I've been wanting a remix of Iron Blue Intention for a number of years now. I was hoping for one yet again, but I wasn't holding my breath. I honestly was not expecting to actually get it. It's in here, and it's good.

Now all that's left on my wishlist is a remix of Monster Dance and.. what do you call the mansion theme from CV2?

Dwelling of Doom.

Nice, I'll agree that Iron Blue Intention is a great classic

Ahh, thanks.

So, Monster Dance and Dwelling of Doom. Here's hoping..

While on the subject of Portrait, here's some other remixes I've noticed far:
-Cross Your Heart (Haunted Castle, wasn't it?)
-Bloodlines/Blood Relations (Castlevania/Dracula X, Stage 1 & SOTN/NITM)
-Overture (Castlevania III, Dracula's Throne Room)

I'm surprised there wasn't one of Reincarnated Soul from Bloodlines.. or maybe there was and I failed at life for not noticing.

It isn't. I snagged one of the gamerips out there, and no Reincarnated Soul. A shame, too.

I got the arrange version of Iron Blue Intention I always wanted with Dracula Battle 2.

I never cared for the Dracula Battle arrangement of Iron Blue Intention because Shibata completely destroyed the beat, which was the driving force behind the original. Definitely one case where the original surpassed the arrangement.

I'm going to side with Nemo on this one. The DBII version of Iron Blue is badass! Heavy guitars, great solos, some nice improv... oh yeah. Raise your fists.

The expanded sections of Iron Blue Intention sound very similar to Reincarnated Soul.

One of the ending themes, Portrait of Destiny, also contains Wood Carving Partita, the Library theme from Symphony of the Night. Despite the lesser quality synth, it still sound fantastic.

I've heard a fair share of arrangements where the original composition gets lost, but IMO Iron Blue Intention DBII isn't one.  The original is decent but just sounds puny in comparison.  The guitars are superb, which is a given for the Battle albums, but the drumming is what makes it perfect.  I've said it before but the album as a whole has the best drumming I've ever heard in game music, it's like they got Aaron Gillespie to contribute or something, I dunno, but it's badasstical. 

PoR's soundtrack doesn't impress me much since it's still mostly Yamane and I like Oz more than any CV stuff she has done, so I'm glad Yuzo did a few tracks to spice things up.

Ha ha the drum programming (that is totally a Boss Dr. Rhythm soundset) in Dracula Battle ain't shit man. You need to listen to some real great drummers: Neil Peart, Bill Bruford and Mike Portnoy will make a good start. As far as "the best drumming in game music", that's a slight to the drummers on the Guilty Gear XX OST and the GGXX #Reload Korean Version OST.

And yeah, the guitar playing is great, but technique isn't everything. I've heard a bazillion insane guitarists and all I ever want to hear again is music that tries to expand boundaries or that conveys real emotion. Technique is just a tool to achieve these things.

I still love the Konami Battle albums and they're great fun, Iron Blue Intention included. But as an arrangement, I feel it falls flat.

I guess it's good that I was talking about DBII and not DBI, huh?   As far as your list of "great drummers", Portnoy was cool with Dream Theater (Train of Thought, yup) as far as the other two, they're fine if you like 70's prog (yawn).  But if you want to have a pissing contest about who's more well-versed in music, I'd rather talk about hard rock/metal drummers since that is genre DB falls into.  I'd find it rather pointless though, because you yourself just stated that technique isn't everything, so it all comes down to opinion, and mine is DBII RAWKS.

You know what I mean. I'm talking Dracula Battle as a series (and, all of Konami Battle, for that matter). The only live drums in the Konami Battle series are on the two Super Contra tracks from the best of compilation, performed by Hiro Homma. For my part, I thought the drum programming on the first Dracula Battle was more varied and interesting than the second, but still fails to compare to a real skilled drummer (I won't respond to your comments on Bruford and Peart).

I realize a drum machine was used, but my point is it doesn't matter what's used but how well it's used.  I listen to enough "real", "live instrumentation", whatever you want to call it music, yada, yada, and it has absolutely no relevance to this discussion.  What's the use in coming to a game music board and essentially demeaning anything that involves aritifical instrumentation when most, and most of the best, game music uses it?

That's not the point either, but rather that praising that drum programming (which in this case, I am also arguing is not particularly skilled or creative) as "the best drumming in game music" is insulting to the really great players out there. And really more than that, my point all along has been that they never should have screwed with the drum part to Iron Blue Intention :-p

Hope I'm not too late for this argument.

I feel that DBII's drums are some of the best ever, not just in VGM. I like them because they are thick and heavy, not paper thin. They are pretty much like another guitar, utilizing hard heavy hits over technicality.

If you want fast drumming, check out Narada Michael Walden's pwnage on Jeff Beck's "Led Boots," from the album Wired.

I don't understand what you mean by that at all, but as a guitarist I'm inclined to take offense

As for creativity in drumming (and drum programming), it's not to do with speed so much as concepts such as syncopation or varied subdivisions of the beat. I must admit I haven't listened to these albums in ages, and my opinion has been based on insufficient memories of my impressions (or perhaps impressions of my memories). Re-listening now, the drum parts are more well-written than I initially recalled, but are still very robotic sounding.

I mean that on DBII, the drums are on the forefront with the guitars. They aren't just banging mindlessly. Listen to Illusionary Dance, they are an absolutely essential part of that performance.

That's fine if you think that, but I still fail to see how my opinion is an insult to "great drummers".  Could a human drummer have done just as good or better on this album?  Maybe, maybe not, who knows?  No one.  Who cares? Not me.  The bottom line is I love how the album turned out and having "authentic" instrumentation doesn't automatically make a song better.

Drums shmums.

Anyone know what tracks Koshiro wrote?  Even the one that sounded very Koshiro to me I'm not absolutely sure about (first area).  Anyone gone through the game and identified the pieces?

The only ones I know for sure that Koshiro wrote are:

Invitation of a Crazed Moon <-- if this is the one you meant by first area, then you win!
The Gears Go Awry (my personal favorite)
Dance of Sadness

Source: http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/dracula_ds … sound.html

-Mike

Sweet.  Gears is my favorite too.

And yeah!  I won!

I'm actually pretty disappointed in the game.  Very weak story (even for a CV game), really feels like they were stretching it.  It was insanely easy, as most of the bosses could be defeated with brute force.  It really felt like they weren't trying in some aspects.

I did like the quests and the use of the two characters to solve puzzles.  I also liked that they brought back hidden blocks in a given area (as opposed to hidden walls), and had more hidden areas than in Dawn.

Also, beating it with the bonus characters seems really impossible to me.  Anyone do it yet?

Oh well.  Anyone else feel this way?

Well, no. I actually found the main quest to be challenging more than a few times and playing with the bonus characters to be really easy, then again I never use items during the main quest.  Using the stylus with the sisters is lame though and I haven't tried Axe Armor yet.

I beat Sisters Mode in about two hours. As for how I felt about it...

... instant hand cramps. If you don't have a surface to relax the DS on (I played with the system on my lap during my commute to work, mostly), your left hand is going to be very sore. I tried holding the system with both hands while using the stylus with my right, but it was a pain in the ass. Sisters was cool for a little while, but after about twenty minutes I was bored. I just finished it to finish it, I guess. No way am I getting 997.1% though. Konami could have at least tweaked their map completion to be even! Argh.

Don't know.  There's that move the last boss does where his hands come from both sides of the screen.  I can't seem to get out of it, and it does 500+ damage, which my alternate characters don't have.  I was able to get through the main quest only due to healing items.  Maybe that's why I'm finding it so hard? 

You can only get 997.1% in Sisters mode?

What about "Richiter" Mode? *snort*

I'd also add (using KSS titles):

- In Search of the Secret Spell (King's Valley 2 - MSX - Music 10)
- Sandfall (King's Valley 2 - MSX - Music 6)

BTW, Invitation of a Crazed Moon rules!

Anon48

Has anyone torrented this thing yet?  I'm dying for a rip.

Try classigaming.com.  They have a rip.

Thanks, I guess this is a start.  Too bad nothing is tagged, though...

I'm sharing an excellent sound test recording on VGM Central.  I even updated and fixed the tags myself.

For anyone who doesn't know what VGM Central is.. just download a DC++ client (I'd recommend BCDC++) and connect to vgmcentral.no-ip.com.  Before you connect, MAKE SURE you're sharing at least one official VGM album (rips and such don't count) and your description needs to start with VGM.

BCDC++ - http://utrum.dyndns.org:8000/

-Mike

It makes me smile inside to see people distinguish between "rip" and "recording" (:

Not me when it comes to sequenced music (or even worse, synthesized music), hearing how unfaithful most emulators are (yeah, the same old speech ).