Semifinal Battle [8-bit GameBoy] | Pokémon Colosseum (1000 subscriber special!)
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Ever since my channel started having any semblance of success, I've been thinking about what the 1000 subscriber special song should be. Very quickly I landed on my favorite song from one of my favorite games of all time - the Semifinal Battle theme from Pokémon Colosseum. Despite the unassuming name, the original track has such a unique feel in a game that itself is so unique, so I've always been fascinated by it. It speaks to me in a way few songs do and I never quite get tired of it.
Due to my self-imposed "challenge", I looked at this song multiple times over the years, and that challenge seemed almost insurmountable; the original midi has over 20 tracks which together produce this complex dance I love so much. It was hard to see the path through that tangled mess, so I kept pushing the problem for later. However, with the Burning Colosseum project and the 1k sub mark fast approaching, I knew I had to tackle it sooner or later. And much to my surprise, it turned out to not be that bad, and - if I can say so myself - I think this ended up sounding quite good in chiptune. So in a way, this song showcases how much I've improved over these years. Which I think is a nice symbolism.
In terms of the arrangement itself, this song really pushed my current skills to the limit, and it has a little bit of everything in it: it has stereo in the beginning, which is not the standard for BC, and it also uses those darn toms, which I had to conjure up using the Noise channel. Things started falling into place as soon as I figured out that I needed to keep the downwards arpeggio that lasts for the entire song on Pulse 1, the insane bass on Pulse 2, and the melody on the Wave, which is also the case for all other major battle themes in my BC arrangements.
The Pulse 2 is curious because the original song has these barely inaudible guitar frets on the bass tracks, which in the midi show up as very high notes; Seshpai helped me figure that out and I ended up making them very short and quiet 12.5% dutycycle notes. You can only really hear them at the beginning but they are there in the entire song.
The Wave took a while to figure out, because it has 4 different instruments. Especially tough was the distortion guitar (which also shows up in First Battle), which went through multiple iterations. I worked on the two songs at the same time while testing out multiple waves to make sure it sounded good on both of them. I ended up having a fully synthetic triple pulse + triangle wave, which you can see in the oscilloscope view up top. Finally, I also spent quite a bit of time working on the pitch sweep near the end of the loop; it's not perfect, but I think it sounds decent enough. That final section uses a "log saw" I found somewhere, which is basically a regular sawtooth wave but spicier.
My only regret is a part before the distortion guitar kicks in where it's possible to hear an instrument I had to cut in this version. Unfortunately, it was just impossible to fit it in.
Thanks to everyone involved in the pokecrystal disassembly project for making this possible. And a special thank you to everyone who subscribed and supported the channel over the years. ❤️💚💙
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* Twitter: / tritehexagon
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TriteHexagon presently has 6,865 views for Pokémon Colosseum across 6 videos, and less than an hour worth of Pokémon Colosseum videos were uploaded to his channel. This is 3.73% of the total watchable video on TriteHexagon's YouTube channel.