IN-CHARACTER TRACK COMMENTARY FROM GONKAKA:

Denji Koshiro: One of the things I regret about Battlemania 1's soundtrack is that we didn't do a “band” song for it; was there any reason for that?

Shinji Namiki: I believe there simply wouldn't have been anywhere to use one in the game- at least, until the console port with the animated intro.

Denji Koshiro: Right, right. In any case, it's something I wanted to rectify for the sequel, to the point that it was the very first piece we worked on- before the direction of the opening movie had even been considered.

Takayuki Mitsuyoshi: The animation team were split between thanking us and cursing us for that one.

Denji Koshiro: It did give us an opportunity to do something we haven't done in a while, though; engage in a couple of jam sessions where we felt out different musical ideas in the moment. Everything you hear was the result of each of us coming up with a core idea- Takayuki came up with almost all of the bass guitar sections, Shinji outlined the groove and feel for how the first portion should go, and Fumie came up with the main motif in the song's back end.

Fumie Saso: Funny thing about that; at this stage, I didn't know if you wanted the motif of the game to be the same as the first. I went into that first jam session telling myself I'd play it safe, just in case, but as soon as my fingers hit the keyboard, this variation on the melody came out instead!

Shinji Namiki: The muse works in mysterious ways. I consider it a blessing- I did always feel like the first game's motif was more of the Brave Herts' theme then the Battlemania theme.

Denji Koshiro: I believe you voiced that at the time, and I'm glad you did; there was a real melancholy to the melody that I felt fit the largely tragic or difficult circumstances that brought the Kingslayers together, so it felt right for their motif to reflect that.

Fumie Saso: I was just feeding off of the energy of the chords you came up with!

Denji Koshiro: (Laughs) I've no idea where those came from, either- I think I might've had a hangover that day, and was a little grumpy. That was another lucky happenstance, though- I liked the idea of inserting a little “musical spoiler” to the game's big twist into the score, but I didn't want it to be obvious until a replay.

Shinji Namiki: Ah, is that why the chords appeared on both Kain's stage and Pied's theme? I just assumed you were being lazy.

(Denji throws a crumpled up piece of paper at Shinji's head; Shinji barely reacts to being hit, expression unchanged, whilst Fumie and Takayuki laugh)

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DECON'S TRACK COMMENTARY:

Well folks, the work has begun in earnest; the first track of the Battlemania 2 project has been completed and, boy howdy, it exceeded my expectations significantly. I have a buffer of three tracks ready including this one, so if I manage to stay on pace (and life/depression etc. doesn't get in the way), tracks should be coming out on a one-every-two-days schedule, as they used to for Christmas projects pre-2017.

As you'll all know, Battlemania 2 has been on the cards for a while- quite possibly since the first one was finished (my memory's a tad fuzzy)- and for about as long, I've had the idea of doing something similar to the opening/main theme from the first King of Fighters: Maximum Impact for a BM follow up; something about the energy and vibe of the song just captured exactly what I would want to score some sort of crazy intro cinematic featuring characters of mine and Dio's doing Crazy Cool Things™. Actually attempting it, though, was a really daunting task for several reasons- I didn't want to make a track too close to it's base, I was struggling with ideas for melodies and basslines, and working with electric and bass guitars using a selection of one-shot samples is somewhat taxing to name just three. And indeed when I first kicked the track off I was a bit lost, and wondering if perhaps I'd have to go another route.

The breakthrough came when I imported the guitar lines from Thumper, though; I'd originally imported the riffs just to mine the individual samples from them to write new ones, but on a lark I shifted the key to match what I had here and tried them out, and things began falling into place. There was still a lot of trial and error involved- lots of giving different backing elements a shake only to find they made the song too busy or just didn't quite work- but the turnover was a lot faster then expected and man, the end result; I am so beyond pleased with how it came out. It's Pretty Obviously Inspired by the KOF:MI track and makes no attempt to hide it, but I feel there's enough in there to differentiate it and help it stand on its own. It helps that I got to drag some of my favourite samples and patches out- we got snippets of raps from the Masterbits RAPsody sample pack, the Pressure Me Lead from the Roland D-50 Synthesizer, a couple of bits from Methods of Mayhem: Industrial Toolkit, several staple sounds from M2K itself (Soft 5, Double Hit, Mid String, Theatre End)- the gang's (almost) all here.