Revisiting 8-bit and 16-bit Era of Video Game Music
Game systems from the 8-scrap and 16-flake era weren't exactly the graphical powerhouses that modern consoles, PCs and fifty-fifty phones have evolved into. Simply there are many other aspects including good controls, a solid storyline and memorable characters that factor into the creation of a well-rounded game.
Quality games almost unanimously too have neat audio and music.
Quality games almost unanimously likewise have great sound and music. Hamstrung by hardware limitations, composers of yesteryear often had to get creative in order to conquer shortcomings associated with the platforms of the time. Here are x prime number examples where composers did just that...
The Legend of Zelda – 1986 – NES
The Legend of Zelda wasn't the first game I always played on NES. That award, in all likelihood, went to Super Mario Bros. Merely it was the first title I think playing with an enthralling soundtrack.
The moment you depress the power button and the title screen loads, you lot're greeted with a mesmerizing waterfall and an enchanting melody that rapidly changes to signal a serious risk awaits.
Click to play the soundtrack
Stick around and read the prologue or cutting to the chase, select your character and hop right into a vast earth ready to music from legendary Japanese composer Koji Kondo.
In a 2007 interview with Wired, Kondo said that with Zelda, he was trying [to use the music] to enhance the temper of the environments and locations. "The sound of Mario is kind of like pop music, and Zelda is similar… a kind of music you've never heard before," he added.
Click to play the soundtrack
Arguably more impressive than the intro and overworld tunes are the dungeon themes. The first viii underground labyrinths all share a mutual soundtrack but for level 9, often called Expiry Mountain, we get an fifty-fifty more unnerving track equally we hunt down and ready for the final boxing with Ganon.
The only thing that may exist more monumental about the game itself or the music is the retail box it came in which featured a cut-out to reveal the gold-colored game cartridge within.
I can only imagine how many copies were sold based on this aesthetic alone. Nosotros do know, however, that The Legend of Zelda was the fifth best-selling NES game always with more than vi.5 million copies sold over its lifetime.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 1989 – NES
Looking to capitalize on the rising popularity of the "heroes in a one-half shell," Turtles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird partnered with Konami in 1989 to launch one of the offset video games based on the franchise.
The terminate upshot was a single-thespian action game that was vastly different from the beat 'em up TMNT arcade game put out in the same yr. While many volition remember the game every bit being overly difficult with clunky controls, it did serve upward a quality soundtrack.
Click to play the soundtrack
Japanese composer Jun Funahashi drew the assignment for Konami. The soundtrack wasn't all that long although it did feature some memorable tracks including the underwater bombs theme, the mini boss fight music and the main overworld theme.
I do believe the game could have benefited from using the Turtles' theme vocal from the animated serial just considering Konami featured it in the arcade game, perhaps they didn't desire to be repetitive. The Turtles franchise would continue to spawn boosted games and shows, multiple characteristic films and a ton of licensed merchandise.
ToeJam & Earl – 1991 – Sega Genesis
ToeJam & Earl is without a dubiousness the quirkiest game on this listing. Conceived by Greg Johnson, the game revolves around ii alien rappers that accept crashed on World and must recover pieces of their ship in order to rebuild it and return to their abode planet of Funkotron. It's a glorified scavenger hunt, really.
The soundtrack, composed by John Bakery, is what really fabricated this game. A weird alloy of jazz and funk with hip hop elements, information technology'southward dissimilar annihilation that had been heard in gaming up to that point. In a 2009 write-up, IGN said Baker was inspired by the likes of Herbie Hancock and The Headhunters. Aye, I can certainly hear that influence.
Click to play the soundtrack
Fun fact – Johnson and Baker recorded a special version of the game's main theme, ToeJam Jammin', for use on a promotional cassette tape that was merely available to Sega Visions magazine subscribers via post guild during a short period in 1991.
During the evolution of ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove more than 25 years subsequently, someone reportedly saw the cassette for auction on eBay and asked Johnson if it was legitimate.
Click to play the soundtrack
It was, and he even had an old re-create in his garage. Backers of the Kickstarter project asked if he could include the track in the new game every bit an Easter egg. Johnson was happy to oblige.
ToeJam & Earl was more of a cult classic than an in-the-moment success. According to Ken Horowitz in his book Playing the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games, Sega sold roughly 350,000 copies of the game during its run. The franchise spawned 3 sequels including the same Back in the Groove, which launched in 2022.
Super Mario World – 1991 – SNES
It was Christmastime, 1991, and there was only one matter I had on my wish list: a Super Nintendo. Information technology was besides long ago to call up the specifics only as the yr wound down, I got into an argument with my dad most the television in my room, a minor 13-inch set. Whatever the example, it was serious (at to the lowest degree in my 9-twelvemonth-old encephalon) and I dug my heels in. To hell with the Super Nintendo, I wanted a new TV for Christmas instead.
Either I was incredibly convincing or my parents really just didn't desire to fool with it considering they called my barefaced. With what had to take been a few weeks or maybe fifty-fifty a month to go before Christmas, they pulled a rectangular-shaped present out from under the tree and said I could open it. Was this really happening?
As sure as night follows twenty-four hour period, I unwrapped a Super Nintendo with a bundled copy of Super Mario World. I could take it right then and at that place, they said, and then long as I abandoned the new Television receiver thought. But no, I was likewise prideful, too stubborn. I was going all-in. TV or bust.
Click to play the soundtrack
The SNES was returned and I ultimately got the TV I wanted. Had I taken my parents' peace offering, however, I would have gotten to experience the magic of Super Mario World and its glorious soundtrack much earlier than I did.
Super Mario World presented composer Koji Kondo with the perfect opportunity to showcase what was possible on Nintendo'due south new hardware. It also allowed producer Shigeru Miyamoto to finally realize his dream of gifting Mario a dinosaur companion, Yoshi.
In comparing Super Mario World to Kondo's near contempo work at the time, Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES, you can immediately option up on the complexity of the tracks in the former.
Click to play the soundtrack
The theme used in surreptitious stages is a perfect example as in that location is just a lot going on at once. It's non enough to overwhelm the player, listen you lot, and is done tastefully, but it is in stark contrast to the more simplistic songs from the previous game.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – 1992 – Sega Genesis
Past the holiday season of 1992, Sega's top tier mascot – Sonic the Hedgehog – was gearing up for another round with Nintendo'due south Mario for console supremacy.
On his side was the Sega Genesis, arguably the "hipper" of the ii 16-bit systems, and a new sidekick named Tails. While each console had their ain pros and cons, Sega'south marketing was quick to bespeak out the reward that tech like Boom Processing would offer the game.
And to the layman watching a trailer for Sonic 2, they'd have no reason not to believe something called Blast Processing was involved. Just look at how blazing fast Sonic tin move around on the screen! It was incredibly impressive back in the early 90s and frankly, it still thrills to this very day.
Except, it was sort of a sham.
Sonic two gameplay was ridiculously fast for plenty of other reasons but Blast Processing wasn't ane of them. In fact, information technology was never used in whatever shipped games for the Genesis; only recently has the applied science been successfully mastered. Only that'southward a story for another 24-hour interval.
The music for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was composed by Masato Nakamura, a bassist and songwriter with the J-pop band Dreams Come True. He started on the project early, using concept images to become a feel for the sort of temper he believed the stage would showroom.
Sega essentially gave him complimentary reign to work on the project so he created much of information technology while recording with his ring in London, while they worked on their fifth anthology.
Click to play the soundtrack
Each of the master stage themes had a very unique audio that meshed perfectly with their wait and feel. Personally, Sky Chase Zone is possibly my favorite, followed closely past Chemical Plant Zone.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was a home run for Sega, selling six million units following its November xx, 1992 release. That wasn't enough to edge out the 15 one thousand thousand original Sonic the Hedgehog games Sega managed to ship, but that title was a package with the console, which no doubt inflated sales.
Either style, Sega had a new flagship mascot on its roster to do battle with Mario and that'southward well-nigh as good as you lot could inquire for during the 90s console wars.
Street Fighter II – 1992 – SNES
In the early 90s, there were essentially two camps when it came to fighting games: Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Admittedly, the first entry in the latter series wasn't all that memorable but in its second at bat, Capcom hit a m slam with a game that was fun to play and had a great soundtrack to boot.
Street Fighter II arrived in arcades in early on 1991 but it wouldn't be until the summer of the following year that it found its manner to the Super Nintendo.
Click to play the soundtrack
From the moment the Capcom logo loads and into the main theme, this soundtrack delivers.
Most of the game's music can be credited to Yoko Shimomura, a Japanese composer and pianist that has contributed to nearly seventy games at this point. Ane of her earliest gigs was Street Fighter Ii in which she was responsible for all just three of the game's tracks. Unfortunately for Capcom, she left the company in 1993 to pursue her interest in writing more classical music for role-playing games.
Click to play the soundtrack
I of the biggest takeaways from Street Fighter Two is just how well the theme vocal for each fighter matches their personality. Guile'south stage had a patriotic feel, Blanka's made you feel similar y'all were truly battling in the jungles of Brazil and Thou. Bison's theme did a skilful job of making you lot feel like you were fighting for all the marbles.
Super Metroid – 1994 – SNES
Art courtesy Reddit
"Eerie." That'due south the best word I tin can conjure up to depict the soundtrack of Super Metroid.
The tertiary installment in the series, Super Metroid's title theme sets a spooky atmosphere that never lifts. Interestingly enough, the intro came to composer Kenji Yamamoto while he was riding his motorbike habitation from work one twenty-four hours. He instantly pulled into a parking lot, pulled out a vocalization recorder and started recording what he heard in his head. "For about x, 20 minutes, just belting it out," Yamamoto said.
The next 24-hour interval at work, he digitized the recording and played it for director Yoshio Sakamoto who said information technology was good.
Click to play the soundtrack
Yamamoto worked with Minako Hamano, who was just 24 years old at the time, on several of the game'south tracks. The SNES immune the use of recorded sounds beyond 8 channels simultaneously, and they certainly put that newfound tech to good use. Past comparison, the original NES merely had 4 channels available.
Click to play the soundtrack
Maridia's cavern arrangement and sandy desert sections are among some of the game'south most memorable regions. The jungle floor in Brinstar feels reasonably safe just that all goes out the window when y'all enter the area's underground zones. The last few sections of the game including Ridley'southward hideout in Norfair and the last battle with Mother Encephalon are just flat out spine-tingling.
Click to play the soundtrack
Collectively, it makes for some of the best in-game music in whatever 16-bit title and really elevates the entire game to a whole new height. It just wouldn't have been the masterpiece today that it is without Yamamoto and Hamano.
Frankly, I'm surprised to run into it so far downwards the best sales list at number 33 with only 1.42 meg units sold. If you haven't played it, it's one heck of a rewarding game that I promise you won't regret picking up.
Donkey Kong Land – 1994 – SNES
David Wise was responsible for most of the soundtrack in Donkey Kong Country, and what a jewel it was. He was originally brought in every bit a freelancer to create three demo tracks that were ultimately blended together to create "DK Island Swing," the showtime level'southward theme song. Shortly after, he was hired as a full-time composer by Rare.
The visitor would evidence him graphics for levels and even let him play through some of the stages in gild to get a feel for how they should sound. For the underwater stages, Wise spent five weeks composing what would become Aquatic Ambient using a Korg Wavestation synthesizer.
Click to play the soundtrack
He later described Aquatic Ambient as his favorite track, and I wholeheartedly concord.
Treetop Rock is another banger that you just can't assist but fall in beloved with. I can't imagine swinging from treetop house to treetop out without his jingle coaxing me along. Brilliant, only brilliant.
Click to play the soundtrack
If you've never played Ass Kong Land, you're certainly missing out on arguably one of the best platformers of the mid-90s. That said, the soundtrack is stiff plenty that it can be enjoyed independently of the game. In fact, Aquatic Ambient is on my general streaming playlist and it ever brings a smile to my face up whenever it comes up.
Donkey Kong Land went on to become the third best-selling SNES game always with nine.3 million copies sold worldwide.
Honorable Mentions
An article on classic video game music simply wouldn't exist complete without a few honorable mentions. These outliers aren't from the 8- or 16-bit era per se, simply it'd simply exist remiss of me not to admit them in some form or fashion due to their lasting legacy on the manufacture.
Daytona Usa – 1994 – Arcade
Adult by Sega AM2 and launched into arcades in 1993 before a full rollout the following year, Daytona U.s. was the first Sega championship to utilize the Sega Model 2 arcade system board. Information technology was a stock car racing game based off the popularity of NASCAR and thanks to some serious attention to detail, it really showed out in the arcades.
The standard twin-seat cabinet allowed for two players to boxing it out. Yous'd sit in a race-inspired seat with functional accelerator and restriction pedal, gear shifter and steering cycle. These controls alone were enough to go many to drop in their quarters, only in that location was more.
The internal hardware and software is what really made the game. Critically, Sega insisted that the game run at 60 frames per second with texture filtering in lodge to all-time Ridge Racer, a competing racing game from Namco. This gave it a buttery smooth expect that few titles of the era were able to friction match. Realistic game mechanics like drifting and power sliding fabricated gameplay feel much more authentic. But it also needed a killer soundtrack, and for that, Sega turned to composer Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.
Click to play the soundtrack
Mitsuyoshi wanted the soundtrack for Daytona U.s.a. to stand up autonomously from the crowd, and to practice this, he implemented vocals. But getting them into the game wasn't easy and so he had to utilize cursory vocal samples and loop them for the desired event. If you heed closely, you tin can probably pick up on it in the game's principal theme, Let's Go Away.
Truth be told, the song wasn't all that spectacular. It's the fact that it'southward literally all y'all could hear as these machines took upwards prime real estate correct at the front of the arcade and Sega no doubt cranked the book to eleven to drown out the competition.
Just imagine being one of those arcade operators that had to hear this tune play not-cease during your entire shift. That kind of mental scarring likely never dissipates.
Techno Syndrome (the Mortal Kombat theme) – 1993
Mortal Kombat was without a doubt the hottest and virtually controversial video game franchise of the early 90s.
The kickoff game in the serial hit arcades in 1992, stunning players with its digitized graphics and unprecedented levels of violence. Months subsequently, publisher Acclamation Entertainment launched a massive ad campaign – Mortal Monday – to promote the game's September 13, 1993, arrival on the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Boy and Game Gear.
Between the domicile launches of the original and the sequel exactly one year after, a ten-runway music anthology was produced by Belgian band The Immortals. It featured tracks for each of the first game's seven playable characters likewise as sub-dominate Goro, and two other songs: rail five, Techno Syndrome, and track 10, Hypnotic Firm.
Click to play the soundtrack
Nine of the 10 tracks on the album were pretty much garbage just Techno Syndrome, released as a single the previous yr, was the sole exception. The vocal, which featured the iconic "Mortal Kombat!" scream, became synonymous with the franchise and is perhaps the nigh recognizable composition on this listing.
Follow-up: PC Gaming
Function two of this characteristic focuses exclusively on outstanding PC game soundtracks. And yes, nosotros've got our hands full as there's a lot of fantabulous fabric to consider. Check it out hither!
Add together Your Suggestions to this List
With potentially hundreds of amazing games in history that had an iconic music score, this listing can in no mode be comprehensive, just information technology can exist a chat starter for you lot to suggest your ain picks, and then become for it.
Source: https://www.techspot.com/article/2092-8-bit-16-bit-video-game-music/
Posted by: griffinthrealthen.blogspot.com
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