Phronemophobia's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Between Worlds (2020)]

Your guitaring is fine. It's backed up by the solid performances of, at least, Formless and Techno Gaiden. If there's more to this piece worth appreciating, then I'm afraid that I am just too pleasantly distracted by the aforementioned trio to notice their inclusion.

[Château de Pierre (2019)]

...but I don't want cats and spaghetti. I want dogs and lasagna (and Bertn music).

Haven't you've mentioned before about people commissioning you for your musical talents and refusing to pay? I greatly dislike being reminded that people are shit, but if the end result is being able to freely share your work, then I suppose that's better for everyone. You still deserve to be paid though.

Bertn1991 responds:

To be fair, I didn't try very hard to contact this person after the initial ghosting event. I let it go pretty quickly, so some of that is on me I suppose. Maybe something terrible happen, like a bear attack, or a dog attack, or a dog bear attack, or bear dog attack. All of those are real. Did you know bears and dogs share a common ancestor who lived fairly recently in geologic time? Who knew, right? Have you ever seen a shaved bear? It's like something out of a Guillermo del Toro film. Super monstrous.

But yeah, cats & spaghetti and dogs & lasagna seem backwards. Then again, I can only think of one cat that likes lasagna and two dogs that like spaghetti. But I appreciate you added Bertn music into this equation. So very kind. I guess it wasn't really an equation, though. Speaking of algebra, a couple years ago my teacher and classmates noticed a frowny face next to my name on the roll sheet and asked if I was okay. But a kind lot of people. They're just like you!

[Cyborg Hobo Cavemen!]

Finally, we receive the full HoboKalicious version on Newgrounds. Truly a blessing!

It sounds like the music is now closer and clearer to me. It's not as "fuzzy" as the preview. Does that make sense? Aside from that, I couldn't hear much of a difference, but I also don't have the ears for picking up on subtle changes, either.

Thank you again, Alex. I do hope your original music takes off. I love VG remixes, but I also want my favorite musicians to be appreciated for their own ideas, as well.

HoboKa responds:

Yep, because the bass to low mid range bands were not E/Q'd right. So too much clutter with frequencies. But there is still some issues...possibly because Damage Drums are difficult to isolate and E/Q right. I'm sure it's do-able. But eh.

[[Earth Worm Jim] Snotty's Groove]

I saw you describe this as "minimalist" and thought, "What the fuck is HoboKa typing about? This has everything going on. It's groovy and then some!" So, since I hadn't played Earthworm Jim in ages (unless you count Clayfighter 63 1/3), I decided to give "Snot A Problem" a listen. It's one thing to just tell myself, "Yeah, Tallarico is an excellent musician." It's another to go back and remind myself as to why I know that. Yes, your version is definitely minimal in comparison and hearing the original reminds me of how underappreciated the soundtrack is nowadays.

This is an easy five stars from me. My only complaint is seeing Super Nintendo in the tags, but not Sega Genesis or Sega CD. The music originated on the Genesis and both Sega consoles offer a significantly better listening experience by comparison. (The SNES version sounds muffled or overly compressed or something. I don't know.) Sega CD, unsurprisingly, comes with the highest sound quality, but the Special Edition version also includes the fewest "HEY!"s, which is the best part of Snot A Problem. Seriously, why did someone decide to just omit nearly every "HEY!" when porting the song to the Sega CD, Alex? I don't understand that.

HoboKa responds:

It's minimalist because it has only a bass, piano and pad. I guess the drums count as a fourth layer lol. But I suppose that isn't really minimalism. Oh well.

I omitted the Hey's too, apparently. I totally forgot they were in the source. It wasn't really about a 1:1 cover anyways. Not the intent of PRC.

True on the Sega stuff. But I played EWJ on the Snes first so, nostalgia goggles. But I do have both EWJ and EWJ2 on the Wii and they are Sega ports. The FM chip is unique for sure, but I like my muffled slightly higher-fidelity of the Snes. True, both soundchips have better iterations for other games, and I guess EWJ suffered for it. I kinda want to try out the Sega CD version.

[Morning Wood Kid (kid chamelion)]

It's the theme for the first two levels - Blue Lake Woods 1 and 2, the Whispering Woods 1 and 2, Boomerang Bosses, Woods of Despair 1 and 2... ugh, in other words, there are a handful of tracks recycled throughout the game. Reusing music is not an uncommon practice, but considering there are over a hundred stages to traverse, it's a hassle to associate each song to every area it represents. Plus, listening to the soundtrack will more likely make you want to go back and play something more popular on the Genesis, instead. For example, the original to this piece makes me want to play Sonic Spinball again, and I bet you could mod the music of Windy City/The Deadly Skyscraper into Toe Jam & Earl without most people noticing. Kid Chameleon demands a lot from first-timers without any sort of unique charm to justify it. Granted, I enjoyed it as a child, but I never finished the game, and I think it would be a tough sell to younger players who are not already big into retro.

Yeah, I would definitely go with "creative" on this one. I certainly didn't expect a gong at 2:46. If there's any technical issues, I'd have to leave that up to Seth to point out, but I thought it was excellent. Is there any hope in the distant future where you might try doing something similar with my favorite track from the game's OST, the "fantasy" theme (first heard in Skydragon Castle, I think)?

By the way, did you misspell the name of the game on purpose with your song title?

HoboKa responds:

Sure. Send me a MIDI of it if it is available and I might cook something up. Another cool look into unfamiliar videogame territory. I learned something new again lmao. Thanks for the feedback!

[MMX5_Zero Viral Maverick (V. 2)]

Well, the flexing pays off. While the bulk of this effectively ups the sound quality of the original, what you've added not only blends in beautifully, but it also helps alleviate some of the repetitiveness one normally wouldn't notice while playing the game.

I initially thought your score of 8 was far too low, but after hearing the other entrees, eggsngaming did an amazing job and Dex's Chill Virus is almost just as good. All three of you deserve high praise.

HoboKa responds:

Those scores don't really represent the actual score. I think I still lost? Can't recall. Haven't factored in Voting Bonuses etc. The back-end is too annoying to go back and edit them. A sort of sore-point with Compoverse/ThaSauce.

[Shock Troopers Tribute]

Despite the wealth of fantastic music found within the Neo Geo library, Shock Troopers still manages to successfully stand out on its own with songs that represent the Run 'n' Gun subgenre arguably better than any other. It's a damned shame how woefully underrepresented the music is by VG remixers, let alone by someone going the extra mile in making a brand new soundtrack inspired by the series. This is some truly impressive stuff, HOTS.

Of the three, my favorite is the first one, titlescreen, but there's clearly no wrong choice among them.

[Fly - Instrumental]

You have every reason to be happy with this. I was in the middle of making wishes during a meteor shower on New Horizons and decided to let this play in the background. At 1:07, this took over my attention completely. Ended up looping the piece two more times while typing up this lousy comment of mine.

You've neglected your Soundcloud and YT accounts to focus uploading your newest music to Newgrounds and, because of that, I just really wanted that dedication to pay off for you. I'm so glad to see your fan base finally growing. Here's hoping you reach over 100 fans before the end of this year, if not before the end of this month.

Thank you, SirQ. Good luck to you in NGUAC.

[Space Foot 2 OST | Final Battle (2010)]

Overall, it represents the usual high-quality music I expect from any original piece by Bertn, but at 5:48, it starts off sounding like battle music in Shining Force 2, then becomes increasingly dramatic. I fear that if I ever played this game, it wouldn't be anywhere near as amazing as how I'm imagining it through this OST.

Bertn1991 responds:

Thank you! You're too very kind. I haven't played the Shining Force series, but I know of it. Come to think of it, I have the first two games. Why haven't I played them!? Anywhom, whatever you're imagining is better than the Space Foot series.

[[Undertale] Another Singing Medium]

He's definitely still "game dev'ing." Fox is working on Deltarune. The first chapter of it was provided for free and the game's music is just as amazing as Undertale's. Check it out if you have the time or just listen to the soundtrack.

Normally, I'd want to hear more deviation in a VG remix simply because it better highlights a musician's style, but a MnP submission is intentionally meant to remain as faithful to the original as possible without turning it into a 1:1, right? Can't really fault it for that, then. I did have to play this side-by-side with the original to give myself a better idea of what was altered. There are a few noticeable changes, but much of it was too subtle for me to pick up on without the comparison. This is good. Certainly the best of the three entries so far. I'm feelin' pretty confident about your victory on this one, Alex.

HoboKa responds:

Yeah, that's the intent of MnP. Meh, I'll probably hand the win to 2nd best since I host the damn compo. I would normally submit as a BONUS, but eh, less participation these days.

Thanks for the feedback and in-depth response. I'll look into Deltarune. :D