I accidentally got spoiled on the Sonic After the Sequel soundtrack after listening to that Lightning Returns remix that Falk did, but I ended up listening to most of the soundtrack anyway (I haven't finished listening to it, but I'll do that when I'm playing something, I suspect). It's really freaking great so far.
I thought it was going to be the only/main contender for Doujin Album of the Year / Fan-released Soundtrack of the Year, but I got my hands on a new challenger, which is exciting for me because usually for doujin albums, there's just one that I say, "This stands head and shoulders above the rest."
So, uh, here's
Mega Rock Carnival. It's one of the bigger doujin albums this year, I suspect. It's mostly because as I'd written: "Mega Rock Carnival is a remix album only available to those who have attended Rockman Fan Festa in Japan in July. It was produced by EtlanZ (
http://www.etlanz.com/), and many of the remixers are people who are connected to Mega Man music in some fashion (Ippo Yamada, Ryo Kawakami, Manami Matsumae, Seiko Kobuchi, BUNBUN, Makoto Tomozawa, etc), well-known doujin artists (Yamajet, hally, EXCELSIA), regulars in the game/anime music industry (Shade, Takeaki Kunimoto, Masahiro Kajihara, Hiroaki Sano, Keishi Yonao, etc.), and people who do live shows (Ken Matsuzawa, Tendo, etc)." Hedonist was the mastering engineer much like he was on other doujin albums and a few other things.
I haven't put a ton of listening time into it, but most of what I've heard on the album for the past few days has been really fucking good with great sound samples and performances.
I ended up uploading a few things privately because I'd like to discuss it in a SotY nomination sort of fashion towards the end of the year, so here are some bits of the album that I picked to put up:
It's rather... Black Mages-esque in some fashion sometimes, but it blends a few genres into it too. I'm a sucker for albums with genre diversity (which is why I'm fond of the Sonic After/Before the Sequel stuff so far).
Needless to say, it's going to be a bit of a doozy to pick the best doujin album this year, but there is the possibility that I will give Best Fangame Album to Sonic After the Sequel, and the "This Should Be in a Game" award to Mega Rock Carnival.
However, I'm still wondering what's going to take home the Crazy Bus Award this year. I don't think I've heard a soundtrack that's outright terrible yet. To be honest, I've been slacking on going through/reviewing soundtracks this year primarily because of stress/being busy.