When I first heard Nucleose's challenge track, I thought to myself two and a half things.
1) Oh god, why do I have to go up against musical Jesus.
2) I want to make RPG songs now.
2.5) I should do a re-...(mix)
I stopped that thought pretty much immediately. There's no way I was going to be able to remix that to sound better than the original. It's just not a thing that happens. So instead, I just thought of what to do for the next 5 hours. Like, literally. I just laid on my bed and thought "How the hell am I supposed to do this?"
But then it came to me. I just jumped out of my bed, got a snack because my hunger was unfathomable at that point, and then ran upstairs to tell my brother my idea before I forgot it.
"Bro! I just thought of doing -this-!"
"Okay, whatever. Get out of my room."
"Thanks for your support, man!"
And so, I sat down at my computer, opened up my music programs, and sat there with a smile...Staring blankly at the screen. I then realized the difficulty of making a remix of some of my favorite and most nostalgic songs from RPGs.
Before this point, I've really -never- wrote a fully symphonic piece. I didn't know how to start or anything. Most of my music had been shitty techno hip-hop whatever you'd call it. I'd never created any "art" with my music. So, this was the time I was doing quite a bit of firsts.
So, yeah. I started the music making, choosing songs that I love and felt nostalgic towards....
And, well. Here's a list of them. If you can name all of them without looking at the list, I will do anything you want for a day.
0:00 - 0:27 Original Piece
0:27 - 1:01 "Doctor" from Homestuck + "Zelda's Lullaby" from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (It was in a thousand other games, but this one was the most notable to me.)
1:01 - 1:45 "Eyes on Me" from Final Fantasy VIII
1:45 - 2:45 "Schala's Theme" from Chrono Trigger
2:45 - 3:47 "An Old Story from Grandma" from Mabinogi
3:47 - 3:39 "Sailing" from Dragon Quest V
3:39 - 6:45 Original Piece + "Overworld" from Terranigma
6:45 - 7:54 Original Piece + "Silver Will" from Eiyu Densetsu VI: Sora no Kiseki
7:54 - 10:00 Original Piece + "Stone Tower" from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask + "Nao Appear" from Mabinogi (At the very end).
Another thing notable is that I tried to incorporate the same instruments from Nucleose's song. Guitar, Flute, etc. and give the songs a more ethnic feel to them.