Explore Paths Less Travelled
Paths Less Travelled: Terranigma is the 72nd FREE community arrangement album from OverClocked ReMix. With the intent to pay homage to games that were grossly overlooked/underrated in their heyday, the album arranges the music from the SNES action RPG Terranigma in a variety of styles. It features 31 tracks arranged by 61 artists and was released on December 19, 2019.
Director Comments
Well... This has been quite the experience! In the beginning of this project, album originator Odai had a simple mission statement: to pay homage to games that were overlooked or underappreciated upon their original release. Hence the title 'Paths Less Travelled'.
And now, three years and one hiatus later, it's finally here! Neither of us had played Terranigma when we resurrected the album (rather on-theme there), so we weren't fully sure what all the hype and all the love was about. Though he wasn't able to be as involved with the album as much as he would have liked, Odai maintained constant contact with us, and his passion for the game eventually led us to play Terranigma for ourselves. When we both finally managed to dive into the game, we were hooked. It was an amazing experience, there really isn't another game quite like it. It's really worth a play, as one of the great SNES RPGs. Such a shame that it isn't as embedded in gamer lore as some of its contemporaries, such as Final Fantasy or Breath of Fire.
Anyway... finally, here it is. A tribute to Quintet's final SNES game, a gem that deserves all the love people give it. We really hope that you, the listener, enjoy this smorgasbord of different genres and interpretations that the artists came up with as much as all of us enjoyed creating it!
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Music
01 - L&D
- Arranged by: Ganaé
- Source: Light & Darkness
- Trism: Pretty much as soon as Ganaé provided his first WIP for this track I knew it would have to be the album opener. His interpretation of the already amazing ‘main’ theme is epic in scale and execution and it perfectly sets the scene for everything that’s waiting for you on the rest of the project, as variations of the melody are repeated a fair amount throughout the soundtrack.
02 - Find My Way
- Arranged by: Jorito feat. Earth Kid, JoyDreamer, Lauren the Flute & Kain White
- Source: A Place to Return To
- Jorito: This track was a loooong time in the making and saw its fair share of bumps on the road, much like the story of Ark, the protagonist in Terranigma. Originally started in mid 2016 for the Terranigma album, it got shelved for over 2 years until the album project got restarted. But I'm glad I was able to finish it, and I hope it conveys *just* the right feeling to anyone who played and enjoyed the game. Crysta plays a key role in Terranigma. It may just seem your regular oldskool RPG hometown music and just the place where the game starts (and ends). You don't even see or hear it a lot in the game, but it *does* tend to stick with you because of the way the story is told. Much like Crysta, I wanted this track to not only give a sense of home, of comfort, of belonging, but also a sense of development, discovery and overcoming the things life throws at you. Did I succeed? Well, that's for you to decide.
03 - Blue Magic
- Arranged by: Jean Of mArc feat. Gamer of the Winds
- Source: Prime Blue
- Jean Of mArc: There's something about the mysterious nature of the track "Magic Rocks", also known as "Prime Blue", that draws me in. The track is quite short, but has an ethereal, syncopated feeling I wanted to bring forward even more. I decided to mostly keep the mixture of textures (chromatic percussion, winds and bass). However, the original track lacked any feeling of punch or forward momentum, and that was what I wanted to most bring to the track. My two primary means of doing so were variations and improvisations in the lead winds, and drums & percussion. Lots of drums & percussion.
04 - Her Resolve
- Arranged by: Supercoolmike, Chimpazilla & Jorito
- Source: Prayer
- Supercoolmike: I would like to thank Odai for having me be apart of the album and Trism for helping out in the forums with the updates. Big thanks to Chimpazilla for collaborating with me for this track. She really helped me out flush out the track to have a more emotional and vibrant feel, while also adding her own ideas to further emphasize the idea I had originally set out for.
05 - Yomi or Not Yomi
- Arranged by: David Kiraeth feat. Trev Wignall
- Source: Yomi
- David Kiraeth: I have to confess I never played Terranigma... but the more I learn about this game, the more intriguing I find it. It gives it a special place along the "mysterious and surely great games I've missed but don't want to try to not break the magic!". It's not like I have the time to play it anyway. Well, back to Yomi! It's the first remix I made for this album, and from what I know, Yomi is a (not so) friendly demon in the game with which the plot starts, and who meets a tragic end. For these reasons, I decided to make the original catchy theme more adventurous and nostalgic! I couldn't have done it this well without Trev (the instrument "star of the show", it's him!).
06 - Enigma of a Broken Soul
- Arranged by: HoboKa feat. Stahalamora
- Source: An Unforeseen Event
- HoboKa: I commissioned Stahalamora to sing in my Terranigma cover-mix, to which, her singing helped push the remix into Not-a-Cover territory. I aimed to make "Enigma of a Broken Soul" as close to the source as possible, texture and notation-wise. I know not if I should've tried something more creative notation-wise. And certainly not least of all, I also have to drop mention to Chimpazilla, for helping to fix the mix and add in a more ethereal aesthetic that surprisingly jived very well with my intent. So thanks to all who contributed and helped me make this happen!
07 - Beginning of the Journey
- Arranged by: Fredrik Häthén
- Source: Departure
- Fredrik Häthén: What I first and foremost wanted to illustrate with this arrangement was Ark setting out on his journey into a dark, foreboding world that he doesn't know. I wanted to keep the feel of the original while at the same time adding more heroic elements to show more of a progression from uncertainty to steadfastness. I also want to give a huge shout-out to all of the amazing musicians who perform on the track and bring the arrangement to life!
08 - Destiny's Spire
- Arranged by: Manji
- Source: Trials
- Manji: Terranigma is a great game with a lot of distinctive dungeons, but the Towers that you have to conquer right at the start of the game are my favourites - each one "awakens" a continent on the Earth, and they're suitably mysterious and ominous while also easing you into the game's battle system. They're also the first place where you hear one of Terranigma's multiple excellent dungeon themes, and as soon as I listened back to the theme upon getting involved with the Paths Less Travelled album, I could hear the makings of an extremely heavy metal guitar ReMix inspired by bands like Atheist and especially Mithras. I wanted to throw in as many blastbeats and guitar solos as I could get away with while still building a little bit of a story through the song - the ambience at the start is intended to evoke Ark trudging up to the looming Tower through the fallen underworld ash, before throwing open the doors and launching himself into battle.
09 - Everlasting Campfire
- Arranged by: Clément Panchout
- Source: Evergreen
- Clément Panchout: I've always been a huge fan of A-RPGs. Back in time, Terranigma stood as the perfect game after so much love given to its big brother Illusion Of Time. This game was very special to me, restoring the game's broken world was a personal achievement ^^ The OST was part of the revelation of course. I remember the 10 years old me listening to the Evergreen whole track contemplating all this luxurious vegetation! Remixing this song I wanted to give both happiness and nostalgia moods, because these two feelings melt in me when I think back to that "Terranigma time". So I imagined a bunch of friends, on a beach with a guitar around a campfire, telling good old memories.
10 - Will We Meet Again?
- Arranged by: Jorito feat. Sirenstar & Juan Medrano
- Source: Into the Door, Welcome Rain, Firm Steps Upon the Land
- Jorito: Near the end of the Terranigma album project, I found myself inspired to take on another track. I was pretty intrigued by the "Resurrection medley" on the list of available tracks. When I sat down and played with the main arpeggio from "Into the Door", suddenly synthwave happened. Fortunately the other resurrection/revival themes have a decent amount of melodic content buried in them, so I took what I could and just ran with it. The arrangement more or less wrote itself after that, and while the connection with the resurrection themes might not click instantly, it actually has a ton of source in it. I also tried to incorporate the game's themes of resurrection and reincarnation into the lyrics. The line from the game's script - "If we are bound by fate, we will meet again in time, somewhere" - and that quickly became the foundation for the track.
01 - Nature's March
- Arranged by: DaMonz feat. Denis Bluteau
- Source: Zue
- DaMonz: When David asked me to join the project, I was a total Terranigma n00b. I took a good listen of all available tracks, and this one struck me in particular mostly because of its awesome rhythmic intricacies and its beautiful, simple theme. I immediately thought that the melody would be a perfect fit for transverse flute, and that the background should contain a lot of percussive elements. I then decided to add in a marching snare solo, for which I watched quite a bit of military marching band videos and snare competitions for inspiration. I hope my writing lives up to the style! In any case, I had a lot of fun with it. I also want to point out the amazing flute performance recorded by Denis Bluteau, I'm very grateful for his help. And big thanks go to Sébastien Dufour (Trainbeat) as well, for providing the recording space, equipment and expertise.
02 - Looking Out for the Big Guy
- Arranged by: LongBoxofChocolate
- Source: The Willful Lion
- LongBoxofChocolate: "Looking Out For The Big Guy" is a reference to Liem, the lion cub, and how he refers to the main character, Ark as "Big Guy". A name like this sets a huge expectation on the main character. I played Terranigma from start to finish more than ten years ago. The combat system stood out to me as it was the first time I'd ever encountered real-time combat. Briefly watching parts of a playthrough brought memories of my own playthrough to the fore, and we settled on the form of the tune. After seeing Liem and Ark interact, I fell in love with the idea of Ark being a role model for Liem. Thumbing through the script, there is an occurrence of the sadness theme, which is why we chose to end the arrangement with it. Reflecting and respecting the solemnity of the game was a priority throughout the writing process.
03 - Punch Drunk Beneath a Lazy Tree
- Arranged by: zykO
- Source: Sanctuar
- zykO: Life can come at you throwing haymakers. Charmed or not, some land, some don't; you catch a few either way and the best thing you can do, at that point, is take a break. One hopes to do so under their own accord of course but at times, that play is not in the cards. But ya know, either way there are few places better suited for a punch drunk nap than in the cool shade of a lazy tree. This piece has guitars and stuff.
04 - Brave New World
- Arranged by: jnWake feat. zykO, ilp0, Ivan Hakštok, Trev Wignall & Jorito
- Source: Further into the Wide World
- jnWake: I've always loved the Terranigma soundtrack, which is kinda underrated since the game was never globally released, so I was pretty excited to remix something from it. For this project I picked the Overworld track, which plays in-game as you explore the 2nd main map of the game. For the remix, I wanted to keep the theme's main motives while adding my own spin to it. Since this track plays on the Overworld, it marks the start of the real adventure in Terranigma. Hence, I wanted the remix to have an adventure-ish vibe. Given that the game is also a lot about nature, I decided to pick non-synthetic instruments, so I ditched all the pads, synth leads and other stuff I like to use... well, most of them anyway. Since I wanted the track to sound natural (and because sampled acoustic guitars never sound too good) I contacted people to play the main instruments live and that's how I ended with a lot of collabers: ilp0 plays rhythm and lead guitars, zykO plays the main guitar solo and other guitar leads, Ivan Hakstok plays the bass and Trev plays the violin. Hope you like it!.
05 - An Afternoon in Clisson
- Arranged by: Manji & Jorito feat. Pavos
- Source: Town
- Manji: My greatest inspiration for this track, besides the tranquil brilliance of the original song, is drawn from real life - a few years ago, I went to an extreme metal festival called 'Hellfest' located next to a small town named Clisson in western France. In complete contrast to the festival, Clisson itself was a beautiful medieval town full of old stone buildings and castles, and I ended up spending a lot of my time there, relaxing by the side of a quiet river with freshly made sandwiches from a nearby boulangerie. This version of European Town attempts to draw on those memories and paint an idyllic picture of Ark discovering a little French town relaxing in the sunshine on a glorious summer's afternoon. All the instruments are sampled except for the bass, a brief guitar lead and the piano melody, which was graciously recorded live by Pavos - it's been a very different approach than I would take for my usual 'drums-bass-guitars' style, but a very fulfilling one nonetheless!
06 - From the Depths of the Dungeon
- Arranged by: That Headband Guy
- Source: Under the Ground of the Giant Tree
- Trism: The darker sources from Terranigma really do lend themselves well to the metal genre, don't they? That Headband Guy's chugging rhythms and screaming leads are reminiscent of the classic metal bands of yesteryear and the arrangement as a whole is a perfect, punchy sub-three minute head banger.
07 - Soothing Rhythm
- Arranged by: David Kiraeth
- Source: Liotto
- David Kiraeth: The second remix I made for this album. It was a long story of back and forth with Jorito and Trism, so if you find this track any good, it's also thanks to them! To add some backstory, it was rather difficult to change this really catchy tune (which appears in some desert village I think?) into something more relaxing. So if you are relaxed, you can thank me. If not, blame the original author!
08 - Wade into the Changing Tide
- Arranged by: HeavyViper feat. Gamer of the Winds
- Source: Ship
- HeavyViper: Whenever I play Terranigma, I can't help but linger at the sea ports to listen to the BGM, "Call at a Port," so it was obvious which piece I'd have to remix! I started with a clear image in my mind of someone playing the flute alone on the rocks near the sea. Of course, being a guitarist, I then immediately started dialling in surf rock tones. These didn't feel quite right, so I ended up reigning them in a bit and writing a more laid back and relaxing take on the piece, one that ebbs and flows with the tide. After hours of tracking guitars, I remembered that this was originally going to be a flute piece. I quickly went about adapting the original melody for flute, adding a harmony for good measure. Then, after throwing a few rough mixes Jorito's way, he introduced me to the very talented Gamer of the Winds, who took a liking to the piece and was kind enough to record some live piccolo tracks for me. They're lovely, and a great deal more convincing than my hacky MIDI efforts! After all this, I'm really in the mood to take a trip down to the seaside...
09 - Skaði, fjallið veiði gyðja
- Arranged by: Jorito feat. Tuberz McGee, Manji & Lauren the Flute
- Source: The Sacred Summit
- Jorito: When Odai started recruiting for the album, I went over a few of the tracks to see if anything struck my fancy. Mountains instantly resonated with me because I thought it'd do well with some chugga chugga guitars combined with orchestral, a style that I love. As usual I started the arrangement with midi and samples. The rhythm guitars already sounded good with samples, but with a bit of help from my pal Callum (Tuberz McGee) they really came to live and gave the track the energy it needed. Had lots of fun writing the guitar solo at the end, and I dig Callum's performance there too. The other guitar leads were played by Manji, who gratefully replied to my request for real guitars after my initial midi WIP. Lastly I reached out to Lauren, who I worked with on another track. Turns out she's not only a great vocalist, but also a die hard fan of Terranigma, so getting her on board to record the soaring operatic vocals to give the track that extra bit of epicness wasn't all that hard. All in all I'm pretty proud of this track and happy how it turned out. Extra kudos to my collaborators for joining me on the ride, it's always amazing to see how much of a difference great live performances make!
10 - Trepidation
- Arranged by: Rozovian & MrSubstitute
- Source: Those Who Stand in the Way
- Trism: I do love me some dark, atmospheric music, and Rozovian's track has that in spades. His willingness to take one of the more difficult sources on the album and put together this dread-laden, almost oppressive mix is truly impressive and I for one am very grateful that he offered his services to us so late in the game. Strap yourself in for a bit of a trip on this final track of disc 2!
01 - The Road to Lhasa
- Arranged by: Nadzilla
- Source: Lhasa
- Nadzilla: Trism assigned me a song for this project because he was curious about how I would interpret it. The source material is compelling, but the thing with covering existing music is you should either do it straight, or really different, and nothing in between. After knocking some thoughts around with Trism, I liked his idea of taking a northern European folk route with it, and so named it "The Road to Lhasa", as an homage to the traveling aspect of Terranigma. I hope I have successfully realised the concept!
02 - Espíritu Gitano
- Arranged by: NyxTheShield
- Source: Quatro's
- NyxTheShield: Terranigma is by far my favorite game of all time and one of the few ones that brings me to tears every time at the end. When I heard there was an album project coming out on OCR, I felt the obligation to contribute to it in any form. And thus this track came to be. I hope you enjoy it, it's an amalgamation of a lot of different musical influences I had on my life.
03 - Protectress
- Arranged by: Nostalvania
- Source: Fyda
- Nostalvania: Since I'm from Europe I actually had the pleasure to play Terranigma on the Super Nintendo (still got the cartridge). I really enjoyed the game and its excellent soundtrack, so I'm very happy to be part of its first OCR Album! This is also my first album track as a solo artist. For my contribution I chose the track Fyda, because I found it would be very suitable for my remix style. And of course it's just a wonderful composition. The original song is some sort of heroic march. However, for my interpretation I transported Fyda into the realms of Jazz and Funk. One of the first things I did was changing the time signature to 7/8, my favourite odd meter. For the B section I switched to a slower 4/4 groove to get some contrast with the more busy sections. Furthermore I added some original writing, like at 1:50, a nice little cadence, and also some piano solos.
04 - Royd Rage
- Arranged by: Trism, Jorito & Chimpazilla
- Source: Royd
- Trism: Oh yes, Royd. This track took a long time to get to the point that I felt it *might* be good enough to get onto the album, and that was only after a LOT of revisions and versions being sent to Odai for feedback (this being pre-hiatus) and some sparkle being added by Chimpazilla during the mixing and mastering phase. Sadly it didn't quite meet the judges standard for approval, so I attempted to go back to it several times over the course of the albums downtime but was never able to really improve it significantly. I may or may not have referred to it as 'an albatross around my neck' on several occasions. Then on a whim I asked Jorito to take a quick look at it for feedback purposes. Being the amazing human being that he is he offered to take it away and try and improve it. And it improve it he has! To the point where if I go back and listen to my initial solo version it sounds pretty empty and incomplete. As the only drum and bass track on the album, I hope you enjoy it!
05 - An American Expanse
- Arranged by: djpretzel
- Source: Freedom
- djpretzel: Terranigma's highlight is a unique, epic narrative of good and evil told through the lens of the evolution & expansion of life. It's pretty cool like that. I took the plucky, twangy, hoedown vibe of the "Freedom" (or "Freedom, USA") town theme and transported it into... the FUTURE! In this case, the future is like... bitcrushed... melting... Vangelis. If you crossed Blade Runner with "Red River Valley", at a geological tempo, it'd be a start. I liked the idea of taking traditional country western intervals & motifs into outer space, basically. This arrangement begins in the desert, looking out across a vast horizon, and is generally sort of an ode to American landscapes. Or perhaps it's an ode to unity, and what we could be capable of as a nation if we could overcome our division & work for the betterment of all? And eventually build spaceships and lead our species into the stars? Sure. Just to be clear, the audible noise envelope on the lo-fi timpani, the bit-crushed perc bits, the saturation, & the in-your-face delay are all part of the show; colors are supposed to smear across the sky, thunder & lightning are supposed to crash, etc. It's one part Romanticism, one part Impressionism, and the rest is just oscillators & DSP. I used Pigments, Rapid, Diva, Repro-1, and Avenger. I wanted this mix to achieve a very specific sound/mood, and through a ton of experimentation, I'm happy with the end result & proud to be contributing it to the album!
06 - Groovin' Like a '90s Kid
- Arranged by: Jorito feat. Gnegon Galek & Juan Medrano
- Source: Perel
- Jorito: "Perel" was a last minute drop out on the album, and I was sad it would not be on the album. So I did what any good album director with music skills would do: arrange it myself. Originally it started out as a chiptune track, just because I wanted something simple that could be finished quickly. When pondering a title, I recalled this Youtube review of Terranigma, where they called Perel, a supporting character with a skateboard, a "typical 90s kid". Since it already had the groove and bounce that you hear now, I quickly settled on "Groovin' Like a 90s Kid" as a title. When I sat down again the next day, I figured "why not take this bounce to the next level and go all the way New Jack Swing and 90s cheese with it?". And so it happened. Can't say "no" to the cheeze after all. And gotta have those orchestra hits, too. No holding back, gotta go all out. Hope it makes you groove like a 90s kid too, I know it did make me!
07 - Walking Amidst Future
- Arranged by: rebrained
- Source: Neotokio
- rebrained: Although the Neotokio area in Terranigma is visually close to contemporary Tokyo, "Walking Amidst Future" depicts a place more distant in time. Sampled and digital instruments slowly crawl through the motif, giving off an air of slight melancholy: a rainy city going nowhere fast, while the noise of traffic and constant advertising wish to suggest otherwise. Mix of influences from vaporwave genre and Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack are fairly obvious, but even now, several years later, I stand by them; how else could you approach something called "Neotokio"?
08 - AHHH, the Zombies Ate John Carpenter!
- Arranged by: HoboKa feat. Usa
- Source: Wandering Souls
- HoboKa: Went for a storm-ish drum, campy 80's horror vibe. I think it paid off well. To top it off, I've summoned Usa (Daniel Lippert) from the bowels of HELL (o.~) to add some much-needed EPIC-ness and to touch up a few samples (I think I wound up swapping the re-touch ups with samples I found from Spectrasonics Omnisphere - sorry Daniel!) Nevertheless, his awesome female vocalist sample...not sure what style or culture it came from (Tibetan?) is perhaps one of the BEST vocalist samples I have ever come across and it has so many unique articulations too. Usa is a KING when it comes to production and style. Enjoy!!
09 - Hypotheosis
- Arranged by: Trev Wignall
- Source: Laboratory
- Trev Wignall: I've never played Terranigma, although I've watched gameplay footage and can appreciate its sci-fi fantasy lab setting. I imagined a slow burner track full of strange sounds conjuring the forbidden mystical experiments taking place in Beruga's laboratory. Hopefully I'm on target. The result is an idiosyncratic electronic dance track that only begrudgingly lets the listener go at the end. Much of the electronic percussion comes from me playing kitchen utensils. I hit oven pans, rattled silverware around, and digitally manipulated the results. My goal was to blend the electronic sounds, samples and synthesizers with my acoustic instruments to portray the tension between good and evil in the game. In this setting though, we're on evil's home turf.
10 - Dark Gaia Appears
- Arranged by: SBeast
- Source: Overcoming Everything
- SBeast: There's a few great tracks from the Terranigma OST that stuck out to me, including Light and Darkness, Elle's Theme, Evergreen, but I'm usually a sucker for end battle themes because they tend to be the most epic. So I came up with an arrangement of 'Final Battle', which plays during the confrontation with Dark Gaia. The first main difference is a faster tempo, which I think suits this symphonic metal-styled arrangement. The track sticks quite close to the source material for the most part, but with changes in instrumentation and some variations of the main theme towards the end. The highlight of the track for me is the section starting at 2:52 until the end, with tries to captures the essence of the track with a grooving rhythm variation, and added guitar harmony, which finishes on a rising transposition to bring the song to a climax.
11 - Mother Earth (Bound by Fate)
- Arranged by: Manji & Jorito feat. JoyDreamer, Catie Williams & Richard Spencer
- Source: The Way Home
- Manji: As soon as I volunteered to remix this track for the Paths Less Travelled: Terranigma album, I knew that I'd need assistance with it - as the finale to the album (and the game), it needed a sweeping orchestral treatment to capture the feeling of a completed journey, which is something I don't have a great deal of experience with. After the arrangement was sorted (originally I had drums throughout and a number of other less-orchestral instrument choices), I called on two friends who are extremely talented musicians from my local (Sheffield, UK) music scene - prodigiously talented flautist Catie Williams (who I've been in bands with for over ten years now) and violist Richard Spencer (who's equally talented, and predominantly plays bass for Sheffield heavy noisemakers Ba'al). It was fantastic to collaborate with them both on this, as well as with JoyDreamer who provided some incredible vocal parts and was happy to keep recording more oohs and aahs as we developed the arrangement. I can't overstate how instrumental Jorrith was in making this sound phenomenal - my initial mix was quite flat, sparse and lacking in dynamics. When he sent back his version, having fully reorchestrated the track and added in a ton of additional sounds to flesh it out and give it that full orchestra feel, I was utterly blown away by how much more lively and epic it was- he deserves full credit for how great this Remix sounds!
Artists
Artwork
About OverClocked ReMix
Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.
OCRは1999年に創立されて、ゲーム音楽への感謝、保存、演出に専念するための組織です。OCRの主要な活動は ocremix.org で見つかるインターネットサイト。このサイトに数百のゲーム音楽好きに作られたリミックスのMP3と、ゲームの音楽と作曲家の情報と、音楽家を熱望している人のための供給源と、にぎやかなゲーム音楽のファンがいっぱいいます。
All original compositions and characters from this album are copyright their respective owners. Arrangements are available under the OverClocked ReMix Content Policy terms of use.