Monthly Archives: August 2012

VGM Entry 21: Zelda II and Metroid

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 21: Zelda II and Metroid
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

You’re going to see Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (Nintendo, 1987) on a lot of “best of the NES” soundtrack lists. I considered skipping over it, since I’m not a big fan myself, but I suppose a famous score ought to be addressed whether I care for it or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAaBxdJtmwY

Zelda II brought a completely new soundtrack to the table, sharing nothing in common with the original Legend of Zelda save a passing nod at the beginning of “Hyrule Overworld”. (The track list on this compilation is “The Adventure of Link” (0:00), “Hyrule Overworld” (1:22), “Danger” (2:17), “Village Theme 1” (2:53), “Village Theme 2” (4:07), “Palace” (4:27), and “Ending” (5:57), if you’re curious.) This departure is not a surprise in itself; Nintendo oddly chose to give Akito Nakatsuka rather than Koji Kondo the job, so we’re dealing with a different composer here. Zelda II was also a much more extensive soundtrack than the original, featuring 13 full-length songs if I’m counting correctly.

There is no obvious reason to dislike the soundtrack. “Hyrule Overworld” is catchy, no doubt, and “Palace” is a particularly noteworthy song. Zelda II has a few gems, and more thought went into it than many contemporary video game soundtracks out there. But is it really anything special? The simple fact that it wasn’t bad might have stood for something a few years prior, but by 1987 I expect a bit more. Most of Akito Nakatsuka’s compositions are pretty simplistic, not all that memorable, blandly arranged, and generally fail to capitalize on any of the system’s unique potential. I am rather inclined to believe the music was popular merely due to its having the name “Zelda” attached to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZnQT97A2kk

Another game which receives, I think, a little more praise than it deserves is Metroid (Nintendo, 1986). My complaint here is not nearly so well founded, especially considering it was, I’ll admit, a great soundtrack, and Hirokazu Tanaka, unlike Akita Nakatsuka, had a long and meritorious career in the video game music industry. (Nakatsuka’s only other claim to fame to the best of my knowledge is Excitebike (Nintendo, 1984).)

But Metroid and Zelda II are remembered in different degrees. If Zelda II makes all the lists, Metroid always seems to top them. The problem here can be seen in which tracks are well remembered. “Brinstar” (1:40) is probably the most famous song in the game, followed by the title theme (0:00). But “Brinstar”, much like “Escape” (4:09) and “Victorious” (5:18) in this video, are pretty standard fair. Catchy songs, better than most; I’ll grant them that. The best on the NES? Well, they’re at least worth considering as candidates. But if these are the songs Metroid is best remembered for, something went wrong here. What you hear at the beginning of the intro, as well as in “Norfair” (2:34) and “Kraid’s Lair” (3:17), is a bit more indicative of what I think Tanaka was aiming for, and the brief “Bridge” (7:33) at the end of this video is probably the most revealing track.

Tanaka was trying to bring the world of Metroid alive through music. He wasn’t just writing background pieces; he was integrating music into the gameplay environment, and that was no easy task on the Nintendo. To quote an interview with Hirokazu Tanaka conducted by Alex Brandon and published in 2002:

“…sound designers in many studios started to compete with each other by creating upbeat melodies for game music. The pop-like, lilting tunes were everywhere. The industry was delighted, but on the contrary, I wasn’t happy with the trend, because those melodies weren’t necessarily matched with the tastes and atmospheres that the games originally had. The sound design for Metroid was, therefore, intended to be the antithesis for that trend. I had a concept that the music for Metroid should be created not as game music, but as music the players feel as if they were encountering a living creature. I wanted to create the sound without any distinctions between music and sound effects.”

The introduction and “Bridge” pull this off wonderfully, and “Norfair” and “Kraid’s Lair” suit the vision admirably as well, but the majority of the more popular tracks from Metroid are nevertheless Tanaka’s poppier pieces. I wish I could write this off as fan failure to appreciate, but the truth is the other more obscure tracks, “Tourian” and “Mother Brain”, are excluded from garudoh’s compilation for a reason. They missed the mark, and they just weren’t all that good. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting Metroid was anything short of a great soundtrack, but it was nevertheless a little short of what it strove to be, and many of its redeeming qualities rest in the residual traces of precisely what Tanaka was trying to weed out.

Metroid deserves an honorable mention on any list of NES soundtrack greats, but it’s not top ten material. I think it has too many faults for that, and Tanaka himself would contribute to a better NES score on Mother a few years later anyway.

Quick Review: ‘Expendables 2’ (dir. Simon West)

Posted on by leonth3duke

‘Expendables 2’, the “last blockbuster of the summer” as some advertisements have put it, was set to be the explosive and testosterone filled ending to this blockbuster season. Like its predecessor, it once again contains Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and Terry Crews; but with extended performances by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis who appeared briefly in the first film, as well as the addition of Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme. From the cast alone one would expect a lot of mayhem, death and one liners. Well I can assure you that it delivers on all fronts but I’m sad to report I still sit here feeling pretty unsatisfied with the final product.

The film starts off some time after the events of the first film, with our group of brawny mercenaries for hire doing what they do best, which is of course mowing down an army of rebel soldiers causing chaos in some village in the middle of nowhere. The only addition to the group is a young sniper with a few years in Afghanistan under his belt. This opening scene is one of the highlights of the film, and contains enough death and explosions to match that of the typical modern action flick.

When the mission is over they head back home to relax, well to drink and ride motorcycles which seems to be all they do on their off time, but this is cut short when an old ‘friend’ comes calling and orders them to go retrieve a package in the middle of some plane crash site in the mountains of Albania. They do, things don’t go as planned and the package is stolen by a ruthless group of ‘super rebels’ led by a man named Vilain (no I’m not joking, the films main villain is named Vilain), and in the process one of our ‘Expendables’ gets killed. Well this leads to someone swearing revenge, and they go off to crack some skulls, get their vengeance and while they’re at it possibly save the world.

If that all reads like something you’ve seen before it is because you have. Now you might be saying “well that isn’t necessarily a bad thing” and I agree, but the problem is that even if it isn’t meant to be Oscar worthy or original, even if those involved were looking to just produce an over the top action flick, you’d think at least something from it would stick out. You’d think when all was said and done it would not be so easily forgotten. Sadly, for me, that isn’t the case. Within an hour of leaving the theater I had already gotten over any post-viewing enthusiasm, and just felt rather empty about the whole experience. Sure there were some moments worth remembering, like Arnie ripping the door off of a smart car, but the action was just so devoid of any style or coherence, the story was so dull and predictable, and even the main cast of characters just seemed to be rehashing what they previously did in their first outing. Perhaps its biggest mistake was that for a film that seemed to be trying so hard to emulate all those great action films of the past, it did it so well that it doesn’t stand out enough to be anything “special”.Yeah, it has a pretty awesome cast but what was once a novelty for the first film now just felt like more of the same.

That isn’t to say it is bad because it isn’t. It does what it needs to do in terms of entertainment, it kicks a whole lot of ass and you’ll enjoy yourself while you watch it. I sure did. There  is enough action and laughs, along with great references, and an awesome performance by Jean-Claude Van Damme that warrants not only an initial viewings but revisits. I just hope that when the inevitable third film is made, that they do more than just throw in a bunch of action stars of yesteryear and maybe make an attempt to be a bit more creative, stylish and add just a tad bit of substance, which I would hope isn’t asking too much.

VGM Entry 20: The Great Giana Sisters

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 20: The Great Giana Sisters
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

A number of video games released in 1987 would go on to become major generation-spanning series. The Great Giana Sisters was not one of them. In fact, if was probably one of the worst ideas in gaming history. It was apparently developed for release on the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and MSX2 all at the same time, with a ZX Spectrum version to shortly follow. It was intended to be Rainbow Arts’ major commercial rival to the smash hit Super Mario Bros. But what was it exactly?

Well, one version of the box art depicts an attractive, perky-breasted woman in a miniskirt flying through a bizarre montage of giant lobsters, magical mushrooms, UFOs, and deadly dragons guarding foreboding castles on grim, icy mountain peaks.

Another depicts two trailer trash meth addicts sporting peace signs and an “I’m Cool” nametag, along with the suggestive comment that “The brothers are history!” A bit contradictory? Well, look right here! Zzap!64 says it’s “the greatest platform game of all time”, so it must be true!

The music, too, might lead you to believe this. It was also one of the first soundtracks composed by the now legendary Chris Huelsbeck (more often spelled Hülsbeck, though the artist himself uses Anglicized adaptation. For the sake of consistency I’ll stick to the latter in the future). The game’s title screen theme is pretty intriguing, bearing a sense of foreboding that aptly reflects the degree of strife and diversity which at least some versions of the cover art promise to bring.

Are you excited? Or at least curious? Good or bad, all signs point to a game that will in the very least be extraordinarily unique. Well, let’s take a look at the gameplay. Brace yourselves.

…

Needless to say, they got their pants sued off and pulled every version of the game from the shelves within weeks of its release, never again to see the light of day until Nintendo, perhaps for pure comedy value, allowed publisher Destineer to release it on the DS last year.

Rainbow Arts was a German publisher, and perhaps copyright laws are different there, but one has to imagine that a good many staff members were flipping burgers after this brilliant idea. Chris Hülsbeck would not be among them. He would go on to compose for many Rainbow Arts games to come, including the highly acclaimed Turrican series for which he is best known.

But before we brush The Great Giana Sisters off, really, what is going on with the music here? The main gameplay song is quite catchy and appropriate, but the title screen and underground theme (see Stage 4 in the video, 3:24) have about as much in common with the game as the box art. It would be interesting to find out why he chose these songs in particular. Perhaps they were some unaffiliated demos he had lying around in a dusty desk drawer, or perhaps he took advantage of a terrible game to write what he wanted to with no concern for relativity.

Whatever the case, the staff at Rainbow Arts heard his work even if no consumers did, and his future game assignments seem to reflect his personal style, not the reverse. The title theme and Stage 4 of The Great Giana Sisters examplify precisely the sound he would become famous for.

VGM Entry 19: Ys I

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 19: Ys I
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

Yuzo Koshiro’s first major breakthrough is generally considered to be Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished (Nihon Falcom, 1987), sometimes alternatively subtitled as The Vanished Omens or The Ancient Land of Ys. While I don’t think it is quite musically on par with Xanadu Scenario II, it is certainly a commendable work. arx7893 on youtube has assembled a very nice collection of songs from various versions of the game. I especially recommend you check out the song “Palace”.

My intention here is to focus specifically on the music for the last boss, known as “Dark Fact” or simply “Final Battle”. It is one of the best examples you will presently find for multi-system song porting, both because Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished was released on a staggering number of platforms and because the song is good enough for most versions to have found their way onto youtube.

This is the initial song. The game was originally developed for the PC-8801, but Yuzo Koshiro was surely aware that it would need to be quickly adapted to other platforms. This first release came on June 21, 1987, and the ports rapidly followed: to the X1 on June 26th, the PC-9801 on August 28th, the FM-7, 77, and 77AV on October 8th, the MSX2 on December 10th, the Famicom on August 26th, 1988, the Sega Mark III on October 15, 1988, the Sega Master System some time in 1988, MS-DOS, the Apple IIGS, and the PC Engine CD-ROM in 1989, the TurboGrafx-CD in 1990, the Sharp X68000 in 1991, and finally the TurboDuo in 1992. Did I mention the list was staggering? It is also available for Microsoft Windows, the Sega Saturn, the Playstation 2, the Nintendo DS, and the Wii now.

Aaanyway, what makes “Dark Fact” a little peculiar is that whoever all arranged it could not seem to agree on what constituted its main melody. In the original PC-8801 version above you have a faint, clean tone playing a simple melody over a deeper, more distorted and complex one. Throw in some basic bass and drums, occasionally accent it with a fifth track, and there’s your song.

The next readily available version is for the FM-7, released a little over three months later. You’ll notice that the original soft lead, previously overshadowed, is now completely gone, while the song’s deeper side is nearly identical. They distorted the principle bass track and made it a lot louder, but that’s about it. Half way through, the song transitions to a completely new melody which successfully outshines the bit they got rid of. From here it repeats.

Then came the MSX2 version, about another two months later. Clearly limited in sound channels, Yuzo Koshiro and crew set aside both of the humbler melodies they had toyed with earlier and elevated that deeper, distorted progression to center stage. The song does not quite function in a live playthrough, what with every other bass note cutting out, but its general idea is quite appealing. It feels like the sort of thing you might expect from a really stellar Game Boy soundtrack, and in a peculiar sort of way I find it more appealing than the previous two examples.

The Famicom port the following year built upon the same approach. Aside from adding drums to the mix, it tweaked the bass a bit to create a sound more suited for the system. Those rare moments where the bass line manages to not cut out in the MSX2 version video, mainly at the very start of the fight, you can really tell how beautifully the two tones compliment each other. The two tracks play fairly equal roles in creating what feels like a single solid sound. But Famicom tones were always a little soft, and the sound team made amends by having the bass line here function more as an appendage to the percussion. The bass note changes as seldom as possible, remaining stagnant where the MSX2 version does not. Rather than complimenting the melody to the fullest, it emphasizes the breakneck pace of the song, creating a much more intense feel to the whole fight.

The MSX2 version is a much more aesthetically pleasing stand-alone track–probably my favorite among the lot of them–but it doesn’t really enhance the fight much, especially considering it pushes too far beyond the system’s limitations for the player to effectively experience it and kill the boss simultaneously. On the Famicom it almost feels as if they acknowledged this and focused on an arrangement that, while fairly similar, makes a bit of a self-sacrifice for the sake of enhancing the actual gameplay experience.

When the game finally made it to the Sega Master System, that soft melody present on the original PC-8801 take and long since forgotten mysteriously resurfaced. The arrangement is bland, lacking any of the contrast of the original, and the obnoxiously bad drums really nullify any redeeming values it may have otherwise had. But the return is an interesting decision. I wonder, whose decision was it?

It is nearly impossible to tell where Yuzo Koshiro’s involvement ends and that of various other staff members begins. The PC-8801, FM-7, MSX2, and Famicom versions certainly sound to me like a careful progression through improvement and system adaptation. I am convinced if nothing else that whoever arranged each of them listened to the previous versions and not just the original.

The SMS approach gives me no such impression. It sounds like the arrangement took the original PC-8801 cut and hastily slapped together a replica with no attention to detail. It is completely devoid of the sophistication present in all four earlier arrangements I have been able to find. The end-game credits list Bo (Tokuhiko Uwabo), Ippo (Izuho Numata), and Neko (still anonymous today) as the sound team, and make no mention of Yuzo Koshiro. The game also features a number of original tracks.

If I may go out of sequence for a moment, it’s worth noting that the Sharp X68000 version, released in 1991, is even worse. It completely abandons the complex and compelling melody which the MSX2 and Famicom versions embraced exclusively, providing nothing more than that boring PC-8801 ‘soft’ melody track and a gimmick “rock and roll” drum beat and guitar rhythm. The drums are less annoying than in the SMS version only because better technology carries them, and they have no greater value. And in consideration of the technology, the wholesale abandonment of the more complex melody is simply inexcusable.

But an interesting point can still be made here. If all you had to go on were the MSX2 and the Sharp X68000 versions, you would likely conclude that they were two entirely unrelated compositions. Yet both clearly and distinctly derive from the original.

I will leave you with the 1989 PC Engine CD-ROM arrangement of “Final Battle”/”Dark Fact”, because almost all future ports and remakes of the game (the Sharp X68000 version excluded) derive from it, not the original.

Based on various liner notes and some samples of his other works, I am pretty positive this was arranged by Ryo Yonemitsu. Unlike the “port arrangements”, which focused on direct improvements to the original, system limitations, or otherwise mere expedience, the PC Engine CD-ROM approach is more of an authentic reinterpretation of the music. It pays ample homage to Yuzo Koshiro, but it doesn’t feel confined by any obligations or limitations. It is faithful and unique at the same time. While I am certainly not blown away, I respect what Ryo Yonemitsu is doing here.

Ryo Yonemitsu, by the way, has quite a history with the Ys soundtrack, having released arrangements of it as early as 1987. Was he the guiding light who ensured so many excellent port arrangements of the final battle theme? Was it Yuzo Koshiro himself? Or was it perhaps a chance occurrence–the consequence of various talented artists recognizing the song’s worth and having a go at it?

Trailer: Dexter Season 7

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of the previous season of Dexter.  Colin Hanks made for a boring villain, the secret behind the character played by Edward James Olmos was obvious from his second appearance, and, for the first time, Michael C. Hall seemed to bored with the title role.  Yes, the sixth season of Dexter was a huge disappointment but it did end on a good note, with Deb discovering that her brother is a murderer. 

(Of course, in the Dexter novels, Deb discovered the truth about her brother a long time ago.  Plus, Rita’s still alive…)

The question is how will the show handle this change in Dexter and Deb’s relationship.  (And will the show continue to explore the idea of Deb being in love with Dexter or will that be one of those plot points that will be quickly forgotten before it can do permanent damage?)  Season 6 did not leave me with much hope for the future of Dexter but I’m still going to gife the new season of Dexter a chance and hope for the best.

This just-released trailer for the seventh season of Dexter gives us a hint of how the show’s new season might play out.

AMV of the Day: The Way You Are

Posted on by Arleigh

The latest AMV of the Day is actually one I just stumbled onto on youtube while looking for something that wasn’t even related to AMV’s. I know I would take a hit by admitting that I like the song this video ended up using but dagnabbit it’s a catchy and sweet song.

“The Way You Are” is the title of the AMV by editor xwiz89 who takes scenes from two anime series, Bakemonogatari and Nyan Koi!, and ends up with an anime music video that does a great job highlighting the two relationships which occur in both series. While the video makes the coupling sweeter than how they really appear in the series the way xwi89 edits the video makes that sweetness feel natural.

The title itself was taken from the title of the song by Bruno Mars, “Just The Way You Are”, and while it’s a song that has had it’s legion of detractors it’s still one that I ended up liking when first hearing and I’m going to assume that the AMV’s editor felt the same way. The song just fits the video and, if any, it helps sell both anime series to those who might not have heard about it and still not sure whether to give it a look see.

Anime: Bakemonogatari, Nyan Koi!

Song: “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars

Creator: xwiz89

 

Past AMVs of the Day

VGM Entry 18: Takahito Abe

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 18: Takahito Abe
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

I would like to throw one more comparison piece out there before I pick up the pace again. But before I get to that, let’s take a short break. Yuzo Koshiro is frequently listed among the greatest video game composers of all time. While I find his work in the Streets of Rage series a little bland, that may just be a matter of taste. He is certainly an outstanding composer of great historical significance. His first work should make that obvious.

Xanadu Scenario II: The Resurrection of Dragon, released in 1986, was an expansion for Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu. (I featured a video from the original 1984 Dragon Slayer earlier.) Supposedly the 18 year old Yuzo Koshiro submitted a music sample to Nihon Falcom, and it ended up accompanying Takahito Abe’s work into the game’s final cut.

Of Yuzo you will be hearing plenty more. Takahito Abe, the composer of the bulk of Xanadu Scenario II, remains a bit more anonymous. His major compositions appear to be Asteka 2 – Templo del Sol, Xanadu Scenario 2, and Romancia 1 through Falcom, followed by Susano O Densetsu and Hagane through Hudson Soft. He does not appear to have composed video game scores since the mid-90s, but he does maintain a personal website with an English translation, if anyone’s interested.

This video, from the PC-8801 release, is an hour long, but the soundtrack is actually about 30 minutes. The second half appears to be some peculiar broken version of the first, and you’d best skip it. But do listen to the first half. It’s your loss if you don’t.

Xanadu Scenario II: The Resurrection of Dragon. I’d never heard of it. I suspect you hadn’t either. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsBcY8xrYkU

VGM Entry 17: A question of authorship (part 3)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 17: A question of authorship (part 3)
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

Kinuyo Yamashita and Kazunaka Yamane: two respected video game composers whose main melodies have appeared in both refined, noteworthy form (on the NES) and in rather half-hearted, trashy form (on the MSX and in the arcade respectively.) The lack of well-documented attribution leaves us clueless as to how much of a role either played in this disparity. But at least we can be fairly confident that they wrote the basic melodies of the songs.

In the case of some pretty famous works, even that much information can be difficult to come by.

Take Bionic Commando. Its main theme (calling it the “main theme” might be something of an afterthought; it first appears as the background music for level 2) is an iconic NES classic. But in the span of about a year between 1987 and 1988, Capcom released this game for the arcade, the Amiga, the Atari ST, the Commodore 64, the Amstrad CPC, the ZX Spectrum, DOS, and oh yes, the Nintendo. The Nintendo version did have its fair share of differences, both in gameplay and in song selection (perhaps as an undermining of Nintendo’s licensing laws akin to Vampire Killer), but the “Main Theme” faithfully appears in every version.

Here is a collection of some of the song’s variations over the years. You’ll notice that even the early takes were each quite different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTl5jSgJk-Q

The first track in this mix is the arcade version. You’ll notice the central roll of the drums and the flutey trills, giving the song a distinctly martial feel quite appropriate for the game. It was clearly composed with an orchestra in mind, and could I imagine be preformed live with hardly any alterations.

The second track in the mix is from the Commodore 64 version. Tim Follin is credited with the arrangement, and if you’re at all familiar with his unique and lively approach to video game music, there can be hardly any doubt. The then about 17 year old Follin was determined to make a musical impact, and he certainly did, taking such spirited risks as mixing in the Star Wars theme song and converting an upbeat march into a grimy space groove. Completely inappropriate for the game, it’s certainly sub par to the arcade version, but Follin was fairly new to C64 sound programming at the time, having made his initial mark in the world of the ZX Spectrum. (Follin did use this same version of the song for the ZX Spectrum release, not featured in the compilation video, but considering its drastic departure from his previous Spectrum compositions I have to assume his arrangement was originally intended for the C64.)

The next track, confoundingly labeled “Nintendo Sequel”, “WRONG AMIGA VERSION”, and a bit later “Bionic Commando Rearmed” is in fact the Amiga 500 version. You might think of it as a toned down, slightly safer take on Follin’s C64 version.

The fourth take is the Nintendo version. Whether it should be regarded as a “sequel” or simply a heavily altered port is debatable. Its music in this instance is faithful to the arcade version, ignoring Follin’s spin, but it fails to incorporate a lot of the original’s frills or deliver with nearly the same impact. It is, I would say, by far the weakest of the five, while the original arcade take is the best. (The “Bionic Commando Rearmed” version which follows in this video is obviously a travesty, but it was released in 2008.)

Now tell me: who wrote this song? Do a quick google search, pull your best resources, see what you can come up with. Pretty much every result is going to direct you to either the 2008 remake Bionic Commando Rearmed or the 2009 sequel Bionic Commando (both by Capcom, same publisher as the originals), because their soundtracks were actually released and the latter uses the exact same name. You’ll find a lot of sites that simply list a composer for the 80s versions with no further information, but they can’t all seem to come to an agreement. Something official from the publishers would be nice. The original game manuals contain no credits (I checked), nor do the original games appear to have ending credits, save the NES version, which lists the composer under a pseudonym. So I pulled up the official liner notes of the 2008 and 2009 game soundtracks. Both acknowledge “Main Theme” to be based on the original by Junko Tamiya. A-ha. We have an answer.

But Wikipedia lists Harumi Fujita as the composer of Bionic Commando (arcade, 1987)–providing no source–and Junko Tamiya as the composer of Bionic Commando (NES, 1988)–providing precisely the 2009 liner notes I used as a source. And we know that “Main Theme” appears in the arcade version. You just heard it. The NES version wiki’s subsection on Music states that “The music for the game was created by female videogame music composer Junko Tamiya, who was credited under the pseudonym “Gondamin”. It is very highly praised for its militaristic compositional element. Two songs from the Arcade versions are used in some areas.” This last comment again has no source.

That makes a bit more sense. I picked up copies of both soundtracks, and sure enough, aside from “Main Theme” and “Power Plant”, all of the NES music is original. Junko Tamiya did likely compose sixteen out of its eighteen tracks. The problem is that one of the two she did not compose happens to be her most famous composition!

What to do when a few unsourced claims on Wikipedia get the credits right and Capcom, the people who actually made the game, don’t?

Bionic Commando‘s “Main Theme” is one of the most revered video game songs of the 1980s. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been so concerned about figuring out who originally wrote it. It would certainly appear as though Harumi Fujita wrote it, Junko Tamiya rearranged it for the Nintendo shortly thereafter, and an oversite more then twenty years later lead the company who released it to get the two mixed up. But this is only a best guess. It just goes to reaffirm the dismal state of preservation of even some of the best early video game music.

VGM Entry 16: A question of authorship (part 2)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 16: A question of authorship (part 2)
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

Castlevania was released on the Nintendo first, but only by a period of one month. Vampire Killer was in development alongside it, and the two games are certainly not identical. It’s rather disappointing then that the soundtrack turned out to be a hasty port from the NES. Preserving Kinuyo Yamashita’s melodies was not the mistake here, but Konami should not have attempted to replicate the NES arrangements as closely as possible. Differences in technology meant an exact replica was not possible, and the result comes off as a dumbed down version of the NES music rather than a new spin of equal merit. Failure to consider a system’s unique limitations produced a soundtrack that just wasn’t that great.

This is just as much of an issue in reverse, with artists taking too much comfort in superior sound quality. Arcade games seem to have had it best in the pre-Genesis 1980s (and perhaps afterwards too.) My primary example thus far, Hisayoshi Ogura’s Darius, is probably unfair, because it is a reasonable contender for the title of greatest video game soundtrack of the 1980s. But having heard the miraculous feats it accomplished, let’s take a look at another arcade soundtrack: Double Dragon, composed by Kazunaka Yamane for Technos Japan (not to be confused with Tecmo) and released in 1987.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1136QL5RWk

Now here is a soundtrack that shamelessly exploits the sound capabilities of an arcade machine if ever I’ve heard one. The bass is massive for its day, almost as a novelty. The tunes laid over top of it have a somewhat obnoxiously shrill quality made worse by one of the worst drum tones I have ever heard. The troubles just amplify in the next song, as you are forced to accept that the drum beats are truly an afterthought totally devoid of value. The song that kicks off at 7:10 sounds like elevator music. The only redeeming value is that groovy track at 2:40 that emulates every stereotype in the book and (that dreadful plague-ridden snare that just won’t die aside) just happens, almost as a fluke, to pull it off. My sincerest apologies to Kazunaka Yamane, especially in consideration of the possibility that this arrangement may have been completely out of his hands, but this whole soundtrack is just absolute garbage.

A lot of soundtracks are. Don’t take it too harshly.

Abysmal arrangements killed the arcade original, not Yamane’s compositions in the raw. But then the game was ported to the NES a year later. Whoever headed up the project–perhaps Kazunaka Yamane himself–decided it would be a good idea to retain all of the arcade version’s original tunes. The outcome couldn’t have been better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUoIZwHJlzI

Of course the contrast fluffs my opinions a little, but I think this really kicks ass. With the Nintendo’s monumental dearth of bass it was no longer possible to pretend that technology-exploitation could sell a game, so for starters the music compensates by blasting out at warp speed. The tones are all complimentary. The drumming, while still pretty dismally bland, is more of a non-entity than a nuisance, and it at least incorporates a little variation. And the shear ingenuity required to take that utter crap and make a solid go at it is commendable. I’d mentioned that the groove track at 2:40 was the arcade version’s only redeeming quality. But it was total bass exploitation–probably one of the hardest tracks in the game to convert. No? Skip up to 2:37 in the NES version (bless your attention to detail Garudoh). They pulled the style conversion off flawlessly.

The NES port of Double Dragon might deserve credit as one of the best CPR moves in the history of gaming music, if nothing else. It’s not my favorite soundtrack by any means, but I admire whoever accomplished it. It almost feels like a sort of proto-Mega Man.

But that’s the question these rampant port projects in the mid to late 80s have me stuck on. Who was responsible for them? Short of conducting personal interviews, how will I ever find out? Maybe Kazunaka Yamane redeemed himself in epic fashion, or maybe someone else arranged it, or, maybe having written the basic songs, Kazunaka Yamane had little further say in any of the game’s arrangements.

Did I mention Double Dragon was ported to the Sega Master System too? Yeah, that version retained all of the original melodies too, and reconstructed them in a third entirely different way. Ay yai yai….

Darksiders II Launch Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

One of my most anticipated game titles is just hours away from release. The game is the sequel to the surprise hit of 2010, Darksiders, and where that first title had the Horseman of the Apocalypse War as the playable character this time around it’s his brother Horseman Death who players get to control.

Darksiders II is set to occur concurrently to the events of the first game. Where War tried to figure out who framed him for starting the Apocalypse prematurely thus causing mankind’s extinction, this time around Death tries a different tack while War goes on his quest. Death is not as honorable as War and will do whatever it takes to prove his brother innocent of the crime he’s being accused of even if it means rebooting reality, so to speak.

August 114, 2012 will see the release of this title and for myself and those fortunate enough the video above will be something we would be doing in the next couple days with huge grins on our faces. I may have to wait a week or two before playing with my move to a new apartment taking precedence, but I shall play this game. Oh yes, I shall play this game.