FFVI Remix Album: Balance and Ruin Review: Disc 4

Track 1 – A Glimmer of Hope (Searching for Friends) by Joshua Morse feat. Jeff Ball, Laura Intravia

This is a beautiful song. Not one of my favorites, but there’s definitely nothing wrong with it. Beautiful piano at the beginning reminds me of Mushi-Shi, which is one of my favorite anime. Some strings and wind instruments pick up a nice, peaceful beat to make this song more than solid.

Track 2 – Go-Go Gadget Gonkulator (Gogo) by XPRTNovice

After the first minute, this song really picks up. XPRTNovice does a great job capturing the heart of Gogo in the song, I think – Always shifting and moving, never knowing quite what’s going on. Very interesting. Lots of movements – in the middle, it turns into a plodding, thunderous beat, very reminiscent of Steiner’s theme. It takes a bit of a break, then goes right back to it at around 3:25. Lots of fun.

Track 3 – Katabasis (Epitaph) by Forrest Powell feat. Laura Intravia

Around two minutes, this song takes a turn for the epic with some great, gospel-y vocals and elegant strings. It sounds solemn, yet not in a depressing way, and transcendent at the same time, a great balance for a song to strike.

It kind of clashes with the previous song, but I’ll allow it. They’re both great.

Track 4 – 13th Floor Demonstration (The Magic House) by Flexstyle

Whew! Extremely intense song. It’s a lot of fun, driving beats, but again, I think it clashes with the song before it – I mean, I know they’re doing it in the order to which you listen to them in the game, basically, but I’m sure they can be switched around a bit.

Then again, if their FFIX remix album were out yet, I’d probably say they should do it in the order which you find the music. Ah well, I guess they can’t win. Regardless, this song is sweet.

Track 5 – The Narshemellow (Umaro) by XPRTNovice

XPRTNovice, I’m gonna be real with you right now – you can do no wrong in my book. Every song that I’ve heard on this album by you, I have thoroughly enjoyed. You took another song, made it your own, but kept it close enough to the original. You are really good at this.

Track 6 – The Endless Stair (Fanatics) by Argle

Very creepy, very forboding. Reminds me of Nine Inch Nails a bit, which makes my high-school self very happy.

Track 7 – Trauermarsch (Last Dungeon) by Derek Oren, Jeremy Robson

I feel like this song tried too hard – again, the music itself was great, but it wasn’t very listenable to me. I found it to get a bit boring; I feel like it was rather similar throughout, which I couldn’t pay attention to for the full twelve minutes. If it were shorter, it could definitely get a higher grade.

Track 8 – Demon, Fiend & Goddess (Dancing Mad) by zircon, Sixto Sounds

… UUUUUGH. Sweet LORD, was this good. God, I swear, any song that has to do with Kefka has been remixed SO well throughout this album.

This was everything I could have hoped for in a remix. Sixto Sounds and zircon treated this song perfectly. Didn’t change the pace, didn’t try to do too much, but gave the song the perfect sound to fit in this album and make an amazing, amazing remix.

I’m extremely impressed. It was gonna be hard to live up to my expectations for such a renowned song, but… Six. Terras.

Track 9 – Ending Suite (Ending Theme) by Shnabubula, Gabe Terracciano

I love strings, man. I really do. The violin in this suite was beautiful, graceful, and all-around awesome. A great interpretation of the ending theme. Reminds me of when I beat FFVI for the first time, and nostalgia is always a plus.

The piano picks it up very well and keeps it interesting and light. Around the 8 minute mark, things start getting quite intense, and the mixture of the strings and piano is rather glorious, if I do say so myself.

… Which I do.

Track 10 – Humble Beginnings, Great Expectations (The Prelude) by Disco Dan

I’m so happy that this one was done incredibly well. One of the most popular tracks of the franchise, and it was done beautifully on this album. Wraps up everything (except the bonus disc, of course) with a beautiful song. Disco Dan, you haven’t done any tracks up ’til now, but very, very well done.

Overall:

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s the best disc on the album so far. Great consistency mix with some pretty mindblowing works to make this the favorite.

I may not be able to finish up with disc 5 tomorrow – one of my buddies is getting married, and his bachelor party is tomorrow 🙂 rest assured that, if not tomorrow, the final installment of this review will be out on Sunday!