Update Post! January 31st (2019) (Patreon)

Good evening Patrons! I'm a little overdue on an update post for you all, so let's get to it. :)

I've been working feverishly on a multitude of things. Aside from getting the current next-up songs ready, I've also been working on future songs and getting a lot of other things together. There's one big thing I forgot to mention earlier this month, that a few of you have already asked me about, so let's talk about GaMetal VIII!

As you know, every year I release all of the previous year's songs on one album and stick it up on BandCamp, to give everyone an easy and convenient way to download all of a year's songs at once. I'm hoping to have GaMetal VIII all put together and up sometime in the first week of February. I was really happy with 'both' of the mixing styles I used last year (I made a slight change starting with Courtney Gears onward), so there won't be any remasters of early 2018 songs this time around, but there will be a few remastered bonus tracks like we usually have.

Here's the album art, once again by Nutty, aka NintendoNut1, who has been doing all of the main-line GaMetal album art since GaMetal VI and as always did a spectacular job:

We've previously done lightning, fire, and ice, so this year's album art theme is.. earth!

This one's really just a matter of me getting all the songs uploaded and labeled properly, and getting together the few bonus tracks, so this shouldn't take up too much of my work time. Also, like we've done in the past, we'll be giving each song an original title, and we've been gathering all suggestions over here on this GaMetal VIII naming sheet. Feel free to drop a suggestion or two! (Or three... or 50, haha).

Second up... I'm still hopeful to have Side-Quests Volume 2 ready by the end of February! Like I said at the top of this post, I've been working on a lot of songs all at once, and some of those include SQ2 tracks.

The way we're going to do it this year is like so: the album will be released in it's entirety here on Patreon, followed immediately by 2-3 weeks worth of videos for the album songs, IE a new video every other day. So you all will still be getting to hear the entire album far before everyone else. :)

February 22nd was my goal, but as I'm now entering crunch time and have a few other songs and things I want to get done in the first half of February, that could change. I'll keep you all updated on SQ2 progress with each update post.

Oh and, here's the artwork! This one's by Stingybee, who made the Side-Quests 1 art and has also been making the Spotify/iTunes album art for 2018 Part's 1-4. She's been doing such a great job with those part albums that I suggested that she could do a similar thing where she chose a song from the album to base the artwork from, and she decided to roll with Metroid (since the Credits theme from Super Metroid is one of the SQ2 songs):

Again, I'll keep you all updated on Side-Quests Vol 2 progress with each update post!

A couple more things to touch on: the next Patreon Request List drawing stream will take place on our usual date of February 5th at around 3:00 PM US Central Time. As with our last few drawing streams, we have one song to draw this time, then we can talk about whatever you want for a bit. I'll have the request list post updated within the next few days, feel free to make any changes to your list over on the official post before then!

I've also decided to go ahead and make my hand-picked request list choice for February... and also make it the next song! I'm trying to have a more even spread of obscure and not-so-obscure songs this year, so I wanted to get something a little more familiar out before I hit up the Magi-Nation song and the song after that (which I'll get to in a second), so the next song up will be a personal favorite of mine...

Splash Blue, aka the theme of Splash Woman, from Mega Man 9! This comes from the request list of Ligma Dragoon. 

It's been a while since we've done a full Mega Man song from the 8-bit line that wasn't a part of a medley (I think Cossack?). We did do this one back in Mega Man Medley II, which was the first I had heard of it, and it's become one of my favorite MM songs ever since. 

There's also something else I want to bring back this year, and that's my wife's Valentines Day Special song. Basically... she chooses a song that I release on or around Valentines day, haha. I had done this years prior with Death Egg Robot and Michelle's Theme, but skipped last year. Well we're bringing it back this year! 

So while she's thinking of that one, this is what the current to-do list is looking like (not including Romancing SaGa 3 Battle / Battle 2, which will be coming out later tonight):

• 1. Splash Blue (Mega Man 9)
• 2. Title / Battle Theme (Magi-Nation)
• 3. Valentines Day Special
• Soon 2019: Side-Quests Volume 2 (Song list is on the bottom of the request list)
• TBA: Daughter of the Dark God (Octopath Traveler)
• TBA: Kobito of the Shining Needle ~ Little Princess (Touhou 14: Double Dealing Character)
• TBA: Life is at Risk (3D Dot Game Heroes)
• TBA: Any Song (Monolith)

Those top 3 are confirmed, while the rest will be decided as we progress through the month.

I think that's all I have to talk about for now, I should have the video for Romancing Saga 3 Battle / Battle 2 complete and up for you later tonight. Until then, thank you all as always for being amazing! :D

TL;DR: GaMetal VIII coming early February, Side-Quests 2 coming soon. The next drawing stream is on February 5th around 3:00 PM US Central Time. Splash Blue from MM9 is the February hand pick song and will be next up, followed by Title / Battle from Magi-Nation. Valentines Day special (my wife's song choice) coming back this year. Romancing SaGa 3 Battle / Battle 2 video coming later tonight. Thanks for being awesome! :)