h0i!!

welcom to…

TEM SONIC STADUM!!!!

u shud check out…

TEM MASH-UPS!!!!

yAYA!!

Toby Fox’s UnderTale has pretty much taken the web by storm at this point. Released for PC and Mac through Steam back in September, the EarthBound-inspired title by the one-man dev team was released to widespread acclaim for its game-changing morality mechanic, unconventional combat, quirky characters and even quirkier writing, and stellar soundtrack. The game has already received a handful of nominations for The Game Awards 2015, for the categories of “Best Independent Game”, “Best Role-Playing Game”, and “Games For Change”.

To those unknowing, the world of UnderTale is that of a realm of monsters, banished from the surface and sealed away beneath the earth following a terrible war against humans countless years ago. You play as a human child named Frisk who falls through a gap up Mt. Ebott, a mountain from which no one who climbs it ever returns from, and finds themselves trapped underground among the same monsters of legend with no way out, save for a magic barrier at the end of the caverns. Filled with determination, Frisk then travels through the underground, but how they travel is ultimately up to the player.

You can either spare the monsters you come across and move on, adopting the route of the pacifist, or you can kill them and unleash a full-blown genocide onto the denizens of the underground and level-up conventionally. The path you choose will ultimately and entirely affect the rest of your time spent playing UnderTale, to a degree that has yet to be explored in video games up until now.

Now with that short stint of exposition out of the way, why not see out how UnderTale music meshes with classic Sonic tunes? Three of ’em, in fact! Special thanks to my friend Stingybee365, for her support and input on selecting this week’s mash-ups!

For your sakes, I’ll try to keep major spoilers to an absolute minimum where avoidable.

Our first mash-up, courtesy of Lavalamp, is… well, special.

Carnival Night Zone stood out as a stage in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles for the sudden change of tone it provided: after blazing forest fires, wide-spanning and interconnected underwater tunnels, and ruined remains of a long lost civilization (all thematically fitting for a fabled floating island) came a theme park with flashing bright lights and towering machinery, colourful balloons floating about, and that damned barrel that brought many Sonic players to their knees way back before online guides were even a thing.

As wacky as some of UnderTale’s characters and locations can get, none can really compare to the very infamus (VERY!!!!!!!!!) hidden village of the Temmies within the Waterfall region… called Temmie Village. Its citizens? Temmies. Their diet? tem flakes. The save point? Fills you with detemmienation.

So of course, it warrants for both of their abominable songs to be blended together into one unholy union.

celbrating tems new colleg degree, proving tem learnt MANY THINs, “tem go 2 carnivl!!!!!”

awawawawah!!

Now that we’ve said b0i!! to Temmie, we can move on to the nittier and grittier mash-ups and higher standard grammar.

Next one up, called “Genocide Adventure 2”, is by MtH!

Crush 40 need no introduction, but Toby’s “MEGALOVANIA”? Definitely. Played during a particular boss fight exclusive to the game’s dubbed Genocide Route, the tune originally appeared in the EarthBound Halloween ROM Hack back in 2009 (made by the same guy, actually!) for the final boss, and again as Vriska’s theme for one of the official Homestuck Adventures albums.

it’s a beautiful day outside. birds are singing, flowers are blooming… on days like these, kids like you….

S h o u l d b e b u r n i n g i n h e l l.

Take heed should you choose that particular path… because you’re going to have a bad time.

This next one wasn’t one that I’d have ever anticipated, but the end result was definitely a song worth savouring! Why? Of all things, this is a Sonic Rush Adventure mash-up — didn’t see that one coming, did ya?

The sequel to Sonic Rush saw its release on the Nintendo DS back in 2007, starring Sonic and Blaze once again as they chase after the scourge of the seas, Captain Whiskers. The robotic and familiar looking pirate made off with the Jewelled Sceptre: native to Blaze’s world, the sceptre possesses the Power of the Stars, which has the power to alter reality to one’s favour, and dwarves even the Chaos Emeralds and Sol Emeralds in comparison. After Sonic and friends succeed in retrieving the sacred artefact, it is stolen once again under everyone’s noses, this time by the real villainous masterminds behind the game’s events: Doctor Eggman and Doctor Eggman Nega.

The ensuing final battle that takes place in the Deep Core underneath Southern Island was a memorable one indeed, all the more with the music provided by Seirou Okamoto. Sir Spacebar felt it appropriate to combine it with one of UnderTale’s own climactic boss battle tunes, “Finale”. Without further ado, here’s “DeepCoremination”!

Last, but not least, isn’t the kind of mash-up you might be expecting, but nonetheless, I just wanted to share it because it sounds plain friggin’ cool.

Martyn Davies, also known as BlastProcessed, rearranges tunes as though they were being played off of a SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. His effort is worth noting, seeing he bars himself from ever using MIDI files and simply transplanting them into a different sound font before calling it a day, instead relying on a YM2612 VST alone to get the job done (and going over the actual console’s sound limitations for the plain hell of it). That calls for some serious time, effort, and energy.

That is why I feel the need to cap off this Mash-Up Monday with his take on “ASGORE” from UnderTale, the tragic theme to the King of All Monsters in the Underground!

BlastProcessed has also done UnderTale’s “Spider Dance” — feel free to check out the rest of his “Genesis covers” library too while you’re at it!

Found any other interesting Sonic music mashups out there on the web? Maybe you have one of your own you’d like to share? If so, you can reach me via any of the following to see your choice on the next Mash-Up Monday:

• Leave a message on my profile or private message me via The Sonic Stadium Message Board – join today!
• PM The Sonic Stadium’s official Facebook page!
• Tweet @ me! [@VizardJeffhog]
• Email me via vizardjeffhog@sonicstadium.org!

Feel free to post your respect and recognition towards Lavalamp, MtH, Sir Spacebar, and BlastProcessed’s mash-ups below in the comments! Nyeh heh heh!