06 June 2018

Episode 201: TurboGrafx-16 2

The boizz do another focus on TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine music (and SuperGrafx too).  Rob plays tracks he’s been sitting on for a bit, while Brent plays all Darren Deluxe picks, so thank you to Darren Deluxe for the compilation he sent over.  Rob also has pretty bad allergies, so watch out for that.  The boizz really have a lot of fun with Tiger Road, so watch out for that too.  Ha ha ha ha ha!!  Full track listing below.



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

Power League 4 - unknown - Result - Hudson - PC Engine - 1991

Cyber Dodge - Einosuke Nagao, Toshie Oya - Stadium (Court 6) - Compile/Tonkin House - PC Engine - 1992

Break In - Takeaki Kunimoto (Kinoko Kunimoto) - In-Game 1 - Naxat Soft - PC Engine - 1989

Neutopia II - Keita Hoshi - Sphere 4 - Hudson Soft - TurboGrafx-16 - 1992

Makai Prince Dorabocchan - Makiko Ito, Hiroshi Nishikawa - Stage 5 - Naxat Soft - PC Engine - 1990

Out Live - Masashi Kageyama - Prologue - Sunsoft - PC Engine - 1989

J.J. & Jeff - Takeaki Kunimoto (Kinoko Kunimoto) - Credits - Hudson/Turbo Technologies - TurboGrafx-16 - 1990

Tiger Road - Harumi Fujita, Tamayo Kawamoto, Osamu Kasai (arr.), Masaaki Harada (arr.), Shinji Nakayama (arr.) - Title - Advance Communication Company/NEC/Capcom - TurboGrafx-16 - 1990

After Burner II - Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Shigeharu Isoda (arr.), Kenichiro Isoda (arr.) - Final Take Off - Bits Laboratory/NEC/Sega - PC Engine - 1990

Hana Taaka Daka!? - Kinuyo Yamashita - Kaori - Natsume/Taito - PC Engine - 1991

Madou Ou Granzort - Norihiko Yamanuki - Stage 7 - Mutech/Hudson - SuperGrafx -  1990

8 comments:

  1. BitBar! So excited to hear more about the event. Been a long time user hiding in the background, so it’ll be amazing to see you guys live!

    Also, gotta say this episode made me incredibly interested to play J.J. And Jeff. Silly comedy mixed with platforming as an SD business looking cool guy sounds like a blast to me.

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  2. Sweet! Another PCE/TG16 focus, and going by the track list it's gonna be another good one.

    Some other recommended PCE/TG16 soundtracks to check out are The Legendary Axe I and II (the stage 4 music in part II is so good!). Also, the games are really good if you like classic Castlevania style game play and they aren't too expensive if you get the Japanese versions.

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  3. Great episode! Imo it is not cheating using a turbo button for shmups. If the master system controller is not getting the job done, use the genesis controller instead as it will work with the master system. The genesis controller can also be used for the atari 2600. If you don't want to mix different generations of hardware you could also look for the hori master system controller that has an nes style d pad. However, those hori controllers are rare and expensive.
    Superstar saga is a great game. I like the battle system that's reminiscent of a rhythm game.

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  4. Good to hear what games Brent has been playing lately. It's always interesting for me to hear what games you've been exposed to lately, especially if they are Japanese only titles, gameboy games, or recent indie games; also to hear what you think of them.

    I think you guys missed an opportunity when Brent asked how many levels are in Zillion: clearly there's a zillion of them, Brent.

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  5. I checked out the Out Live soundtrack, and the Underground Passage track is the same song as the Village track from Benkei Gaiden, just a different arrangement. I'm not sure I would have noticed, but that song is so memorable.

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  6. Man, the Turbografx was weird. The fact that a game like J.J. & Jeff even got a localization is proof. Like, who was gonna buy that over here? I dig it, though. Plus those tunes were smooth, man! In general, I always found the "Hucard" sound to be very warm and a nice middle ground between the NES and Genesis. One nice thing about the TG16: the controllers had built in turbo! You can give those thumbs a nice rest and still enjoy the console's numerous (and awesome) shmups with no guilt whatsoever!

    I believe hiro wrote the melody in Final Take Off originally, but it went unused in the original arcade version. It was then heard on the soundtrack versions and the SST band arrange soundtrack. The Sega Saturn port even featured an authentic Arcade sounding version of the tune with the melody. There's some speculation here in this forum thread: https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=31375

    Either way, I'm pretty sure the melodies for Final Take Off and After Burner existed before the PC Engine port. As for whether or not a version of the Arcade game with the melodies actually exists... who knows?

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  7. The Kato-chan & Ken-chan game from which J.J. & Jeff was adapted came from a TV show that inspired the format of America's Funniest Home Videos. "Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan" had a segment where they played funny home videos that their viewers sent in, and the show's title appears in the AFHV credits to this day.

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  8. Rob was playing drums one handed like the guy from Def Leppard. Cyber Dodge-Stadium has an extreme boxing vibe to it. Specifically it sounds like a track that would be played during a training montage in a boxing anime. The track gets me hype and makes me want to hit a speed bag. I love the melody.
    For those interested, Neutopia 2-Sphere 4 is indeed the water area of the game. Neutopia 1 and 2 are great Zelda clones.


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