technosoft | Through the Shattered Lens

VGM Entry 40: End of the NES era (part 2)
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

Once again, by 1990 the Nintendo had fallen way behind the times. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, the Commodore Amiga 500, and the NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 had all left it in the dust. The fourth generation of home and computer gaming was in full swing, and Nintendo were not prepared to launch their version until November. NES composers struggled to keep up with higher standards in the meantime, pushing the Nintendo to its limits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCL2lMUP_U4

Mega Man 3 (Capcom, 1990) had a lot to offer. Yasuaki ‘Bun Bun’ Fujita (not to be confused with my favorite talking rabbit) picked up the job this time, and it’s pretty amazing that three different musicians could all so effectively maintain the series’ quintessential sound. Mega Man 3‘s opening theme is as excellent as any of them, and the rest of the music really is a good bit more compositionally consistent than may meet the ear.

“Hard Man” (1:52) for instance is written in unmistakable Mega Man fashion. The only reason it doesn’t sound entirely up to par is a product of bad mixing at the final stage. Every take I’ve heard of it just sounds a bit washed out. The volumes of each track don’t feel properly balanced, and they could perhaps have chosen fuller percussion. But the fundamental song-writing is ideal, and I think if you put it in the hands of say, Bit Brigade, it would shine as brightly as any track from the first two games. Whatever flaws it may have are only visible if you seek them out.

While I think this minor mixing problem persists throughout the game, the next track in this collection, “Snake Man” (2:45), is just so well written that any potential flaw in the final production is masked entirely. Mega Man 3 does have some less memorable tracks; it’s not quite as consistent as the first two games in that regard. You won’t hear them in this mix. garudoh did yet another excellent job of choosing only the best, and “Spark Man” (3:42), “Get Your Weapons Ready” (4:40), and “Proto Man” (5:18) finish off a very well-conceived compilation. But the likes of “Gemini Man” and “Magnet Man”, not featured here, leave something to be desired. Mega Man 3 is not quite as good as the first two, but Yasuaki Fujita definitely finds and maintains the Mega Man sound throughout, and by any other standard this is an excellent NES soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGWMeazlhg

The best NES music of 1990 though, as you may have guessed from my previous hints, belongs to Tim Follin. Follin carried his capacity to pack a huge punch into limited sound systems over to the NES, and the introduction to Solstice (CSG Imagesoft, 1990, produced by Software Creations) is not afraid to employ a little shock value. I’m not sure why the music in this sample is out of order, but you can hear how the game kicks off if you skip to 3:37. The cute little 10 second jingle at the start is almost tongue-in-cheek, mocking typical NES songs before exploding into musical fireworks in bombastic Follin fashion. The majority of the album feels to have benefited heavily from his recent work on Ghouls’n Ghosts. No individual tracks really stand out with the memorable qualities of that previous work, but you can definitely appreciate the level of imagination that went into the whole soundtrack. Follin had more up his sleeves for the NES anyway. He reserved his best efforts for a game which we would all expect to have an outstanding soundtrack….. Pictionary?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bWV2kC8ZG4

I don’t know. Tim Follin’s music was seldom relevant to the game. I suppose it’s quite possible that he submitted this soundtrack to Software Creations without even knowing what game it would be used for. But I picture a giddy Follin setting out to intentionally make Pictionary (LJN, 1990) one of the most exciting and absurdly uncharacteristic soundtracks on the NES, laughing all the way.

That’s about all I have to offer from the Nintendo for the time being, but it’s worth taking a brief look at some other systems before we move on. I don’t want to say the pickings were slim outside of the Nintendo–that would certainly contradict my entire point in these past two posts–but I did struggle to find much of interest in 1990 specifically. The PC Engine is quite obscure to me as a western gamer, and many of the Amiga titles that best caught my eye date to 1988 and 1989. The Genesis/Mega Drive was still a musical disappointment in so far as it rarely lived up to its full potential. Elemental Master (TechnoSoft) by Toshiharu Yamanishi deserves an honorable mention, but its music is nothing special really. I think the system just lacked much competition to spur it on. With the Amiga appealing to European computer gamers and the PC Engine pushing the Japanese market, the Genesis/Master System for a time stood alone in a number of markets as the only available fourth generation home gaming console. Phantasy Star III (Sega) saw Izuho Takeuchi take over Tokuhiko Uwabo’s role as composer, and the transition brought a whole new style of sound to the game. I would describe it as unremarkable but more consistent–where Tokuhiko Uwabo presented a rather unique RPG soundtrack that was fairly hit or miss, Izuho Takeuchi is a little more traditional and at no point that I’ve noticed really falls flat. But his music is nothing to brag about either.

Before I move on to the Super Nintendo, one final 1990 release that really caught my attention was Iron Lord (Ubi Soft). Now, this version that you’re hearing above is the original 1989 Atari ST version. I want you to hear it first, because I want you to know what Jeroen Tel had to work with when he made the Commodore 64 and Amiga ports.

I don’t know who the original Atari ST composer was. I don’t know who was responsible for the MS-DOS version either. But I bet it wasn’t Jeroen Tel. C64 composers had a certain attitude about them. They knew they were the best, and they were going to keep on proving it every chance they could get. And let’s not forget here; the Commodore 64 was a year older than the Nintendo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ovo9BsBSFM

Hence why Jeroen Tel’s Iron Lord could introduce a power metal song. The effects of layering a medieval tune with big chippy bass and that same higher spacey tone he used on Cybernoid 2 are almost comical, but they’re entirely effective. Like a typical C64 musician, Tel expanded way beyond the scope of the original composition and made it entirely his own.

VGM Entry 35: Forgotten Worlds
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

I mentioned that musicians had yet to properly exploit the capabilities of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1989. There were nevertheless some fairly decent efforts. I wouldn’t place most of them on par with Altered Beast, but they are still worth noting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2TUDR3RcVA

I have seen Herzog Zwei (TechnoSoft, 1989) mentioned from time to time on ‘best of the Genesis’ type lists. It was composed by Naosuke Arai and Tomomi Ootani, and it was one of the earlier games to be released exclusively for the Genesis/Mega Drive. As a pretty standard action soundtrack, it was a definite improvement over Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade, and it’s got a few memorable moments, especially towards the beginning of this mix. But it sort of feels, to me at least, as though it could have functioned on just about any system. It seems backwards-compatible I guess, as if it could be transposed to the NES or SMS without any real alterations beyond the difference in tone quality. There weren’t too many Genesis titles against which to compete in the 80s, and I suppose it comes out near the top of its small field, but the quintessential sound of the system still remained to be defined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXZOkCGo2qA

Phantasy Star II (Sega, 1989) I am a bit more fond of. The Genesis was never well known for its RPGs and adventure games, but it did have them. Phantasy Star was Sega’s own attempt at an RPG series, and its second installment was the first to appear on the Genesis/Mega Drive. Like Herzog Zwei, it was released exclusively for one system. It was composed by Tokuhiko Uwabo, or “Bo” as he’s credited–that same Bo who contributed to the rather poor Ys I SMS port I mentioned earlier. But whatever went wrong there, Phantasy Star II turned out alright.

I’d hardly call it typical RPG music. It ranges from relaxed jazz to pretty hoaky pop. It’s got some awful tracks, and there’s no getting around that. Parts of it are better off in outdated infomercials (0:44). But when it’s not bad it’s pretty enjoyable and wholly appropriate. You don’t need to see any video to know that this is not your typical wizards and knights in shining armor game, but rather something futuristic or space-oriented. It wasn’t the first game to musically break with RPG tradition. Ys II certainly did the previous year. But Phantasy Star II exhibits a great degree of stylistic consistency, despite its frequent shortcomings. All of the music is closely related through a fairly unique sound. And since that sound was definitely impossible to attain on the SMS or NES, as you can easily tell, it can be regarded as one of the first games to really put the Genesis’s capabilities to proper use. It is mainly Tokuhiko Uwabo’s hesitancy to can the cheesier tracks, not featured in this sample, which prevent it from leaving a very noteworthy mark on the development of video game music. I would also argue that the style is just a little too restricting to reflect the inherent diversity of an RPG, but it’s a solid effort in creatively applying new technology. My personal favorite is “Over” (4:13).

Capcom’s Forgotten Worlds, credited to Tamayo Kawamoto and Yukichan no Papa (Yoshihiro Sakaguchi), is a pretty interesting case. You may remember Tamayo Kawamoto from the original arcade versions of both Commando and Ghouls’n Ghosts. I have reason to believe that Tamayo Kawamoto actually wrote the music, while Yoshihiro Sakaguchi may have been responsible for the finished product and port. But I am not certain of this. At any rate, it is one of the most eclectic and bizarre game soundtracks I have ever heard, and while it’s just a little too weird to be brilliant, it cannot be wholly ignored. As with the vast majority of early Genesis/Mega Drive titles, it was released on a wide variety of platforms. The version you are hearing right now is from the 1988 arcade original. Make what you will of it. What I would like to emphasize is the differences in the Genesis port.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXYkz1kpBDc

This version, released in 1989, is an exact replica of the original in structure. Only the tones have changed. The first thing you’re bound to notice is that the opening organ on the Genesis sounds downright sinister. The arcade version has no such effect. As the song progresses, the Genesis version remains decisively sharper and more pronounced until around the break at 47 seconds. Here the composition demands a degree of clarity that the Genesis just fails to pull off. The flute is too raspy, and both the pulse tone and the sporadic deep note lack the depth of the original. It’s only as the main melody starts to run wild ten or so seconds later that the merits of the Genesis return, giving it a much more disturbing sort of feel.

I trust that both versions of the song were prepared with care. Such a peculiar song could be easily butchered, and that the Genesis version sounds, to me at least, slightly better, says something about the mindfulness with which they prepared it. It also makes the these two versions of the score a fruitful means to assess the differences between the sounds of the Genesis and the ‘arcade standard’ of the time. The Genesis seems to have lacked a little bit of the depth of arcade sound systems, but it compensated with a greater distinction of tones. Everything is a lot more pronounced in the Genesis take, and it’s only when the original calls for subtlety that the Genesis comes up a little short. I think you can hear much more vividly Tamayo Kawamoto and Yoshihiro Sakaguchi’s juxtaposition of peaceful and deranged tones in the port version, because it forcefully distinguishes the latter.

If you want a really interesting experience, try and sync up the two songs and play them simultaneously. The effect is pretty cool–better than either version individually–and you may observe that the arcade version is capable of much deeper bass tones. As I’ve always regarded Genesis music as being heavily bass-driven, at least in comparison to the Super Nintendo, this came as a bit of a surprise.