The samples sound a bit artificial, especially next to the natural acoustic guitar from Undertale. But I’m hooked on the melody. Bits and pieces of it show up throughout the soundtrack, and I think it works great as an unadorned piano piece (courtesy of Erik “Jit” Scheele).
One reviewer of the game mentioned that he ‘wish[ed] it would make up its mind whether it’s going to stick with the retro chiptune audio or not.’ I respect Yahtzee’s opinion (and I love Zero Punctuation to boot), but my taste differs from his. The combination of chiptune and natural orchestration makes for a really unique sound (and one I naturally dig, given that this blog is absolutely lousy with Homestuck music).
All that said, this one’s about as chiptune-purist as it gets. All those needly staccato notes set the ‘everything is spiders’ vibe for the memorable boss fight.
THIS Pumpkin!(by Alexander Rosetti) is an orchestral arrangement of Pumpkin Cravings off of Homestuck Volume 5 (by Seth “Beatfox” Peelle). The brass section that carries the main melody gives this mix a little more gravity and depth, but at its heart it’s still a really fun, goofy song.
I overlooked this one when I picked up the Undertale Demo soundtrack about a year ago. It’s grown on me: probably my favorite of the early-game tracks. The instrumentation (chiptune lead, orchestral accompaniment) is very similar to another boss battle against a goat-based enemy. Just one more aspect of continuity between the two.