The highlight of Konami's Rebirth line has been its arrangements of their classic 8 and 16-bit tunes in the style of their arcade games circa the early 90s. A few months ago they released an album that had the full soundtracks for Castlevania and Contra Rebirth, which seemed redundant considering music rips had been circulating around for months. (Buying both games together is also cheaper than buying the CD itself - Japanese CD prices are still absurd.) But they did feature two tracks, dubbed "Another Medley"s, with two bonus songs each.
So technically the Castlevania Rebirth game is based on the first Gameboy game, The Castlevania Adventure. That game was terrible, but at least it had an awesome soundtrack. Sadly, the Rebirth game features absolutely none of the music from it. (It did feature a track from its sequel, Belmont's Revenge, which was quite welcome.) This medley makes up for that venial sin by including Battle of the Holy, the first stage theme from Castlevania Adventure. The second song is Lost Painting, from Symphony of the Night. It is a bit strange to here a song essentially downgraded to FM synth, but it still sounds quite classy. They really should've ditched the fifth billionth remix of Vampire Killer for this Battle of the Holy theme, but I'm not sure where Lost Painting would fit in this arcade-style game - it doesn't even really work as an ending theme.
The theme on the Contra medley is the first level theme from Contra Force, which is strange considering it was never released in Japan. (It was tentatively developed under the title Arkhound.) The character select screen in Contra Rebirth is also taken from Contra Force. The second theme is the ending from the Gameboy game, Operation C. That game was comprised almost entirely of remixes from other Contra titles, except for this ending, and the stage 2 theme, which also ended up in Contra Rebirth, for the level with the robot ostriches. If they really wanted to go obscure they should've done a remix from C: The Contra Adventure, the not-so-great (but not terribly abysmal, contrary to popular opinion) European-developed PSOne game, which actually had some great music.
GET BONUS:
Before Konami released their own official version, amazing internet remixer Otobeya did his own version, also in the style of their arcade music. See which one you like better!
His webpage is a must visit, as it includes dozens upon dozens of MP3s of classic video game music redone on other synths. There's tons of Gradius and Castlevania in there. I rather like the Ys 6 and Origin songs done on an MSX, or Metroid's Brinstar theme on a Master System, or Final Fantasy III (FC)'s battle theme as done on the SNES. The coup de grace is the My Neighbor Totoro theme done in the style of a Romancing SaGa battle theme.
Showing posts with label song of the moment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label song of the moment. Show all posts
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Song of the Moment - Otomedius G - Snow Field - Beyond the White Storm
I finally caved and bought myself a Japanese Xbox 360. It was mostly because I found one relatively cheap, and came with a copy of Otomedius, which was one of the only Japanese exclusive games I was interested in. I wrote some initial impressions awhile back and didn't feel it was that great. I've spent some more time with it and rather like it now, even though it's immensely awkward - it can't decide whether to be a modern score-driven arcade game or a classic Gradius-style game, and neither really works.
In keeping with the general quality of the game, the music, outside of a few songs, is pretty anemic compared to Konami's legendary library of shooters. However, Otomedius was one of Konami's first big experiments with DLC, offering additional levels and characters, for a price. Amongst these were a total of seven music packs, each of which accompanied one of the main characters and gave them new theme music for the entire game. All of this music consisted of arrangements from past Konami games, including Gradius and Salamander, as well as XEXEX, Thunder Cross and others, many arranged by longtime Konami composers like Michiru Yamane and Akira Yamaoka. Alas, this experiment didn't turn out too well, because while the original music was all excellent, the arrangements were (mostly) kinda bad. The cost didn't help - buying all seven packs at $5 each means it costs $35 for the whole deal, or approximately how much it costs to buy the recently released Platinum Hits version. (Which, unfortunately unlike Halo Wars or Fable II, does not feature any of the DLC.
It's not a total wash though. A handful of the songs rearrange the music using the synth of a different sound chip, in some cases going technologically backwards. I've seen some fan arrangers do this, and it's always fascinating to hear, say, Genesis music done like NES music. The particular arrangement above is the Snow Field theme, "Beyond the White Storm", from Gradius Gaiden, a Playstation game, done with chiptune synth. It's a bit more advanced than a typical Famicom, although it's sounds similar, so let's just say it sounds like it could be from a fictional enhanced sound chip like the VRC6. I always loved the original theme - it ranks up next to "Burning Heat", the first level song from Gradius II, as one of my favorite pieces of music in the series - and this arrangement really captures why I love it so much. It's so warm, peppy and upbeat, typical of the 8 and 16-bit Gradius games, and it sounds right at home. You can listen to the original PSOne version below to compare, although any sane person should hunt down a copy of the Gradius Collection for the PSP to play it immediately, since it's one of the best shoot em ups ever made:
If you want to hear all of the music from Otomedius, including the arrangements, the fine folks at the Gradius Home World have ripped them for download here.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Song of the Moment - Sekaiju no MeiQ³ - Battlefield - The First Campaign
The Etrian Odyssey series (or Sekaiju no MeiQ) have always drawn heavily from the minds of 80s and 90s Japanese PC gaming, so it was appropriate that composer Yuzo Koshiro rely heavily on the FM synth used in the PC-8801. The third entry in the series, just released a few weeks ago in Japan, travels the same lines. While I've always dug Falcom soundtracks of the era, for some reason, these always left me a bit cold. Maybe it was because the exploration music was just a bit too laid back, and the battle themes just weren't exciting enough. This entry, though, has a completely bad ass battle song as evidenced above.
It actually reminds me a lot of the 7th Dragon theme, both in general style and structure, which you can listen to below:
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