Hello everyone, and welcome to the not-awaited-but-still-long-overdue music pack writeup. As you’ve no doubt seen with countless other music packs before, this will be a breakdown of my song choices on a per-stage basis. More often than not, things will be fairly self-explanatory--I put Kirby songs on Kirby stages, for example. There are some more awkward ones, however, and I wanted everyone to have the privilege of glimpsing into the roundabout inner workings of my mind as I put together my hot-as-fire mixtape. Join me, won’t you?
Battlefield
First up is Battlefield! A Smash-original stage, this provided me a lot of leeway with my choices. With a more natural, but still fighting-focused look, this stage was a good choice for songs I like to think of as “scrimmage” songs. Fury Sparks takes the lead, a song that sets the tone and setting for two old friends having a friendly duel between each other. Karma mimics this kind of feel, while the faster-paced Reincarnation version of Unavoidable Battle offers this from the Persona side of things, despite it not being a very ‘friendly’ song. The Ultimate Energy makes a return from the 3.5 edition of my pack, as Conflict’s Chime just didn’t quite feel… familiar enough. The Round Table from Ace Combat Zero brings the tracklist home, offering the feel of battle over an area of natural resources, as well as providing an always-necessary flamenco element. Yo buddy, you livin?
Hot tip: Melee Battlefield is coded to have a unique track.
Final Destination
Another smash-original, and almost the titular stage of the series by this point. The stage casual players point to and say “1v1 me let’s go,” and where the final boss of Smash has always been set (Tabuu’s arena is basically FD before you say anything). The obvious feelings of grandeur and finality were what I went for here. Devil May Sly, Swipe of Sword, and Dark Impetus come in from action games, representing serious battles with powerful enemies. Dark Impetus in particular adds a more somber tone, and really brings something to Final Destination’s aesthetic. Divine Identity brings the final boss level to the absolute maximum, and When Determination Strikes is no slouch in that regard either.
Hot tip: If you hold L when you take an opponent here, make sure to show them a bad time.
Smashville
A stage I declared more or less open season on, by virtue of the fact that I know I wasn’t going to find much blood-pumping music in the likes of Animal Crossing. Nonetheless, a feel I attempted to preserve was that of natural-sounding instruments, based on the homey feel of Animal Crossing as a series, as well as the existence of K.K. Slider (more on him in a minute). Broncobuster and It’s a Smile World offer this with nice, deep guitar sounds, while Mayhem brings the cowbell that was sorely lacking. Border of Life and Tomboyish Girl in Love might miss the mark a little bit, but they still add what I felt was an appropriate jazzy feeling to complete the list, and is the first, but definitely not last, foray into the excellent music of Touhou. Additionally, as of version 2 of the 3.6 music pack, K. K. Slider, everyone’s favourite indistinct-sound-maker guitarist, will feature a replaced tracklist, which you will notice I have cleverly (annoyingly) ommitted from including in the list I’ve posted. Take a trip to Smashville next Saturday night, and take a peek inside the pack folders for a full list of his new sounds.
Fountain of Dreams
The first of the Kirby stages to get some serious tunes. Now, I know everyone will sorely miss such hit tunes as Gyromite and the Famicom Medley, but I’m sure in time we can all move on from such a harrowing loss. Fountain of Dreams, having only five tracks available to it, and given that I had nothing going on for Dreamland in the first version of the pack, was prime to receive the cream of the crop of Kirby music. Such bangers as the Triple Deluxe Masked Dedede theme, and Return to Dreamland’s CROWNED and Galacta Knight theme provide all the energy a match on this stage could ever want. Initially I was going to use the Brawl version of King Dedede’s theme here for more than a few reasons, those being that I believe it’s one of the strongest versions of the song to date, as well as a personal distaste for the Acid-Notation remix due to its overuse and overall inconsistent sounds. I then discovered Harmony of Heroes’ King DedeDnB, and never had to look back. Finally, an arrangement of 02’s theme that I cannot find anywhere but within the depths of my own personal music playlist, carefully looped by myself, takes the fifth spot. Though the introduction segment can be difficult to hear in-game, and does take a while to play out, the rest of it brings a fantastic arrangement of an iconic Kirby song to the table.
Dreamland 64
Through the magic of code, I have finally solved the problem that is Gourmet Race. Instead, Dreamland now offers one of the largest tracklists in the pack, tied only with Pokemon Stadium 2. Basically everything Kirby is now offered here, with a custom intro-free version of Dirty & Beauty being a notable creation of mine (sort of). Two tracks from Brawl are retained as well, as I chose the Kirby Boss Medley over any individual boss track from any other game, as well as retaining a personal favourite in Checker Knights. Undertale’s Stronger Monsters provides a song fit for a world ripe with varying creatures led by a questionable King. Grand Finale of Final Fantasy 6 offers something similar to the admittedly classic Dreamland theme, with loud drums and obnoxious horns. It seemed fitting.
Yoshi’s Island Brawl
If you’re beginning to question how I’ve gone about ordering the stages, good. Now, with that all cleared up, Yoshi’s Island Brawl was a fairly easy stage to handle. The changing of the seasons and the rest of the scenery provided me an excellent nature-oriented vibe to work with. Final Fantasy 9’s Battle 1 calls to my mind an encounter in a vast world lush with fields and forests. The Sun Rises, the final boss theme for a game wherein you play as a sun goddess, adds a nice eastern touch. Greenwaves, an arrangement of Plains of Passage, also provides a nice, upbeat song to beat the hell out of one another to, while also bringing to mind journeys across green plains. Finally, The Viper from Devil May Cry 4 offers an excellent theme from a giant snake boss in the middle of a gorgeous clearing at the end of a forest. My first idea was to have The Viper switch per-season with Frozen Frog from the same game, but since the song switch causes the song to play from the very start each time, I dropped the idea. I also recently considered coding Obstacle Course not to switch, and replacing it to provide another track, but after reading many accounts of said code not functioning properly in PM, I scrapped that too.
Yoshi’s Story Melee
Given only two tracks, and a complete unfamiliarity (and an unwillingness to fix it) of any Yoshi game music, Yoshi’s Melee was awkward to work with. The first iteration of the pack saw the song Protecting My Devotion from Final Fantasy 9 present here, added as a straight-up Marth Story joke, what with the swords and all. It was then moved to Castle Siege, and has since been removed completely. What you see now is two more fantastic Touhou tracks! Some part of me took a look at this stage, its 2D visuals, and its cheery effects, and thought upbeat-and-slightly-eastern-sounding music would feel at home here. Honestly? I think it works.
Castle Siege
Likely the first thing you’ve noticed is a distinct lack of the million tracks that Castle Siege normally boasts, as well as the replacements of Pokemon songs finding their way to this stage. This is one half of a major feature of this most recent update, which I will explain when I get to it. Anyway, Castle Siege was a playground to me before this update, and this time around I’ve simply trimmed the fat. With two powerful-sounding Fire Emblem tracks taking their rightful places here, the songs that follow fit the two themes provided by Castle Siege: War, and Sword-and-Sorcery. Lu Bu’s Dynasty Warriors 3 theme and Redeemed Invasion from Drakengard 3 cover the war theme more than adequately. Corpse and Caster takes the high-fantasy setting sounds to an incredible level, with Fire Emblem being the only series whose stage could do justice to this song.
Pokemon Stadium 2
And here we see the second half of the aforementioned major feature. Castle Siege’s tracklist has been swapped with Pokemon Stadium 2 to provide further outlets for the amazing music lineup that is the Pokemon series. The words Champion and Elite Four appear multiple times for very good reason. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire receive a lot of love, owed to an amazing musical showing, including excellent remixes of some of my personal favourite themes (Frontier Brain specifically). Zinnia’s theme offers some delicious strings, which I previously held back from adding for fear of overdoing it after some choices for Final Destination and Norfair. Sashay’s theme from Pokemon Battle Revolution was a bit of an oddball to me at first, but the nice upbeat overtones mixed with tense undertones told me everything I needed to know to sell me on the song. The final three tracks are all original remixes of the respective songs, credited appropriately in the tracklist, but truncated within the actual game. I felt the original Xerneas/Yveltal theme, while certainly climactic and wonderful, was just a tad too slow in certain significant portions to include, so PokeRemixStudio’s version found its way in instead, easily keeping pace with any competitive match. Sonicwave’s Black and White Elite Four remix provides additional representation from the fifth generation, and works better than I ever expected it to. Finally, Hito Ookami’s Ho-Oh remix (officially titled “Salvation,” I believe), is the best track in the entire goddamn music pack.
Delfino’s Secret
Delfino’s Secret was a stage added after I had already tracked up Metal Cavern in my 3.5 version, and thus, I had a bit of difficulty finding appropriate songs. Luckily, I had the wonderful resources of the various handheld Mario RPGs to choose from. Funnily enough, Fight Against Culex, a song from Super Mario RPG, takes the first slot, despite actually being a Final Fantasy song. Despite its origin, the arrangement of the song, as well as the association between the optional boss Culex, in his own secret dimension in-game, and the course that is the Delfino Secret, are what earns it that right. Never Let Up keeps the pace, and a solid arrangement of In the Final by SypherAP is sure to impress. Splattack has been dropped from the pack, partly due to it being a known copyright problem for Youtube uploads (the irony!), and partly to make way for Paper Jam’s Final Battle, which carries some distinct Kingdom Hearts-esque sounds. A sped-up version of Melty Monster Galaxy takes the final slot.
Metal Cavern HD / Metal Cavern 64
Metal Cavern is a decidedly strange stage to work with. Technically three stages in one, its tracklist behaves differently than any other stage, owing to the fact that it used to be Mushroomy Kingdom. From my (albeit limited) testing, all six tracks can play on the HD version of Metal Cavern, as there are actually two Metal Caverns HD, just with subtle differences, but only the last three tracks can play on the 64 version of the stage, because holding L forces the selection of, and therefore tracklist for, the “underground” version of Mushroomy Kingdom, which is overwritten by Metal Cavern 64. Confused yet? Good. Now that that’s cleared up, the tracklist is structured to tailor to all this. Fight Against Smithy, Rawk Hawk, and Brobot L-Type Battle all suit Metal Cavern HD nicely, sounding nice and modern for the modernized stage. Metal Mario, MG3’s Metal Cavern, and Fight Against Smithy, Who Likes Transforming (truncated in-game for legibility) are all also solid choices for the HD version of the stage, while still providing adequate old-fashioned or metallic tones for the 64 version. Lot of thought put into a stage that never sees competitive play, huh?
Norfair
I’m going to borrow a phrase from Mike Phones‘, or the artist formerly known as Book’s writeup here, and that phrase is “buttrock caverns.” Norfair started out a pretty obvious choice for fire- and heat-based music, and in the process evolved into something that includes a lot of electric guitar. Xi-On’s Nuclear Fusion mix is the crown jewel of the stage, another Touhou track, and one that plays against a character who literally attacks you with small suns. Inferno, Lu Bu’s Dynasty Warriors 4 theme (actually titled “fire mix”), and an instrumental version of Red Sun all follow the heat or electric guitar theme. Solidus “Literally the best song in Hyrule Warriors” Cave finds its home here as well, most recently being updated to the GT version of the song for a little extra kick. Finally, Dance of Flames from God Eater breaks the electric guitar theme in favour of strings, but preserves the theme of heat and fire, being the BGM of the Abandoned Subway, a subterranean disaster scene now filled with lava.
Frigate Orpheon
Metroid Prime stuff! Not much to say about these, to be perfectly honest. I could have organized the tracklist by game better, but I’m past the point of worrying about that sort of thing. Let’s move on.
Lylat Cruise
A stage that played a big part in inspiring me to make this pack in the first place, since I had quite a few different ideas for it. Between the futuristic science-fiction feel, the fact that the stage is literally flying through space, and tons of other scenery going on in the background, there’s a lot to work with on this stage. Rocket Raccoon’s theme from UMVC3 gives a nice outer space feel to start with. After Burner and Hazardous Highway keep the feel of racing through space and the skies. Armada Battle invokes a feeling of a grander engagement, sort of like Sector Y from Star Fox 64, whereas the Alect Squadron theme grants a faster-paced dogfight feel. Jergingha’s Planet Destruction Form is fought in the skies above Earth, and the orchestration, with very subtle background vocals, gives off a strong Star Wars vibe. Mechanical Rhythm, Vanquish’s Final Battle, and the Megaman X5 songs all further flesh out the futuristic and sci-fi theme.
Wario Land
Right from the get-go, back when this song was still WarioWare, I decided that this could easily be the “weird music” stage. The titular song is God Hand’s eccentric Sunset Heroes, a song that starts off wild and doesn’t really ever calm down--perfect for the touch-of-death, anything-can-happen stage that is Wario Land. Battle for the Umbra Throne was actually added prior to Wario Land‘s creation and announcement, but when they slapped a nice big throne in the background of the stage and gave it a regal retouching, I was incredibly pleased with the coincidence. Death By Glamour replaces the Pokemon XD Miror B. Theme, as though Miror B.’s disco funk was great for WarioWare, and worked well on Wario Land, too, I began to feel it was too slow. Death By Glamour feels right at home here while remedying that issue. Also on this stage is the instrumental version of Play My Ass Off (Thanks, Smashboards). I have a pretty big soft spot for Anarchy Reigns music in general, and the instrumental of this didn’t sound like it was sorely lacking the lyrics like a lot of other songs did. The next four tracks are all wonderful works of the Shin Megami Tensei series, and the reasoning behind that is that they had to go somewhere.
Distant Planet
Monster Hunter, Monster Hunter, Monster Hunter. Distant Planet, originating from the Pikmin series, spoke to me very simply: You are a small person trying to survive in harsh wilds, where giant beasts will prey on you at a moment’s notice. Combined with the incredible nature-oriented visuals of the stage, Monster Hunter music was all I knew I needed. You may notice it all comes from Monster Hunter Frontier (and some of its varying versions), and there’s a reason for it, sort of. With the recent popularity of Monster Hunter in the west, I felt like there might be a lot of people who would recognize various songs from games like Tri, P3rd, 3U, or 4U, and be simply fed up with them. So, I looked to the Frontier series, where I personally knew there was a lot to choose from, and added it all in to make sure it sounded like classic Monster Hunter, while still keeping it fresh, tense, and exciting. When you have a game 3/5 on Distant Planet that goes down to the last stock at high percents, you will truly appreciate what the Abiorugu theme does for this stage.
Green Hill Zone
Green Hill Zone was a pretty simple stage to tackle. Sonic the Hedgehog is no stranger to songs that emphasize speed, so it was just a matter of finding the right ones. Now, I do get a lot of people asking about songs like City Escape, and I always remind them that one of the core rules of my pack was not to include any lyrical songs, as many people can find them very distracting. It’s hard to focus on a set when you’ve got twenty Smash players behind you screaming about chasing rainbows. There are some songs that sneak some vocals in, such as the Bayonetta After Burner mix, or the Jergingha theme, but they’re not terribly distinguishable. With that out of the way, I simply tried to grab up some varied and interesting tracks from the franchise, and bring it all together. There’s not much to explain about any of them aside from that.
Skyworld
Another fairly simple stage. The obvious choices from Kid Icarus Uprising were Boss Battle 1 and Dark Pit’s theme. With the incredibly bright and cloudy visuals of this stage, I tried to pick a couple other songs that could match the tone. The Boy’s Got Wings and the Final Battle theme of Grandia 2 both seemed like perfect choices.
Hyrule Castle HD / Bridge of Eldin / Hyrule Castle 64
Quite simply, Hyrule Warriors just has some fantastic music. I couldn’t pass up putting a ton in here somewhere, so it’s all on the primary Zelda-themed stage. I also went ahead and fixed a weird bug where the Hidden Village theme got removed from the game. I can’t believe that was still undetected, going into the now-final version.
Pirate Ship
Another one of those stages where I just had a couple cool ideas and needed to get them in there, much like Metal Cavern and Frigate Orpheon. The big and notable one is the Kingdom Hearts 2 version of He’s a Pirate. It was replaced with the actual iconic version in HD 2.5 ReMix, but the original game’s version makes it a lot more suited to this stage, regardless of how many times I hear the phrase “fart horns.” The Wind Waker mid-boss theme, Bellum Battle theme, and the 25th Anniversary Ganondorf battle also make their way in to spice things up on what is basically one of my personal favourite stages.
Bowser’s Castle
With the Nebraska stagelist bringing Bowser’s Castle into circulation, I had to find some new tracks for this stage. There weren’t a lot of songs in mainline Mario games that I really wanted to use here, which was a bit frustrating, so I had to branch out a bit. The first word in four songs is ‘Bowser’s’ for a reason. Mario Kart was a solid place to start looking, as the two Bowser’s Castle tracks are already inclined to high-speed, given their origins in a racing game. Bowser’s Highway Showdown makes it in, being a touch on the snazzy side, but still pretty Bowser. Tucked away inside Mario and Sonic at the London Olympic Games was probably the best remix of Super Mario 64’s Bowser’s Road I’ve ever heard, so that was a happy discovery and an obvious choice. Adder’s Lair originates from Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, and it originated in that game from Golden Axe. The Adder’s Lair course is a big long fiery cavern, so this song could have gone in Norfair just as easily, but I was pretty content with the Norfair tracklist and decided to use it here, as the implication of a lair pretty much covers both stages. Lastly, The 13th Struggle from Kingdom Hearts 2, while a song for every Organization XIII member, always reminds me of only one scene: The fight with Axel at the beginning, where after exploring a big ol’ mystery mansion, you’re suddenly forced to fight in an arena made of fire. I’ve chosen the 2.5 ReMix version though, just because it has noticeably more oomph to it.
Halberd
Much like Castle Siege with Pokemon Stadium 2, Dreamland’s expanded tracklist had to come from somewhere, and it was Halberd. Now, Halberd only has two tracks, and I kept some of the vanilla ones that I thought were most suited to remain on this stage. Hopefully this doesn’t raise too much of a ruckus.
Menu
Only a small change to the primary four menu themes here. When 3.6b was released with its unique announcer, I tried to tailor the music to match, going for a lighter tone than the 3.5 iteration of my pack. Beat of Illusion, Esperanto (Mythos), and Valkyrja were all chosen as a result, and fit my requirements for menu themes pretty well: songs that looped well, weren’t overtly repetitive, but that were still good to listen to, since there’s always the chance you’ll sit on the menu for a while. I never technically released the 3.6b version of the pack, though, and decided to stick to my guns with the songs I had already chosen when I made the updated 3.6 version. This newest update added in a whole new element in the fact that I now needed to account for a transition between the main four menu themes, and the now-rotating character select themes. The aforementioned songs fit the bill pretty alright, and still work fine when navigating menus that aren’t in versus mode. Briefing 2 from Ace Combat 5 made its return due to its smooth intro, and the newest announcer once again suiting some heavier and more serious menu sounds.
CSS Themes
Another major addition to the pack: Rotating character select screens. As much as I loved the four menu themes I chose, I wanted to increase the variety my pack could offer, to make sure the music was always interesting. I didn’t quite realize what I was getting into, though, as I soon found that dealing with a rotation of songs was difficult. At first I tried to both add appropriate menu themes, as well as retain the appropriate tone for where the songs actually originate (ie keeping a good Boss Battle song replacement in the slot), but after raking my brain for songs and still not being satisfied with the lineup I chose, I had to take another route. Special thanks go to AerogaWar4, who sat down with me to help me sort this all out, lending a much-needed second set of ears. The rotation is set up such that while every song individually is a solid menu theme to chill to between intense bouts, the tone alternates from a more upbeat song (Way to Go, Status Screen, Agni) to a more low-key one (Classroom, Electric Toothbrush, Ride!!), and going like that. With an odd number of songs to choose, I saw It’s So Wonderful from The World Ends With You as a nice in-between song, to prevent having to switch from an upbeat song at the end back into Way to Go. Trying to explain it now, I could have avoided the problem by using one less track in the code, but what the hell, that’s no fun. Finally, thought was put into how the songs transitioned--I wanted them to flow naturally, while still making sure to change things up.
And that about wraps it all up! If you’ve actually made it all the way to the end of this writeup, thanks very much for listening to what I imagine sounded like a lot of incoherent babble, and I hope that if you’ve learned one thing, it’s that I probably don’t know anything about music. Regardless, video game music is quite simply a passion of mine, and this music pack represents the unison of, and a tribute to, that passion for music, and my love of Project M. So if I manage to reach some like-minded people, may your setups be jammin’ and your matches exciting. Thanks again.
