Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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This arrangement was written (at the very last minute!) for Fami10LE, a collaboration between several chiptune musicians to celebrate Undertale's 10th anniversary. You can find the whole album right here (this track is listed under "vs. Goatmom" : famitale.neocities.org

It's strange to think about how much one Bostonian's warmup project can affect your life's trajectory, and it's even stranger to think how much of that impact came from a single song. Heartache proved to a stubborn preteen chiptuner that sound chips can and should stage the stage with 'normal' instruments (even when those instruments come from SGM.sf2), showed a fledgling teenage music theorist the potential of Phrygian mode mixture, and continues to inspire a college-attending composer with its fascinating ideas and structure, and while I had always kept this piece near to me, but it was only after I began the careful transcription process inherent to any proper chiptune cover that its true genius - a word I don't use lightly - revealed itself. Not many other piece's I've looked at attempt Heartache's unfolding rondo structure (where each repetition of the anthemic chorus unveils a new phrase that was pulled out from under us the last time - a perfect musical metaphor for the rewarded persistence needed to see the theme's accompanying battle to its best outcome), and fewer manage to move between such disparate sections - turbulent chord vamps, playfully devious dance numbers, and, of course, the aforementioned choruses - with the elegance you'll find on display here, a freewheeling fluidity that seems to have sadly diminished with Toby Fox's maturity as a composer (although one could argue that anything that results in Third Sanctuary is a worthy trade); there really are very few works like this out there, and the VGM enjoyers of the world are all the better for its existence (I could go on about all the Cool Music Stuff that happens in just 1:45 of runtime, but I'll SPARE you for now).

Such a monumental piece - both as a work of chiptune and as a personal treasure - deserves nothing but the highest level of care for its arrangement. No corners have been cut and no stops remained unpulled for this cover, which combines the sound design and arranging ideas of several of my absolute favorite chiptuners ( @LOVE_LOVE_PENGUIN and @DastardlyNun might as well have co-creator credits on this) along with a handful of my own concepts. While the final result may feel a bit chaotic if you've never heard the original, I hope that listeners with as much of a love for Heartache as I have will enjoy hearing its little details and grander ideas brought out in several new lights.

@branflakes325 also deserves credit here for having already replicated Undertale's sound effects in FamiTracker form, which saved me valuable seconds.

Module File: drive.google.com/file/d/1HdbPjeaceRehaDU8wl-O1beIn__mpNBz/view?usp=sharing