Dialga's Fight to the Finish, But It's A Chaotic Fusion Arrangement

!!! Spoilers !!!
Videos with {curly brackets} mean spoiler territory! Tread carefully!

A fusion arrangement of the music from the final main story boss in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness and Sky.

Score (pdf): https://www.dropbox.com/s/efgdi1wx25z...
Soundcloud:   / dialga-chaotic-fusion-arrangement  

Here it is. We've made it. After six years, this rearrangement project has finally reached /the/ defining piece of music from PMD. I'm sure that this is a rite of passage for remixers that step into the PMD circle, and I'm glad to offer my contribution to the bottomless pile of Primal Dialga arrangements!!!

Jokes aside, Primal Dialga does deserve its praise. It sort of subverts your expectations of what a final boss theme should be. For one, it's not so hectic or intense as you might expect - hell, the regular boss battle track is more fierce than it - it's more so stately and maybe a little sombre. I think it's the relatively slower-moving rhythm combined with the "chorus" 's soaring, stretched-out restatement of the Time Gear motif that gives this feeling. The Time Gear motif is also harmonised with fifths, a rather striking choice that creates this really cool and imposing feel. I feel that Primal Dialga is not so much concerned with being a high-stakes, frantic battle theme, but instead a "This is it; there's no going back" battle theme, with a sense of finality and acceptance.

Speaking of which, that's a lie, because you can actually surrender for a bit and return to Treasure Town to recoup, which is exactly what I did because past-me-from-four-years-ago did a terrible job of prepping for this half of the game. It was worth it though. I had cyndaquil relearn smokescreen, which I got rid of for some reason, despite it being super overpowered. I stocked up on reviver seeds and status-boosting moves too. I managed to beat Dialga on the second attempt after a battle that lasted... about as long as this arrangement, actually. lol.

This video breaks conventions for the project because it's the first time I'm only making a reduced score - I think over the last year I've been shifting away from making sheet music and working entirely in DAWs - I think it's a natural progression for the series, and I may stray away more from sheet music for future videos. I'm also free to do a bit more experimental stuff like the downsampling effects, so it opens up a lot more possibilities!

This is part of my Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers - Re-scored project, otherwise known as PMD: ExR. It's where I attempt to re-arrange all of the music in the Explorers games (and a few extra) in mostly chronological order!

This piece was originally composed by Arata Iiyoshi, Hideki Sakamoto, Keisuke Ito, Ken-ichi Saito and Ryoma Nakamura, and is the 68th track on the Sky Jukebox.
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Bonus video (?):    • Dialga's Wait in the Elevator!