03 January 2018

Episode 196: Beyond 16-Bit 3

Brent’s brothers join in for Rob and Brent’s third-time focus on video game music from the fifth generation and beyond.  Rob does play a significant amount of Game Boy Color games, however, while each of Brent’s selections are from a different console -overall, the episode ends up sounding more retro than one would expect.  NOTE: When Rob mentions Tamayo Kawamoto, Brent would have immediately recognized her name from the work she did on games like Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Legendary Wings, but due to a technical error with the audio feed, Brent didn’t hear everything Rob said.  Full track listing below.



Game - Composer - Song - Company - Console - Year (North American release unless otherwise indicated)

Ronaldo V-Soccer - Alberto José González - Main Menu - Bit Managers/Infogrames - Game Boy Color - 2001

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Michiru Yamane - Lost Painting - Konami - PlayStation - 1997

Silent Hill - Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill - KCET/Konami - PlayStation - 1999

Shovel Knight - Jake Kaufman - No Weapons Here (Village) - Yacht Club Games - Wii U - 2014

Hole in One Golf - Iku Mizutani (?), Kinuyo Yamashita (?) - Congratulation - Natsume - Game Boy Color - 1999

Bomberman Max: Red Challenger - unknown - World 1: Zaurus Star - Hudson Soft - Game Boy Color - 2000

YU-NO: Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo - Ryu Umemoto, Ryu Takami, Kazuhiro Kanae - Other World 1 - Elf - Sega Saturn - 1997

The Unfinished Swan - Joel Corelitz - The Unfinished Swan - Giant Sparrow/SCEA - PlayStation 3 - 2012

Alice in Wonderland - Robert Baffy - Stage 11 - Digital Eclipse/Nintendo - Game Boy Color - 2000

The Jackbox Party Pack 2 - Randy Sly - Bidiots Draw Music B - Jackbox Games - PlayStation 4 - 2015

Thunder Force VI - Tamayo Kawamoto - Ruined Green (Stage 1-A) - Sega - PlayStation 2 (Japan) - 2008

Star Trigon - Jesahm - Intro/Title Screen - Namco - arcade (Japan) - 2002

AirForce Delta - Matthew Simmonds - Intro - Climax Entertainment/Konami - Game Boy Color - 2000

The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap - Mitsuhiko Takano - Minish Village - Flagship/Nintendo - Game Boy Advance - 2005

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion - Alberto José González - Action 4 - Bit Managers/Acclaim - Game Boy Color - 2000

Blaster Master Zero - Ippo Yamada, Tatsuhiko Kasuga (arr.) - Fire the Blaster Rifle - Inti Creates - Nintendo Switch - 2017

Wario Land: Shake It! - Tomoya Tomita - Foulwater Falls - Good-Feel/Nintendo - Wii - 2008

18 comments:

  1. Lost Painting is one of my all time favs. Still gives me chills.
    The Saturn is an underrated 2d powerhouse capable of near perfect arcade ports. Unfortunately it had a ton of Japanese releases that never made it to the US.
    Whoa, had no idea Gabecube worked on those films! Question for users, what is your favorite video game movie? My favorite is probably the Street Fighter 2 anime. I think it’s funny Bryan Cranston played Fei Long.

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    1. The first Mortal Kombat movie, no doubt about it. LIUUUUUU!

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    2. The Wizard, seriously. I know it has plenty of flaws you can make fun of, but it's right up my alley.

      At ease privates.

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  2. How many people were like me and only played Game Boy with headphones?

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    1. I did until I lost them on the school bus or an airplane... :(

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  3. When talking about Symphony of the Night, Gabe thought it sounded like a track from a GBA Castlevania. The track he's thinking of is "The old sinking sanctuary", which was originally from Castlevania: Bloodlines. I got the same vibe, but I don't think the songs are intentionally related. They're both by Michiru Yamane, which explains the similarity.

    In other news, I'm sorry I got Rob in trouble with the Green Lantern composition! I am curious exactly what Dean Evans did to "clean up" the sound. The reverb DOES sound a little too good.....

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    1. yep totally sinking sanctuary - it's that 3-note lead in that's the same (right before things kick in), otherwise totally different. Makes sense they're both by Yamane :)

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  4. I'm in the minority in that I'm not a huge fan of Kaufman's work on Shovel Knight. There's no denying the talent, but the music is so relentlessly frenetic that it's fatiguing to listen to. I do like a lot of his other work, though.

    Speaking of the man, here's a quote from Wikipedia regarding his training: "Kaufman dropped out of high school, with what he describes as "a total lack of work ethic and no concept of timeliness or organization." He spent the next few years composing arrangements and remixes of video game music under the alias "virt". In 2000, Kaufman broke into the video game industry as a composer, with his first work being the Game Boy Color port of Q*bert."

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  5. I'm in agreement with the late 90's goth bar vibe of the Silent Hill theme. It definitely reminds me of "Sour Times" by Portishead.

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    1. YES. I was also thinking Portishead.

      And yes, I did recommend Kono No Yo to Rob, but the PC-88 version....which is a lot better. That OST has over 80 tracks, and many of them are superlative. It furthers my sentiments that LMH should do a Japanese PC episode, focusing on PC-88/98, Sharp X68000, FM Towns, and MSX tunes. That era aligns up with the time frame LMH covers, and uses sound chips similar to what video games used at that time. Heck, there are a great many 4th gen video games that are ports of J-PC originals. Renovation games, for example, are largely ports from the X68000(or simultaneous releases).

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    2. YES, I second that motion and I’ve thought the exact same! The MSX is similar in that it uses rom carts. I think the X68000 uses 5 1/4 in floppy discs...so in that regard it’s kind of like the Famicom disc system.

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  6. Keeping my fingers crossed for a Weinbach X Sly X Kasuga collabo. I’m thinking Mind Jack Jack Box Party Pack 3: Fire the Blaster Rifle sounds pretty good.

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  7. No joke, I just bought Jackbox party pack 2 on steam to play at a New Years party and I saw that there was also a soundtrack I could purchase with the game. I thought "wtf? This game has music noteworthy enough to have its own soundtrack?" The fact that you guys then play a track from it 2 days later is just blowing my mind right now! What a weird coincidence

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  8. I wonder if that Star Trigon track was by one of the composers from the also Namco game Wagyan Paradise, Yoshinori Kawamoto or Eriko Imura

    Like these songs are pretty similar vibes (to me):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JhWe7kvvyo
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_LhPrBpIWo

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    1. Eriko Imura did about 80 percent of Wagyan Paradise, and she did those two songs you linked.

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    2. Upon some browsing online, it looks as though Eriko Imura did the music to a handful of Namco games. Star Trigon is, of course, a Namco game.

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  9. If you enjoyed Unfinished Swan you should play the follow up game from the studio :What Remains of Edith Finch.

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  10. Hearing you guys all collectively freak out and moan over every jazzy chord change on that Jack Box Bidiots track just confirms for me that y'all are my people.

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