theme throughout, so props to TheManPF's very creative methods of getting mileage out of this one, a rock & orchestral showcase!