IN-CHARACTER TRACK COMMENTARY FROM GONKAKA:

Fumie Saso: I started with the percussion first here, in a very unstructured and freeform way; I simply began playing various hectic beats, making mental notes of what sounded particularly infectious and built the rest of the song around those- the thunderous piano chords, the pizzicato violins expertly performed by Denji- they were all pulled from the beat. The intensity and passion of the Kingslayers really comes through as a result- you really get the sense that these guys are on the warpath!

Takayuki Mitsuyoshi: Is that why you chose the vocal sample in the beginning, Fumie?

Fumie Saso: (Laughs) Yes; it was a little cheesy, but I think it accentuates the feeling I was going for perfectly.

Shinji Namiki: You call it “cheesy”, or “kitsch”; I call it “sincere” and “earnest”. It's a vital component of the sort of sound Denji helped us cultivate, and part of what makes these soundtracks connect with people. That's what I think, at least.

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DECON'S TRACK COMMENTARY:

Some of my favourite tracks in gaming happen to be Character Select (or Stage/Vehicle/Team etc. etc. select) themes; there's a lot of ways you can approach them to evoke the right feeling for whatever the game in question is. So to say I kinda always put a silly amount of pressure on myself when I have to make one is an enormous understatement, and it was no different this time.

I had a few different very vague ideas of how I wanted to approach this but wasn't 100% sure on any of them. At the risk of repeating myself, however, the piano chords that form the base of the initial section popped into my head right as I was heading to sleep, stressing out and mulling over ideas, and thankfully for once my piss poor memory didn't fail me the very next day; with those laid in, the general flow of the song came together fairly quickly.

As you can hear, the melody that kicks in during the closing portion of the opening repeats here; the idea is that said melody is the main "leitmotif" not only of Battlemania 2 as a whole, but specifically the Kingslayers (the group that the playable characters make up in the Lore™), similar to what I did with Battlemania 1's leitmotif (god I hate how out of time the vocals and the drums are in the breakdown of that HOW DID I EVER LET THAT GO)

This is also around about the point where MUSIC™ 2000 really starts to throw shitfits re: crashing repeatedly during or after I'd engaged the sampling feature, and oh boy, you're gonna hear me complaining more about that in the next two tracks at least. I did manage to get at least some of what I wanted in place- I've been itching to use that "ALL THE REAL BAD MEN STEP FORWARD" vocal sample in the intro for... years, actually.