NARRATIVE TEXT:

Name: Kain, the King of Hatred

Age: ???

Weapon: Dual Long-swords

Series: Otherside

“The world has been nothing but cruel to me; why wouldn't I pay that cruelty back in kind?”



Character Bio/Boss:

Many years ago, the imaginary world of Otherside was split into four provinces, each of them governed by a monarch: Arias, the Queen of Joy; Ilsanda, the Lady of Love; Zeek, the Lord of Sorrow; and Kain, the King of Anger. As their titles would indicate, they represented varying emotional spectrums that the residents of the “real” world feel, and they embody those feelings fully and completely. For as long as can be remembered, these four monarchs- and a variety of lesser nobles that represented emotions outside those spectrums- kept the world of Otherside balanced and harmonious. However, Kain eventually grew to be weighed down by the constant barrage of anger- whether it be petty and cruel and righteous and just- and grew more and more mad until, unable to properly balance his state, his form corrupted and he adopted the moniker of The King of Hatred, his one goal being to sow enough pandemonium throughout Otherside that it would begin to collapse, opening the door to the world beyond worlds known as Nowhere- and thus, giving him the key to wipe out all of existence.



Level: Hateful Towering Spire

In times long past, this served as the capital of Kain's domain: a place in which fire raged and magma flowed, overbearing heat a constant and infinite energy erupting from every corner. Now, however, the lands lay barren and empty, devoid of life; what foiliage once thrived in the extreme conditions has died and rotted, the fires have stopped raging, and the magma has cooled along with the air. Gnarled and wretched, life has simply ceased to be in this place, so corrupted by Kain's hateful ways that the very land itself is dying. The only structure that remains is an impossibly tall tower, once part of a glorious castle and now a crumbling, tilted spire that threatens to collapse at any moment. And there, on a throne of salt and sand, sits the King of Hatred, waiting patiently for his pursuers to challenge him in a fight to the bitter end.

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IN-CHARACTER TRACK COMMENTARY FROM GONKAKA:

Denji Koshiro: My initial instinct with this song was to go in a harder and faster direction- a real rave-y stomper to get the blood pumping. Problem was, no actual ideas for melodies, chords, even beat structure actually came to mind- no sketches exist of that idea, because it never went far enough.

Shinji Namiki: I think that's for the best; the slower, more contemplative piece you produced fits the dead and decaying landscape far better.

Denji Koshiro: I feel compelled to agree. And overall, I'm happier with the approach I took- it's very dramatic, and still has these moments of intensity- but there are little things I wish I would've done differently. The breakbeat during the breakdown, for example- that was constructed out of individual one-shot samples included within our audio software, as this was worked on during the major hard drive crash; I really tried to give it a good grit and punch, to make it sound authentically played, but it just doesn't come across to me.

Takayuki Mitsuyoshi: The sheer power of the drum machine samples you used and programmed do a great job, though. The snare in particular slices through the mix really nicely.

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DECON'S TRACK COMMENTARY:

And with this, all the level themes for Battlemania 2 are done. The project itself isn't done yet- there's a few more tracks to do- but I'm definitely in the back end of the process at this point.

Early on, I had a completely different idea for this one; initially, I considered taking an approach similar to Iceferno's track Final Factory (Stage 7A-02), pairing off thumping 90s hard techno with dirge elements to match the tone. This plan floated around in my head for most of the project's duration, but right before finally settling to work on it I completely changed gears and went for a slower, more downbeat approach; I can't say what motivated the change, but given the entire gimmick of the last stage is that it's a literally-dying world where life has completely ceased to be, this approach probably fit a lot better. Funnily enough, though, the source of inspiration still came from Streets of Rage, albeit much more directly: I had the various slower, Soul II Soul/Enigma-type tracks Yuzo Koshiro wrote for the games in mind when constructing this one, including The Last Soul, Keep The Groovin' / Slow Moon, and Stealthy Steps in particular. There's a little of one of his early doujin works, Be Careful, in there as well.

Barring the bit of post production effects work (and of course stitching everything together/mixing bits together where necessary), absolutely everything here is 100% MUSIC™ 2000. Mostly by necessity- I've temporarily switched over to using a PS2, as it's infinitely more stable then any of the PS1's I've been using (however, as it is unmodded, it cannot read CD-R's). I did try sampling a breakbeat from one of the singles in my collection for the piano chord section, but a program crash set me back and to be brutally honest, I couldn't be arsed to fuck about with recreating the exact same chops all over again. I'm of two minds about it: there were a fair few external samples I wish I could've used here to give the track the right sort of grit and edge that I feel a good chunk of my non-external-sample M2K joints can sometimes lack. On the other hand, quite a few of the sounds I put together in-program, using just what the program itself provides, came out really nice- in particular, I'm very fond of the main beat's snare sound, which I'm almost certain will wind up on a future instalment of Table Scraps way down the line. And as much as the timing was a pain to get right (particularly on the "seconds pass" part), I'm very happy with how the sung verses during that final portion came out paired against everything else (and, as with the sung lyrics from the Clay Cross Residential District track, are intended to relate to Kain's position in the story as pining for his lost love- the motivator behind the brutal warpath he's carved). I even had the chance to bust out some leitmotif action- the pipe organ chords in the song's back end are exactly the same as the ones from the latter half of the opening theme, and there are a couple of points where a melody is directly lifted from my very, very old track Heartless Hatred (a previous theme written for Kain way, way back in 2007/2008). Kain's planned to have his own boss encounter theme for BM2 as well, and the currentplan is to revist Heartless Hatred in full, so I figured I'd tease it here.