Iconic...
Forgotten...
Timeless...
Innovative...
These are the soundtracks that helped shape and define what we hear in the video games that we play. I am Nitro, and this is the M Disk Playlist's Video Game Music Primer: 1991.
Super Adventure Island (Super Nintendo), composed by Yuzo Koshiro
By the time this game was released, Yuzo Koshiro was already becoming one of the most innovative composers of the 16-bit era. With ActRaiser, he managed to create an orchestrated soundtrack that had never been pulled off before. With Streets of Rage, he managed to emphasize beats over melodies to create a soundtrack that paid homage to the ever growing popularity of dance music. Super Adventure Island manages to combine all of what made Koshiro stand out so much. Memorable melodies, and instantly addictive beats.
Super Adventure Island played like a much simpler version of the original Adventure Island game. No dinosaurs, no world maps, just straight up action and well timed jumps. This would be Koshiro's first and only soundtrack for the franchise, and as expected, he knew how to impliment his style of music to the worlds and dangers that Master Higgins would face. The style of music he borrowed heavily from is a type of African Caribbean music called calypso, and different types of modern jazz.
The first parts of the game emphasize Koshiro's melody composing abilities. But as you progress more and more in the game, you start to notice Koshiro's beat creating abilities that he was perfecting while working on Streets of Rage. The last level of the game should be given a special shout out. I don't normally signal out specific pieces, and I don't plan on making a habit out of it, but the opening bass riff in the last level is nothing short of incredible. Music for final levels in platform games, especially castles, are more haunting, ominous, dramatic, intense. Not this one. This one is catchy, hip hop inspired, and unlike anything I have ever heard in a final stage, even to this day.
That kind of innovation alone makes the soundtrack to Super Adventure Island one of the stand-outs of the year. It may not be one of Koshiro's most popular works, but it definitely should not go unnoticed. It does a good job encapsulating what his style of music was like before, and after the
release of Streets of Rage.
Gimmick! (Nintendo), composed by Masashi Kageyama
On the surface, Gimmick may appear to be another cute platformer. It's much more than that. It is one of the toughest platformers ever released for the Nintendo. Or I should say, Famicom, since it was only released in Japan, and Scandinavia. You control Yumetaro, a small green blob toy who becomes the favorite of a small young girl, driving the other toys to capture her, and bring her to their realm. To achieve this, Yumetaro relies on his star attack to help defeat enemies, but to help him traverse through the realm of the evil toys.
If this sounds difficult, this is actually the easy part of the game, compared to what you must do to actually rescue the girl. You have to beat the game without getting a game over, AND you must find one hidden item in each of the six main levels. This will unlock the secret final level where you will do battle with the true final boss. Such astonishing difficulty makes the Ghosts n' Goblins series seem much more tame in comparison.
Gimmick came out in the middle of the 16-bit era, but that did not concern director Tomomi Sakai. He hired a larger than normal staff to work on the game. Work on the game which included using advanced tile set algorithms to improve the graphics beyond the Famicom's usual limits. The soundtrack also got its own advanced sound chip, allowing Masashi Kageyama to work with more sound channels than what was normally allowed in a Famicom game. And the Famicom already allowed for more sound chips in their games than Nintendo games did in the west. So Gimmick's soundtrack could arguably be considered one of the most advanced among games released on 8-bit platforms.
In recent years, Kageyama shifted from composing for video games to performing jazz music at local venues due to how difficult it was for him to compose for video game music. But out of all the Sunsoft games he has worked on, Gimmick remains one of the most popular ones he's done.
Top Gear (Super Nintendo), composed by Barry Leitch
Before Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, there was Top Gear. In the midst of the 8 and 16-bit eras, a lot of the more popular racing games were focused solely on being the fastest racer. But in Top Gear, it wasn't quite as simple. Yes, you had to be the fastest, but you also had to be the smartest.
Taking into consideration how much fuel you're consuming, when to use the nitro boost, and when you should make pit stops.
Even with it's at-the-time innovative take on the racing genre, Top Gear wasn't always considered the higest quality racer for the Super Nintendo. However, the music has almost unaninmously been declared the best part of the entire game. Barry Leitch, Scottish composer, had already established himself as a top tier composer for the racing genre in the early 80s and 90s. His works on the Amiga's Lotus series helped establish his reputation. But it wasn't until Top Gear's release where Leitch was catapulted into one of the racing genre's best composers. And speaking of Lotus, the music in that series would be remixed for the Top Gear soundtrack. The ending theme for Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 is the title theme for Top Gear. It's almost as if Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 served as the bridge between what Leitch did for Amiga, and what he would do for the Super Nintendo.
In an interview with Gamasutra, Leitch talked about discovering the echo effect in the Super Nintendo's sound chip. He was already impressed with the sound chip's 8 channels, but the echo effect made a world of difference to him. But to make the echo work as effectivly, the echo was set to one 16th of a note, because each echo cost memory for every millisecond of it used. One 16th note was all that could be spared without compromising the memory.
A lot of video game music at the time usually lasted roughly three minutes long, if looped one time. Top Gear had one of the few soundtracks that featured tracks that exceeded the five minute mark. It's a short soundtrack in terms of the quantity of tracks, but the quality of tracks makes this one of 1992's
best soundtracks. Not just from a technical standpoint, but as a medium that helped set the standard for how to enhance the gameplay experience of racing music.
Darkwing Duck (Nintendo), composed by Yasuaki Fujita
For many children of the 90s, the Disney Afternoon block was the pinnacle of television. And like a lot of licensed property, video games had to be made to capitalize on their property. Lucky for Disney Afternoon fans, Capcom was the exclusive developer of games based off the Disney Afternoon properites. One of those properties is the 1992 release of Darkwing Duck.
If the game looks familiar to you, it's because Capcom used the same engine that was used to develop Mega Man 5 for this game. If the game sounds familiar to you, aside from the opening, it's because Capcom tapped Mega Man 3 composer Yasuaki Fujita to score the game. This game was practically made by the same people who worked on the Mega Man games. So many of Mega Man's aesthetics were carried over to help make Darkwing Duck the game that it is. Non-linear paths to the final level, a variety of weapons to use, annoying enemies, and most relevant to this primer, catchy music.
This wouldn't be the first time Yasuaki Fujita worked on a video game based off of a Disney property. He scored the music for Capcom's The Little Mermaid for the Nintendo, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the Game Boy.
Although Darkwing Duck was developed almost exclusively by people who worked on the Mega Man series, this game was never released in Japan. With the exception of TaleSpin, other Disney Afternoon games like DuckTales and Rescue Rangers were released in Japan. The rumored reason for that is that Darkwing Duck wasn't popular enough to warrant a game release in that region.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the history of Darkwing Duck is how much of a last minute idea it ended up being. The staff behind the Disney Afternoon block intended to produce a reboot of the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, not knowing that Disney only had video distribution rights. When it
was discovered they couldn't work on a Rocky & Bullwinkle show, they immediately expanded on ideas inspired by DuckTales episodes Double-O-Duck, and The Masked Mallard. Those ideas evolved into Darkwing Duck. To think, if the Rocky & Bullwinkle reboot did see the light of day, we might have never gotten Darkwing Duck. And without Darkwing Duck, we would have never gotten this game.
Mario Paint (Super Nintendo), composed by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka, Ryoji Yoshitomi, and Kazumi Totaka
Mario Paint was the console alternative to many different programs that could only be used on computers. All in one package, you could draw, make stamps, animations, and music. It was the ultimate creation program at an affordable package.
Also unlike computer programs at the time, Mario Paint gave you catchy music in the background to help keep your mind engaged while you work. Three different composers were brought on to bring a variety of music styles to Mario Paint. Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka provides the music for both opening demos, the falling star easter egg music in the title screen, and most of the music in the fly swatter mini-game.
Ryoji Yoshitomi would provide music for the flower garden easter egg in the title screen, the third/pink level in the fly swatter mini-game, and most of the music you hear when you're creating, including all of the eraser jingles.
Kazumi Totaka provides the opening title theme, and all of its variations, the music for the save/load screen, and his trademark 19-note piece that he sneaks into nearly any game he works on, simply titled Totaka's Song. So if you're playing a game composed by him, you should expect to find this piece hidden somewhere in the game.
As stated earlier, Mario Paint even let you create your own music. It may seem severely limited to music makers offered today, but for Super Nintendo, simple and basic was their approach. The concept of the Mario Paint music editor was expanded upon in 2008, with the release of the Mario Paint Composer program from UnFun games, allowing anyone to create arrangements practically any song they wanted using the same sound samples from Mario Paint, and then some.
Mario Paint was a revolution. Inspiring creators of all kinds. Young creators who just wanted to have fun creating, and even creators who would go on to do professional creating. The Wii Photo Channel had elements of inspiration from Mario Paint. The WarioWare series, particularly WarioWare DIY for the Nintendo DS, was heavily inspired by Mario Paint. Half of Super Mario Maker used references to Mario Paint. Popular internet cartoon Homestar Runner even began as an animation in Mario Paint.
Mario Paint may have been just another attempt at Nintendo innovating the gaming experience. But ultimately, for 1992, Mario Paint helped shape and define a new era of creativity through the simplest means, and enjoyable music to help engage the creator.
Snatcher (PC-Engine), composed by the Konami Kukeiha Club
Snatcher was originally released for the PC-88 and MSX2 in 1988. It was an interactive visual novel heavily inspired by science fiction films and anime in the 80s. The 1992 remake, otherwise known as Snatcher CD-ROMantic, became the definitive version of Snatcher. With improved graphics, improved audio, voice acting, new direction by writer and designer Hideo Kojima, and a new act in the game to give Snatcher the definitive ending it never got in its original release.
The music of Snatcher was a collection of jazz-funk, smooth jazz, and the kind of dark synthesizer melodies you would find in the soundtrack to Kojima's biggest inspiration for the game, Blade Runner. It was composed officially by the Konami Kukeiha Club, the name given to Konami's in-house band of composers. This wasn't an uncommon thing for Konami to do. Some games Konami developed gave soundtrack credits to specific composers. And then there were some that gave credit to the Konami Kukeiha Club.
When looking up specific composer credits, the name that usually pops up is Masahiro Ikariko. The game's Wikipedia page, popular fan page junkerhq.net, and YouTube channel Jonathan Ingram (named for the main protagonist of Kojima's next visual novel, Policenauts) were the top results when looking up who was specifically involed in composing the music for Snatcher. According to Ikariko's profile page on Overclocked Remix, he shares composition credits on Snatcher with composers
Iku Mizutani, M. Shirakawa, Masanori Adachi, Mutsuhiko Izumi, S. Masuda, and Seiichi Fukami. Roughly a small portion of the entire Konami Kukeiha Club.
What makes Snatcher stand the test of time is how it combined the asthetics of a graphic novel, with the branching paths of a visual novel, and the interactivity of a typical action game. It also helps that the Sega CD version of the game was the only one localized in the west in late 1994. Edits had to be made of course, but the localization for its time was considered top notch. It didn't sell as well as it could have though, being released right at the end of Sega CD's lifespan. The 1992 version of Snatcher gave Hideo Kojima a good start in showcasing what kind of cinematic experiences he would bring to video games.
Super Valis IV (Super Nintendo), composed by Junta
This may very well be the most unusual example of a game soundtrack highlighted in this primer series. Very little is known about the composer behind this game. The only pieces of information that could be found is his name, and his resume which only includes two games; this one, and Doomsday Warrior. But, the lack of information available as of this recording does not make this game any less worthy of a highlight.
Valis is a PC-Engine series about high school girl Yuko Aso who acquires the power of the sword Valis. Valis enables her to protect life from evil. The series chronicles her life as an ordinary human girl, to goddess of Vecanti, one of the otherworldly realms in the game. Valis IV is about three new heroes who must rescue one of the heroes from the third game from the dark prince Galgear.
That was the PC-Engine version. The Super Nintendo only saw the fourth Valis game, and it's not even close to what kind of game the PC-Engine version was. Instead of three heroes to choose from, there is only one, Lena Brande. The story was heavily altered to make it very easy to not ask "do I need to play any other Valis game to understand this one?" The levels were drastically different, there was no animated sequences, the gameplay mechanics were altered, and most relevant to this primer, the music is not the same as it was in the PC-Engine, composed by Shingo Murakami.
While Super Valis IV did not receive as much critical acclaim as its PC-Engine counterparts, the game was at least acknowledged for its soundtrack. For the most part, it didn't try to match the asthetics of the game. Instead, the music matched Lena's journey to stop Galgear, who was renamed Gallagher in the North American release, in a motivational way. For example, the Babylon level. You're outside in an isolated fort-like area with clear blue skies in the background. Would you associate the scenery with a techno riff accompanied by an organ melody in the foreground? Definitely a contrast of aesthetics. But it didn't matter, it still carried the theme of motivating Lena to succeed against all who stood in her way.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega Genesis), composed by Masato Nakamura
After successfully giving the original Sonic the Hedgehog an iconic soundtrack, Masato Nakamura returned for the game's sequel. Having gained the experience of composing music for the Genesis, it was that much easier for him to craft memorable melodies and upbeat hooks. Despite how much easier it was, he took the same approach to composing for Sonic 2 as he did for Sonic 1. He used concept art for the stages to compose music in the style of films to compliment the atmosphere of the stages than anything else.
He was given creative freedom with how the music of Sonic 2 was going to sound, which made it easier for him to, in his words, "make such melodic tunes and unusual rhythm patterns." He composed the soundtrack in London, while simultaneously working on the album The Swinging Star. Both the album, and the game were released in the same week. Incidentally, the Swinging Star album contains a track titled Sweet Sweet Sweet. This song is notable for having a very similar melody to the ending theme of Sonic 2. An English version of the same song, featuring rapper Akon, appears in the critically panned 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog game.
This soundtrack was even integral to accessing secret codes in the game. By accessing the sound test in the options or level select menu, you could play the music and/or sound effects in a certain order to access things like level select, debug mode, and playing as Super Sonic without collecting all the chaos emeralds.
It could be argued that the Green Hill Zone was Sonic 1's most memorable piece, that reprised itself in future sonic titles. Sonic 2 had multiple pieces that were either reused, or arranged in future Sonic titles, with the Chemical Plant Zone receiving the most updates. This goes to show that while Sonic 1 was revolutionary, and became Sega Genesis's best selling game, Sonic 2 had more memorable aesthetics to enhance and improve upon the experience that Sonic 1 introduced to the world.
Star Controll II (MS-DOS), composed by.....
....well, how the music for Star Control II was composed is much different than what you would expect. Instead of hiring a composer, or a team of composers, there was a contest directed to any composer at the time posted on a newsgroup page for Amiga users. The contest participants were given a description of certain pieces, and would compose the music based on their interpretation of the description. Eight composers contributed to the entire soundtrack: Dan Nicholson, Riku Nuottojarvi, Eric Berge, Erol Otus, Marc Brown, Aaron Grier, Kevin Palivec, and Tommy Dunbar.
While nearly every MS-DOS game at the time used FM-synthesis instruments or MIDI sound modules for their games, Star Control II used digital instruments recorded in the Protracker-MOD format. It was also one of the first games released on a computer to support the Gravis Ultrasound. The Gravis Ultrasound, at the time, was the number one choice of composers that relied on the MOD format.
Star Control II let's you be the manager of your own fleet, fight other alien ships inside your own, travel through hyper space, explore vast unknown planets, learn about different universes, and network with different alien species. To be able to blend that much into one science-fiction themed game made this a prime example of a game that was ahead of its time.
The soundtrack itself expressed the mystery of exploring the vast universe that had been under seige by the Ur-Quan species. It blended industrial, melodic, motivational, groove, rock, and experimental. It was a very eclectic soundtrack for its time, perhaps largely due to the number of composers that were brought in to work on the score through the contest held by the developers.
Streets of Rage II (Sega Genesis), composed by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima
After the first Streets of Rage, Yuzo Koshiro was considered one of the best, most innovative composers of the 90s. Streets of Rage 2 showed the world that Yuzo Koshiro could take what he achieved in the first Streets of Rage, and not only make it better, but more iconic. For this game, he
had enlisted help from techno producer Motohiro Kawashima.
When Kawashima was studying music in college, he learned of Yuzo Koshiro, and how he wanted a collaborator for a game he was working on. Kawashima produced a demo that actually found its way to Koshiro's Mom, who taught piano at the high school affiliated with the college he had been studying at. Through her, Koshiro got hold of the demo, and he was impressed enough to bring in Kawashima to work with him as a collaborator. Before working on Streets of Rage 2, he worked on Game Gear games Batman Returns, and Shinobi II: The Silent Fury. Through those two games, he learned how to compose video game music in a way that was similar to Yuzo Koshiro's style of music at that point.
When interviewed for Red Bull Music Academy's Diggin' in the Carts series, Kawashima stated that him and Koshiro were aiming for a sound that had never been heard before coming out of a console. He also describes Streets of Rage as a game focused on fighting and destruction. To help compliment
this type of game, Kawashima cites German techno, drum'n'bass, and gabba techno. Kawashima assisted Koshiro, but also wanted to make music that was better than what Koshiro had achieved in the previous game, and what he intended to achieve in this one.
Both Kawashima and Koshiro worked on the piece, Jungle Base, the second half of the round 6 theme. Kawashima alone worked on the pieces Expander the second half of the round 7 theme, Max Man, the battle theme of Shiva, and one piece that was cut from the game, Little Money Avenue. Koshiro alone worked on the rest of the soundtrack, which included a rearrangement of the first game's main theme as the final round theme.
Streets of Rage 2's soundtrack was also the most accessible of the entire Streets of Rage series, because it was the only one that got an official release outside of Japan. Knowing what he achieved with Streets of Rage, Yuzo Koshiro was able to improve and captivate audiences with a memorable
soundtrack, that included a composer whose knowledge and passion for techno music helped this already great soundtrack become even better.
By the time this game was released, Yuzo Koshiro was already becoming one of the most innovative composers of the 16-bit era. With ActRaiser, he managed to create an orchestrated soundtrack that had never been pulled off before. With Streets of Rage, he managed to emphasize beats over melodies to create a soundtrack that paid homage to the ever growing popularity of dance music. Super Adventure Island manages to combine all of what made Koshiro stand out so much. Memorable melodies, and instantly addictive beats.
Super Adventure Island played like a much simpler version of the original Adventure Island game. No dinosaurs, no world maps, just straight up action and well timed jumps. This would be Koshiro's first and only soundtrack for the franchise, and as expected, he knew how to impliment his style of music to the worlds and dangers that Master Higgins would face. The style of music he borrowed heavily from is a type of African Caribbean music called calypso, and different types of modern jazz.
The first parts of the game emphasize Koshiro's melody composing abilities. But as you progress more and more in the game, you start to notice Koshiro's beat creating abilities that he was perfecting while working on Streets of Rage. The last level of the game should be given a special shout out. I don't normally signal out specific pieces, and I don't plan on making a habit out of it, but the opening bass riff in the last level is nothing short of incredible. Music for final levels in platform games, especially castles, are more haunting, ominous, dramatic, intense. Not this one. This one is catchy, hip hop inspired, and unlike anything I have ever heard in a final stage, even to this day.
That kind of innovation alone makes the soundtrack to Super Adventure Island one of the stand-outs of the year. It may not be one of Koshiro's most popular works, but it definitely should not go unnoticed. It does a good job encapsulating what his style of music was like before, and after the
release of Streets of Rage.
Gimmick! (Nintendo), composed by Masashi Kageyama
On the surface, Gimmick may appear to be another cute platformer. It's much more than that. It is one of the toughest platformers ever released for the Nintendo. Or I should say, Famicom, since it was only released in Japan, and Scandinavia. You control Yumetaro, a small green blob toy who becomes the favorite of a small young girl, driving the other toys to capture her, and bring her to their realm. To achieve this, Yumetaro relies on his star attack to help defeat enemies, but to help him traverse through the realm of the evil toys.
If this sounds difficult, this is actually the easy part of the game, compared to what you must do to actually rescue the girl. You have to beat the game without getting a game over, AND you must find one hidden item in each of the six main levels. This will unlock the secret final level where you will do battle with the true final boss. Such astonishing difficulty makes the Ghosts n' Goblins series seem much more tame in comparison.
Gimmick came out in the middle of the 16-bit era, but that did not concern director Tomomi Sakai. He hired a larger than normal staff to work on the game. Work on the game which included using advanced tile set algorithms to improve the graphics beyond the Famicom's usual limits. The soundtrack also got its own advanced sound chip, allowing Masashi Kageyama to work with more sound channels than what was normally allowed in a Famicom game. And the Famicom already allowed for more sound chips in their games than Nintendo games did in the west. So Gimmick's soundtrack could arguably be considered one of the most advanced among games released on 8-bit platforms.
In recent years, Kageyama shifted from composing for video games to performing jazz music at local venues due to how difficult it was for him to compose for video game music. But out of all the Sunsoft games he has worked on, Gimmick remains one of the most popular ones he's done.
Top Gear (Super Nintendo), composed by Barry Leitch
Before Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, there was Top Gear. In the midst of the 8 and 16-bit eras, a lot of the more popular racing games were focused solely on being the fastest racer. But in Top Gear, it wasn't quite as simple. Yes, you had to be the fastest, but you also had to be the smartest.
Taking into consideration how much fuel you're consuming, when to use the nitro boost, and when you should make pit stops.
Even with it's at-the-time innovative take on the racing genre, Top Gear wasn't always considered the higest quality racer for the Super Nintendo. However, the music has almost unaninmously been declared the best part of the entire game. Barry Leitch, Scottish composer, had already established himself as a top tier composer for the racing genre in the early 80s and 90s. His works on the Amiga's Lotus series helped establish his reputation. But it wasn't until Top Gear's release where Leitch was catapulted into one of the racing genre's best composers. And speaking of Lotus, the music in that series would be remixed for the Top Gear soundtrack. The ending theme for Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 is the title theme for Top Gear. It's almost as if Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 served as the bridge between what Leitch did for Amiga, and what he would do for the Super Nintendo.
In an interview with Gamasutra, Leitch talked about discovering the echo effect in the Super Nintendo's sound chip. He was already impressed with the sound chip's 8 channels, but the echo effect made a world of difference to him. But to make the echo work as effectivly, the echo was set to one 16th of a note, because each echo cost memory for every millisecond of it used. One 16th note was all that could be spared without compromising the memory.
A lot of video game music at the time usually lasted roughly three minutes long, if looped one time. Top Gear had one of the few soundtracks that featured tracks that exceeded the five minute mark. It's a short soundtrack in terms of the quantity of tracks, but the quality of tracks makes this one of 1992's
best soundtracks. Not just from a technical standpoint, but as a medium that helped set the standard for how to enhance the gameplay experience of racing music.
Darkwing Duck (Nintendo), composed by Yasuaki Fujita
For many children of the 90s, the Disney Afternoon block was the pinnacle of television. And like a lot of licensed property, video games had to be made to capitalize on their property. Lucky for Disney Afternoon fans, Capcom was the exclusive developer of games based off the Disney Afternoon properites. One of those properties is the 1992 release of Darkwing Duck.
If the game looks familiar to you, it's because Capcom used the same engine that was used to develop Mega Man 5 for this game. If the game sounds familiar to you, aside from the opening, it's because Capcom tapped Mega Man 3 composer Yasuaki Fujita to score the game. This game was practically made by the same people who worked on the Mega Man games. So many of Mega Man's aesthetics were carried over to help make Darkwing Duck the game that it is. Non-linear paths to the final level, a variety of weapons to use, annoying enemies, and most relevant to this primer, catchy music.
This wouldn't be the first time Yasuaki Fujita worked on a video game based off of a Disney property. He scored the music for Capcom's The Little Mermaid for the Nintendo, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the Game Boy.
Although Darkwing Duck was developed almost exclusively by people who worked on the Mega Man series, this game was never released in Japan. With the exception of TaleSpin, other Disney Afternoon games like DuckTales and Rescue Rangers were released in Japan. The rumored reason for that is that Darkwing Duck wasn't popular enough to warrant a game release in that region.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the history of Darkwing Duck is how much of a last minute idea it ended up being. The staff behind the Disney Afternoon block intended to produce a reboot of the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, not knowing that Disney only had video distribution rights. When it
was discovered they couldn't work on a Rocky & Bullwinkle show, they immediately expanded on ideas inspired by DuckTales episodes Double-O-Duck, and The Masked Mallard. Those ideas evolved into Darkwing Duck. To think, if the Rocky & Bullwinkle reboot did see the light of day, we might have never gotten Darkwing Duck. And without Darkwing Duck, we would have never gotten this game.
Mario Paint (Super Nintendo), composed by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka, Ryoji Yoshitomi, and Kazumi Totaka
Mario Paint was the console alternative to many different programs that could only be used on computers. All in one package, you could draw, make stamps, animations, and music. It was the ultimate creation program at an affordable package.
Also unlike computer programs at the time, Mario Paint gave you catchy music in the background to help keep your mind engaged while you work. Three different composers were brought on to bring a variety of music styles to Mario Paint. Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka provides the music for both opening demos, the falling star easter egg music in the title screen, and most of the music in the fly swatter mini-game.
Ryoji Yoshitomi would provide music for the flower garden easter egg in the title screen, the third/pink level in the fly swatter mini-game, and most of the music you hear when you're creating, including all of the eraser jingles.
Kazumi Totaka provides the opening title theme, and all of its variations, the music for the save/load screen, and his trademark 19-note piece that he sneaks into nearly any game he works on, simply titled Totaka's Song. So if you're playing a game composed by him, you should expect to find this piece hidden somewhere in the game.
As stated earlier, Mario Paint even let you create your own music. It may seem severely limited to music makers offered today, but for Super Nintendo, simple and basic was their approach. The concept of the Mario Paint music editor was expanded upon in 2008, with the release of the Mario Paint Composer program from UnFun games, allowing anyone to create arrangements practically any song they wanted using the same sound samples from Mario Paint, and then some.
Mario Paint was a revolution. Inspiring creators of all kinds. Young creators who just wanted to have fun creating, and even creators who would go on to do professional creating. The Wii Photo Channel had elements of inspiration from Mario Paint. The WarioWare series, particularly WarioWare DIY for the Nintendo DS, was heavily inspired by Mario Paint. Half of Super Mario Maker used references to Mario Paint. Popular internet cartoon Homestar Runner even began as an animation in Mario Paint.
Mario Paint may have been just another attempt at Nintendo innovating the gaming experience. But ultimately, for 1992, Mario Paint helped shape and define a new era of creativity through the simplest means, and enjoyable music to help engage the creator.
Snatcher (PC-Engine), composed by the Konami Kukeiha Club
Snatcher was originally released for the PC-88 and MSX2 in 1988. It was an interactive visual novel heavily inspired by science fiction films and anime in the 80s. The 1992 remake, otherwise known as Snatcher CD-ROMantic, became the definitive version of Snatcher. With improved graphics, improved audio, voice acting, new direction by writer and designer Hideo Kojima, and a new act in the game to give Snatcher the definitive ending it never got in its original release.
The music of Snatcher was a collection of jazz-funk, smooth jazz, and the kind of dark synthesizer melodies you would find in the soundtrack to Kojima's biggest inspiration for the game, Blade Runner. It was composed officially by the Konami Kukeiha Club, the name given to Konami's in-house band of composers. This wasn't an uncommon thing for Konami to do. Some games Konami developed gave soundtrack credits to specific composers. And then there were some that gave credit to the Konami Kukeiha Club.
When looking up specific composer credits, the name that usually pops up is Masahiro Ikariko. The game's Wikipedia page, popular fan page junkerhq.net, and YouTube channel Jonathan Ingram (named for the main protagonist of Kojima's next visual novel, Policenauts) were the top results when looking up who was specifically involed in composing the music for Snatcher. According to Ikariko's profile page on Overclocked Remix, he shares composition credits on Snatcher with composers
Iku Mizutani, M. Shirakawa, Masanori Adachi, Mutsuhiko Izumi, S. Masuda, and Seiichi Fukami. Roughly a small portion of the entire Konami Kukeiha Club.
What makes Snatcher stand the test of time is how it combined the asthetics of a graphic novel, with the branching paths of a visual novel, and the interactivity of a typical action game. It also helps that the Sega CD version of the game was the only one localized in the west in late 1994. Edits had to be made of course, but the localization for its time was considered top notch. It didn't sell as well as it could have though, being released right at the end of Sega CD's lifespan. The 1992 version of Snatcher gave Hideo Kojima a good start in showcasing what kind of cinematic experiences he would bring to video games.
Super Valis IV (Super Nintendo), composed by Junta
This may very well be the most unusual example of a game soundtrack highlighted in this primer series. Very little is known about the composer behind this game. The only pieces of information that could be found is his name, and his resume which only includes two games; this one, and Doomsday Warrior. But, the lack of information available as of this recording does not make this game any less worthy of a highlight.
Valis is a PC-Engine series about high school girl Yuko Aso who acquires the power of the sword Valis. Valis enables her to protect life from evil. The series chronicles her life as an ordinary human girl, to goddess of Vecanti, one of the otherworldly realms in the game. Valis IV is about three new heroes who must rescue one of the heroes from the third game from the dark prince Galgear.
That was the PC-Engine version. The Super Nintendo only saw the fourth Valis game, and it's not even close to what kind of game the PC-Engine version was. Instead of three heroes to choose from, there is only one, Lena Brande. The story was heavily altered to make it very easy to not ask "do I need to play any other Valis game to understand this one?" The levels were drastically different, there was no animated sequences, the gameplay mechanics were altered, and most relevant to this primer, the music is not the same as it was in the PC-Engine, composed by Shingo Murakami.
While Super Valis IV did not receive as much critical acclaim as its PC-Engine counterparts, the game was at least acknowledged for its soundtrack. For the most part, it didn't try to match the asthetics of the game. Instead, the music matched Lena's journey to stop Galgear, who was renamed Gallagher in the North American release, in a motivational way. For example, the Babylon level. You're outside in an isolated fort-like area with clear blue skies in the background. Would you associate the scenery with a techno riff accompanied by an organ melody in the foreground? Definitely a contrast of aesthetics. But it didn't matter, it still carried the theme of motivating Lena to succeed against all who stood in her way.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega Genesis), composed by Masato Nakamura
After successfully giving the original Sonic the Hedgehog an iconic soundtrack, Masato Nakamura returned for the game's sequel. Having gained the experience of composing music for the Genesis, it was that much easier for him to craft memorable melodies and upbeat hooks. Despite how much easier it was, he took the same approach to composing for Sonic 2 as he did for Sonic 1. He used concept art for the stages to compose music in the style of films to compliment the atmosphere of the stages than anything else.
He was given creative freedom with how the music of Sonic 2 was going to sound, which made it easier for him to, in his words, "make such melodic tunes and unusual rhythm patterns." He composed the soundtrack in London, while simultaneously working on the album The Swinging Star. Both the album, and the game were released in the same week. Incidentally, the Swinging Star album contains a track titled Sweet Sweet Sweet. This song is notable for having a very similar melody to the ending theme of Sonic 2. An English version of the same song, featuring rapper Akon, appears in the critically panned 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog game.
This soundtrack was even integral to accessing secret codes in the game. By accessing the sound test in the options or level select menu, you could play the music and/or sound effects in a certain order to access things like level select, debug mode, and playing as Super Sonic without collecting all the chaos emeralds.
It could be argued that the Green Hill Zone was Sonic 1's most memorable piece, that reprised itself in future sonic titles. Sonic 2 had multiple pieces that were either reused, or arranged in future Sonic titles, with the Chemical Plant Zone receiving the most updates. This goes to show that while Sonic 1 was revolutionary, and became Sega Genesis's best selling game, Sonic 2 had more memorable aesthetics to enhance and improve upon the experience that Sonic 1 introduced to the world.
Star Controll II (MS-DOS), composed by.....
....well, how the music for Star Control II was composed is much different than what you would expect. Instead of hiring a composer, or a team of composers, there was a contest directed to any composer at the time posted on a newsgroup page for Amiga users. The contest participants were given a description of certain pieces, and would compose the music based on their interpretation of the description. Eight composers contributed to the entire soundtrack: Dan Nicholson, Riku Nuottojarvi, Eric Berge, Erol Otus, Marc Brown, Aaron Grier, Kevin Palivec, and Tommy Dunbar.
While nearly every MS-DOS game at the time used FM-synthesis instruments or MIDI sound modules for their games, Star Control II used digital instruments recorded in the Protracker-MOD format. It was also one of the first games released on a computer to support the Gravis Ultrasound. The Gravis Ultrasound, at the time, was the number one choice of composers that relied on the MOD format.
Star Control II let's you be the manager of your own fleet, fight other alien ships inside your own, travel through hyper space, explore vast unknown planets, learn about different universes, and network with different alien species. To be able to blend that much into one science-fiction themed game made this a prime example of a game that was ahead of its time.
The soundtrack itself expressed the mystery of exploring the vast universe that had been under seige by the Ur-Quan species. It blended industrial, melodic, motivational, groove, rock, and experimental. It was a very eclectic soundtrack for its time, perhaps largely due to the number of composers that were brought in to work on the score through the contest held by the developers.
Streets of Rage II (Sega Genesis), composed by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima
After the first Streets of Rage, Yuzo Koshiro was considered one of the best, most innovative composers of the 90s. Streets of Rage 2 showed the world that Yuzo Koshiro could take what he achieved in the first Streets of Rage, and not only make it better, but more iconic. For this game, he
had enlisted help from techno producer Motohiro Kawashima.
When Kawashima was studying music in college, he learned of Yuzo Koshiro, and how he wanted a collaborator for a game he was working on. Kawashima produced a demo that actually found its way to Koshiro's Mom, who taught piano at the high school affiliated with the college he had been studying at. Through her, Koshiro got hold of the demo, and he was impressed enough to bring in Kawashima to work with him as a collaborator. Before working on Streets of Rage 2, he worked on Game Gear games Batman Returns, and Shinobi II: The Silent Fury. Through those two games, he learned how to compose video game music in a way that was similar to Yuzo Koshiro's style of music at that point.
When interviewed for Red Bull Music Academy's Diggin' in the Carts series, Kawashima stated that him and Koshiro were aiming for a sound that had never been heard before coming out of a console. He also describes Streets of Rage as a game focused on fighting and destruction. To help compliment
this type of game, Kawashima cites German techno, drum'n'bass, and gabba techno. Kawashima assisted Koshiro, but also wanted to make music that was better than what Koshiro had achieved in the previous game, and what he intended to achieve in this one.
Both Kawashima and Koshiro worked on the piece, Jungle Base, the second half of the round 6 theme. Kawashima alone worked on the pieces Expander the second half of the round 7 theme, Max Man, the battle theme of Shiva, and one piece that was cut from the game, Little Money Avenue. Koshiro alone worked on the rest of the soundtrack, which included a rearrangement of the first game's main theme as the final round theme.
Streets of Rage 2's soundtrack was also the most accessible of the entire Streets of Rage series, because it was the only one that got an official release outside of Japan. Knowing what he achieved with Streets of Rage, Yuzo Koshiro was able to improve and captivate audiences with a memorable
soundtrack, that included a composer whose knowledge and passion for techno music helped this already great soundtrack become even better.
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