ReMix: Tales of Symphonia 'The Fall of Iselia'
- Game: Tales of Symphonia (Namco, 2004, GCN)
- ReMixer(s): TheDeath, Usa
- Composer(s): Daisuke Suzuki, Motoi Sakuraba, Shinji Tamura, Takeshi Arai
- Song(s): 'Old familiar scent of Iselia'
- Posted: 2010-08-27, evaluated by djpretzel
- Album: Featured on Summoning of Spirits: An Arrangement of Music from Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia
It's officially the last full day of our honeymoon, and we've had a great time - got to see some lava up close and personal on a boat tour, drove all over Kauai and the Big Island, had some great food, befriended a goat, saw a couple waterfalls, and most importantly just chilled + relaxed. Which is good, because Anna starts her new job next month, we've got PAX coming up, I've got a big project at work, and we've still got a TON left to accomplish in 2010. Time to post another mix, then, this time from Summoning of Spirits; Usa and TheDeath collaborated for this lovely arrangement that's primarily piano-driven but works in some nice accompanying string writing. Javier writes:
"Usa sent me the piano track and then I started changing lots of notes around. The "sad" part is kinda mine, more than the happy one, 'cause I changed more there than on the other part. I practically changed the whole sad part. XD Then Usa got it back and added some orchestra stuff over it. Usa gets way more credit."
I still dig Usa's Kirby collab w/ Taucer from '06, so it's good to see him again; ditto TheDeath, whose debut mix was another track off the album that we posted last year which still resonates. This is primarily Daniel's arrangement, as stated, but I'm glad we captured Javier's contributions. What this arrangement does particularly well is oscillate from happy to sad, pastoral to ominous, light to dark, while maintaining a natural flow & progression. There's narrative direction and development, and the strings - while clearly playing a supporting role - change from legato to more of a marcato to reflect the main melody. The development process - having one artist do the arrangement, another mess around with it a bit, and then the first add more material - can easily end up derailing a piece or making it seem a bit bipolar, but this feels cohesive to me. String sounds could be higher quality and sometimes the dynamics on the piano felt a bit hard, but overall this is an emotive, expressive ReMix from Usa & TheDeath that helps continue showing the variety and depth of Summoning of Spirits.
- Crulex on September 11, 2012
To me, the piano felt rather unchanged from the original mix, and the adaptation to the source material there was still really pretty. It does capture that more serene quality to the town at the start of the game, and played well to Usa's piano arranging strength back at the VGMix days.
And then hearing the moody part come in, in regards to writing, all the sweeping strings that managed to come in seemed to fit somewhat of a clarity to the quality to it. I think TheDeath's contributions seemed to be a completely different mixing down of the string part of the original, though for some reason a lot of the sound quality is very similar to Usa's original handling of it. Even back then it was a great adaptation to a minor key there, capturing the fall to the Desians to a T. And that sweep back into the happy part at the end was still pretty too, seeming to capture that moment of hoping to rise and bounce back against the Desians.
I may have got my thoughts completely wrong though, even down to any mixing differences, but comparing the original album cut with the track description, there comes the $20,000 question - if TheDeath was credited even for some of the writing in the original mix, how come he wasn't credited on this track for the album cut? :| I went in thinking there might've been an overhaul of the soundscape, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Clarification, Kyle?
Still a good track after all these years though, without doubt. Let's hope TheDeath comes back providing sweeping orchestrations soon, and similarly let's also hope Dan keeps upping his game for equally classy arrangements here :)
- Rexy on December 29, 2011
- Flare4War on September 11, 2010
TheDeath;711040 wrote: Gee Kyle, I didn't know you would post IM messages quoting me without asking first XD
I didn't realize Dave and Larry would...
- KyleJCrb on September 2, 2010
- OA on September 2, 2010
Just for clarification I said that the 'sad' part is more mine than the happy one, it is because I did most of the "changes" (which was just some harmonies and some melody notes) on that part. But again, Usa did like 80% of the composing work there (and 100% of the orchestration) :P
- TheDeath on September 1, 2010
- Nutritious on August 31, 2010
I really enjoyed this.
- Flare4War on August 31, 2010
- LoKi KhAoS on August 28, 2010
- KyleJCrb on August 28, 2010
Anyway I thought it was really cool, and Usa IS the bomb, so glad to see this posted (unexpectedly)... The Death is cool too :J
- Monobrow on August 28, 2010
djpretzel wrote: Post your opinion
- Brandon Strader on August 27, 2010
- BlackPanther on August 27, 2010