Metroid Cinematica

This album perfectly blends memorable songs across from Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. Emerald Blossoms, Gift of Power, Wings of Fire, and The Last Metroid are some of my favorites that written and executed very well. Will definitely check out more from Sam Dillard!

This album is by far the best soundtrack/ cover for METROID™️ I have ever heard. Better than Nintendo. (In my opinion) :D

From the stunning ambience ala Metroid Prime to the graceful crescendos of the main fanfare, if any Metroid fan is looking to find a way to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary, they can look no further than this soundtrack. It is a glorious reimagining of the soundtracks of the original games that has a stunning amount of clarity with each note from each instrument. I would recommend that this is worth buying.

Fan or not of the Metroid series, this is beautiful, moody music. It actually immerses you into the metroid story and you feel the atmosphere in each part of the adventure. Excellent piece of work!

EDIT: After listening to this album more, I've decided to delete my previous review and start over. I previously gave this album 4 stars. Even though I still have a few small complaints, I must now upgrade it to 5 stars. I love the Super Metroid work Sam Dillard has done on OCRemix and his website SamoStudios. With tracks such as Into The Green World, The Crimson Depths and Beyond The Glass Dillard takes the source material and orchestrates it while adding his own style and creativity. He really takes his time and fully explores the themes. Of the 400+ Metriod remixes I have, Dillards tracks are among my favorites. So I was very excited for this album. The sound quality is beyond perfection. This really is cinematic. You can trust what the other reviewers are saying about this album. This project is unmatched among other Metroid fan albums in it's depth, creativity, and sound quality. Metroid Cinematica has but one rival. The Blake Robinson Super Metriod Symphony. The main difference between these two artist is that Blake Robinson stays very close to the source material and doesn’t add much of his own thoughts into the music. While Sam Dillard can get very creative and still stay faithful the main themes. Of the two, I gravitate more towards the passion and thoughfulness Dillard adds to his music. Here are the only few drawbacks and personal complaints. Please keep in mind that even though I have some disappointment, this is still a 5 star project. These are just small critiques. Sam takes tracks that span across the entire Metroid franchise and blends them together beautifully. However, in doing so, I feel that the themes on several tracks get crowded and rushed. In his previous released tracks, they start out slow and build into a wonderful adventure that has an emotional payoff. There is great satisfaction by the end of Into The Green World. I was hoping for more of that on this album. It's a terrific ambition to attempt such a full service of the whole franchise. But a few of my favorite themes didn’t get all the attention I was hoping they'd get from such a capable and creative artist. The main exception to this is Inferno. Dillard really explores the Norfair Depths theme here without the distraction of other themes. Because of this, Inferno is my favorite piece on the album. But I must recognize there are a few tracks where this mash-up formula works extremely well. Protectors of the Galaxy, Orphan, Explorer, Destroyer, Emerald Blossoms, and The Last Metroid are examples of this done right. Along with Inferno, they are the stand out tracks to me. If you go to Sam Dillard's website, he breaks down each song so that you can see what themes he used in each track. It's very impressive to see just how many seamless theme transitions were done in some of these songs. When I turned on Super Metroid for the first time when I was 13 and saw that eerie prologue it gave me chills. When Crocomire appeared out of nowhere I was truly and wonderfully frightened. Those sounds and images have stayed with me and caused me to play at least some of every Metroid title. There is high potential for some horror aspects to Metroid music that just wasn’t completely present on this album. Especially in the prologue theme. And perhaps even in the Item Room theme. However, The Crimson Kingdom and A Demon Is Watching both do a pretty good job of giving us some of those unsettling tones. My last issue with Metroid Cenematica was the decision to make so many tracks so atmospheric. While not bad songs, tracks 6 thru 12 slow the pace of the album greatly. I wish at least one track would have changed up the pace and tone in that span. I know much of Metroid music is very ambient. It definitely has it's place. For example, Deep Passage is actually a pretty good track. It's a very chill and laid back rendition of the Red Soil theme. I really do enjoy the track. But I was looking forward to hearing a bigger sound materialize by it's end. It never came. Hunter kinda runs in place til it picks it up at the end with it's take on the Space Pirate's theme. Emerald Blossoms is also very atmospheric. But it makes sense that Dillard would slow down this song after the work he did to the Brinstar theme on Into the Green World. It's a nice contrast. I think Dillard's previously released track, Beyond The Glass, is a perfect example of how an atmospheric take on a song can still explore all the theme has to offer. Now onto the two tracks that I think suffer the most from their ambeint interpretations. Wings of Fire and Mother should be the climax of the storytelling. Sadly though, the high stakes mental imagery that Inferno sets up -- the final battles with Ridley and Mother Brain -- is flattened some what by the slow burn and atmospheric feel of both tracks. I don’t mean to say they are bad songs. They are quite good. In fact, there are no skippable tracks on this whole album. It's just that I wanted the adrenaline and payoff that Inferno seemed to promise. Wings of Fire starts out very haunting and ominous. By the 3 minute mark it's built up to a steady pace. But fails to hit hard and finish strong in the last 2 minutes. And for a track called Mother there's only about 10 seconds worth of the actual battle with Mother Brain. But it transitions into a very nice telling of the Ing Emperor theme. Both songs just feel a little unfinished to me. Fortunately, The Last Metroid brings it all home and is the perfect ending to this album. It's easy to complain. And I tried to add a positive at the end of my three areas of concern because I really do love this album. None of these complaints affect the overall enjoyment I get from this project. There's no other Metriod fan project out there quite like this. A lot of love went into making these songs and it shows. I listen to a lot of movie scores. This album holds it's own against any of them. I hope these are not the last Metroid tracks we get from Sam Dillard.

That’s right, I said story. Somehow, Sam Dillard made an entire story with nothing but music. It’s got everything you could ask for; quiet, atmospheric soundscapes, sweeping, epic overtures, pulse-pounding action music…I could go on, but you need to hear it for yourself. Sam Dillard has finally given this music the treatment it deserves, and it would be worth it at twice the price. I eagerly look forward to his next project!

After a few quick previews of this I knew I had to have it - having been a Metroid fan since I was 10 years old playing the orignal NES game all the way up through the Metroid Prime series - after paying and downloading the songs and starting to listen I find that the quality is far beyond what I could have even imagined - this is something special. The treatment of these songs bring true justice to the scope of these original gaming scores some of which were original presented in 8 bit - and makes you realize how special these songs truly are. I am stunned at the beauty that Sam Dillard has brought to these - not even familar with the artist - is he a composer? These tracks sound like some of the best film scores I can remember ever hearing - bringing vivid images in my head about what a metroid film could look like. If you are a Metroid fan, do not hesitate to buy this album. Thank you Sam Dilliard for producing such beatiful music and treating Metroid with the respect it deserves. Hearing old 8 bit songs fleshed out in full symponic sounds with the ominous overtones is just beautiful.

If you like Metroid games, you would not want to miss out. This is one of the best Metroid fan base album to get.

this is an iconic work of art please make a record vinyl of this and a cd and do a tour

If you're a fan of the Metroid games, you need to have this music in your collection. Sam Dillard pulls off another masterful take on the music that you know and love from the games, and amplifies it to a new level that really makes you appreciate the game's original soundtrack. My favorite tracks include: ‘Explorer': I love how it goes from NES Metroid's Brinstar (classic) to Surface Of SR388, Game Boy's Metroid II . 'Emerald Blossoms': I absolutely love how this beautifully juxtaposes two of my favorite tracks into one: Metroid Prime's Crashed Ship Frigate Orpheon, and Super Metroid's Brinstar - Plant Overgrowth Area. 'Deep Passage': I can never get enough of Super Metroid's Maridia Rocky Underwater Area music. 'Edge of the Labyrinth': I couldn't have imagined the Norfair music from the NES Metroid sounding this amazing. But there you go. ‘Inferno': Wow, just... wow. The Norfair theme from Super Metroid, which also sounded good in Metroid Prime's Magmoor Caverns, never sounded better than this!