I find chiptunes a lot more memorable than the digital audio of later consoles. They’re a lot more distinctive. One soundtrack I go back to sometimes is Konami’s NBA in the Zone 2 for the PS1. There’s a few memorable 1990s hip hop/dance loops on there plus some renditions of the Canadian and American national anthems - it really is the heir apparent to Double Dribble, lol
In the Zone 2's soundtrack sounds pretty great, honestly. Guess I better check it out on Youtube!
You talking about dance loops reminds me of Conker's Bad Fur Day, when Conker goes to a night club. The techno song that's playing in the club is an original composition and I remember I loved it so much, I downloaded it from Limewire or Kazaa back in the day.
Castlevania SOTN deserves a mention here. A lot of great tracks, and I also like the way they fit into the game. The tracks are very distinct, with a range of styles and genres. You can recognize which area you're entering into as quickly by the music as by the name and the visual aesthetic.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would be "Dracula's Castle". Best captures the overall "operatic rock" feel of the game. Feels like it could be an improved remake of an 8 or 16-bit Castlevania song, but AFAIK it is an entirely original creation for SOTN.
Though of course you called out Castlevania as a series that had great music in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, so it's more like Final Fantasy in the sense that its PS1 musical greatness was a continuation of previous greatness. Except I think SOTN has better music than any prior game in the series, which I wouldn't say about FF7.
I actually DO really like Nobuo Uematsu, but I've always thought FF6 had better music than FF7. Maybe nostalgia plays a role, but even at the time, FF7's music, while very good, disappointed me coming off of FF6. I enjoy TPR's "melancholy" renditions of the various Final Fantasy soundtracks. I play them in the evenings to try to calm the kids down for bedtime, and the TPR rendition of the FF6 soundtrack is hands-down the best. It really stands out when you put it on an equal footing with the FF7 soundtrack (which TPR has also done) in terms of audio fidelity.
But in terms of franchises that were exclusive to, or launched on, the PS1, you have a good point, the music was generally a step backwards, despite the vast potential that CD audio represented at the time. Though you also picked some good counterexamples of this trend. Not ashamed to admit my oldest friend and I will still quote PaRappa at each other.
"Dracula's Castle" definitely has a Meatloaf/Jim Steinman feel that I can get down with... buuuuut I don't know if I'm ready to put anything on Symphony of the Night above Super Castlevania IV. Good stuff all around, though.
I had to look up TPR on Youtube. Looks interesting! Perhaps I'll like their renditions of Uematsu's work more than the original. I do respect the man, but his music just never caught my ear, like, say, Yasunori Mitsuda's has. Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, etc, the man's got some killer tracks.
The 32/64 bit era had growing pains, for sure, in just about every way possible. What perplexes me, though, is when I think of good PS2, PS3, PS4, etc. soundtracks that aren't just aping film scores, I'm at a loss. I know they exist, I'm just hard pressed to think of any. Hooks, man! I need hooks!
I suppose my thought on Castlevania IV is that the music for level 1 is amazing. Meanwhile Bloody Tears might be my all-time favorite videogame music, and the version of it on Castlevania IV is probably better than the one on SOTN. But other than those two tracks, I guess I'm not as impressed by the music in IV. There's one track in particular that I think is downright bad and unpleasant to listen to, IIRC it's level 4 or 5. SOTN's soundtrack is much more even.
I never played Chrono Cross or Xenogears. And my days of finding time to play through retro JRPGs are probably over. But maybe I'll give their soundtracks a listen.
There are a lot of theories out there for what happened to videogame music. But I don't have a good one that fits all the facts, other than "a consensus formed that music belongs in the background and should never take the focus off the visuals." There are exceptions, but they're generally not AAA, and it seems games generally aren't rewarded all that well financially for having good music.
Sometimes I wonder how some Hollywood movies can have a budget of $200MM+ but the dialogue sounds like it was written in one night in the hours between 1am and 5am by a man who, over the course of his current cocaine high, forgot what human speech sounds like. And I think it's the same answer: the execs have concluded that this type of movie would not be rewarded at the box office for better-written dialogue.
"There are a lot of theories out there for what happened to videogame music. But I don't have a good one that fits all the facts, other than "a consensus formed that music belongs in the background and should never take the focus off the visuals."'
Yes, exactly. A lot of indie games still have wonderful soundtracks filled with personality and character, but AAA often feels lackluster. Nintendo games still typically have great soundtracks, though. Kirby and the Forgotten Land has excellent music.
Thinking about this since yesterday, I wonder if I just prefer video game music composed by Japanese musicians over music composed by Western musicians. There are exceptions, of course, like David Wise's work with Rare, but in general, my favorite video game music hails from Japan.
Yes, while it seems like more than one thing has changed (because as you point out, the PS1 disappointed in this area despite having plenty of Japanese games), I think Western devs have something to do with it. And this difference was probably present even in the 8/16-bit eras.
Compare Mortal Kombat to Street Fighter. I’m inclined to say the least iconic track on SF2’s soundtrack beats out the best on offer from an MK game of that era.
I also think long breaks without music were more common on Western console games in those days. I’m thinking games like Flashback (a game I loved) and the Desert Strike series - a lot of silence. If they had been Japanese, that space would probably have been filled with more music.
The Genesis infamously had a lot of games with awful music. Which apparently had to do with the software Western devs were using to code music for it. But it seems it’s probably not a coincidence that again, it was Western and not Japanese devs not giving a crap about the music.
I find chiptunes a lot more memorable than the digital audio of later consoles. They’re a lot more distinctive. One soundtrack I go back to sometimes is Konami’s NBA in the Zone 2 for the PS1. There’s a few memorable 1990s hip hop/dance loops on there plus some renditions of the Canadian and American national anthems - it really is the heir apparent to Double Dribble, lol
In the Zone 2's soundtrack sounds pretty great, honestly. Guess I better check it out on Youtube!
You talking about dance loops reminds me of Conker's Bad Fur Day, when Conker goes to a night club. The techno song that's playing in the club is an original composition and I remember I loved it so much, I downloaded it from Limewire or Kazaa back in the day.
Castlevania SOTN deserves a mention here. A lot of great tracks, and I also like the way they fit into the game. The tracks are very distinct, with a range of styles and genres. You can recognize which area you're entering into as quickly by the music as by the name and the visual aesthetic.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would be "Dracula's Castle". Best captures the overall "operatic rock" feel of the game. Feels like it could be an improved remake of an 8 or 16-bit Castlevania song, but AFAIK it is an entirely original creation for SOTN.
https://youtu.be/dh1qqLbuBww?si=i9eej0wy0qqssuKs
Though of course you called out Castlevania as a series that had great music in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, so it's more like Final Fantasy in the sense that its PS1 musical greatness was a continuation of previous greatness. Except I think SOTN has better music than any prior game in the series, which I wouldn't say about FF7.
I actually DO really like Nobuo Uematsu, but I've always thought FF6 had better music than FF7. Maybe nostalgia plays a role, but even at the time, FF7's music, while very good, disappointed me coming off of FF6. I enjoy TPR's "melancholy" renditions of the various Final Fantasy soundtracks. I play them in the evenings to try to calm the kids down for bedtime, and the TPR rendition of the FF6 soundtrack is hands-down the best. It really stands out when you put it on an equal footing with the FF7 soundtrack (which TPR has also done) in terms of audio fidelity.
But in terms of franchises that were exclusive to, or launched on, the PS1, you have a good point, the music was generally a step backwards, despite the vast potential that CD audio represented at the time. Though you also picked some good counterexamples of this trend. Not ashamed to admit my oldest friend and I will still quote PaRappa at each other.
"Dracula's Castle" definitely has a Meatloaf/Jim Steinman feel that I can get down with... buuuuut I don't know if I'm ready to put anything on Symphony of the Night above Super Castlevania IV. Good stuff all around, though.
I had to look up TPR on Youtube. Looks interesting! Perhaps I'll like their renditions of Uematsu's work more than the original. I do respect the man, but his music just never caught my ear, like, say, Yasunori Mitsuda's has. Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, etc, the man's got some killer tracks.
The 32/64 bit era had growing pains, for sure, in just about every way possible. What perplexes me, though, is when I think of good PS2, PS3, PS4, etc. soundtracks that aren't just aping film scores, I'm at a loss. I know they exist, I'm just hard pressed to think of any. Hooks, man! I need hooks!
I suppose my thought on Castlevania IV is that the music for level 1 is amazing. Meanwhile Bloody Tears might be my all-time favorite videogame music, and the version of it on Castlevania IV is probably better than the one on SOTN. But other than those two tracks, I guess I'm not as impressed by the music in IV. There's one track in particular that I think is downright bad and unpleasant to listen to, IIRC it's level 4 or 5. SOTN's soundtrack is much more even.
I never played Chrono Cross or Xenogears. And my days of finding time to play through retro JRPGs are probably over. But maybe I'll give their soundtracks a listen.
There are a lot of theories out there for what happened to videogame music. But I don't have a good one that fits all the facts, other than "a consensus formed that music belongs in the background and should never take the focus off the visuals." There are exceptions, but they're generally not AAA, and it seems games generally aren't rewarded all that well financially for having good music.
Sometimes I wonder how some Hollywood movies can have a budget of $200MM+ but the dialogue sounds like it was written in one night in the hours between 1am and 5am by a man who, over the course of his current cocaine high, forgot what human speech sounds like. And I think it's the same answer: the execs have concluded that this type of movie would not be rewarded at the box office for better-written dialogue.
"There are a lot of theories out there for what happened to videogame music. But I don't have a good one that fits all the facts, other than "a consensus formed that music belongs in the background and should never take the focus off the visuals."'
Yes, exactly. A lot of indie games still have wonderful soundtracks filled with personality and character, but AAA often feels lackluster. Nintendo games still typically have great soundtracks, though. Kirby and the Forgotten Land has excellent music.
Thinking about this since yesterday, I wonder if I just prefer video game music composed by Japanese musicians over music composed by Western musicians. There are exceptions, of course, like David Wise's work with Rare, but in general, my favorite video game music hails from Japan.
Yes, while it seems like more than one thing has changed (because as you point out, the PS1 disappointed in this area despite having plenty of Japanese games), I think Western devs have something to do with it. And this difference was probably present even in the 8/16-bit eras.
Compare Mortal Kombat to Street Fighter. I’m inclined to say the least iconic track on SF2’s soundtrack beats out the best on offer from an MK game of that era.
I also think long breaks without music were more common on Western console games in those days. I’m thinking games like Flashback (a game I loved) and the Desert Strike series - a lot of silence. If they had been Japanese, that space would probably have been filled with more music.
The Genesis infamously had a lot of games with awful music. Which apparently had to do with the software Western devs were using to code music for it. But it seems it’s probably not a coincidence that again, it was Western and not Japanese devs not giving a crap about the music.