It would appear that a couple of the major YouTube sources for the music on this website have gone dark. If you happen to find any dead links, please let me know here and I will fix them. I just fixed Over Horizon and a couple others. What a shame!
Tag Archives: nintendo
Sunday Game Soundtrack: Rockman 3/Mega Man 3 (FC/NES)
Hey guys! It’s Sunday and that means it’s time for another Sunday Game Soundtrack! Football is over… so we need SOMETHING to do, right? Anyhow, let’s listen to the original, legendary soundtrack to a game composed by a husband and wife duo- Rockman 3/Mega Man 3 for FC/NES.
This Sunday’s selection was inspired by Close to Good‘s Volume III, which features the complete soundtrack to Rockman 3/Mega Man 3, covered and awesome.. It’s free- you should go download it and take a listen!
Okay, so I know you guys know this but for the sake of just saying it: Mega Man is known as Rockman in Japan. The game’s official Japanese title is ロックマン3 Dr.ワイリーの最期!? or Rockman 3: The End of Dr. Wily? Much more dramatic! Anyhow, rather than saying Rockman 3/Mega Man 3 each time I refer to the game, I’m just going to call it MM3 from here on out. Simple. Clean. Easy.
MM3 was released by Capcom for the FC/NES on September 28th 1990 in Japan and in November 1990 for the US. (Sadly, it was not released in the EU until 1992… wow, way to drop the ball, Capcom). This game uses the MMC3 mapper. This mapper (to oversimplify a bit) basically allows Mega Man’s health bar to remain in a static position while you move. The music for the game was composed by Yasuaki Fujita, who is listed as “Bunbun” in the credits.
Bunbun wasn’t originally assigned to compose for the game, however. I’ll summarize one of my older posts really quick: Basically, Bunbun’s wife, Harumi Fujita, was assigned to write the music for the game. Unfortunately, she had to abandon the project… because she went into labor. She had been assigned the project while pregnant with her and Bunbun’s child (I’ll recycle this joke because I can: You might say she had a… BUNBUN in the oven). She took maternity leave and Bunbun, who was originally assigned to just do the sound programming, took over the project.
Harumi had already started the work so there’s always been a question as to which, if any, of the tracks were hers. Fortunately, Bunbun, on his blog, pointed out which tracks he composed. Apparently, Harumi had already finished Gemini Man, Needle Man, and part of the Staff Roll track. The rest was finished by Bunbun.
Anyhow, you’re not here for touching little stories! You’re here for MUSIC. So, let’s take a listen to Bunbun and Harumi Fujita’s Rockman 3/Mega Man 3 complete soundtrack, as posted on YouTube by Wiiguy309 (this guy has posted so many soundtrack- what the heck, man? CRAZY!) These tracks have been stereo enhanced so you’ll notice they sound a little more… reverb-y. It’s kind of nice. If you REALLY REALLY REALLY, REALLY want to listen to the un-enhanced version, you can click here.
Hope you enjoyed listening!
Originals: “What Happens When You Take the Wrong Bus”
So I’ve been working on new pieces and what not. I recently performed (or rather, just played the piece- I don’t have an adequate rig to “perform” the piece yet) “What Happens When You Take the Wrong Bus” at Philadelphia’s 8static, a freakin’ awesome chiptune party that happens once a month. I’m so lucky to be in Philly. The artists there were amazing and really inspiring.
Best of all, though, everyone there was really supportive. I’ve been a performing musician, professionally (I guess professionally) since I was about 13. Over the years, I’ve arranged many pieces to play for Beta Test Music and other groups. But, in the last 17 years, I’ve NEVER played ANY of my original material live. Not a single piece! I’ve been working on compositions since I can remember… but I’ve never had a piece PERFORMED. This sounds crazy but it’s true. My 8static performance was my first ever presentation of any of my material to a general audience. Scary.
Anyhow, here’s the live performance of the piece. A little of the beginning got cut off. I promise you it’s cute and sounds like a little 8bit town theme. This is composed for Famitracker v4.1 with 2a03+VRC6. The samples for the DPCM are from Castlevania III. This is being played off my laptop right now… but I intend on setting up a PowerPak and emulating VRC6 soon. More on that later.
Enjoy my first ever live performance and please leave me feedback! Thanks to everyone who reads this blog and to all you supportive people out there- this was kind of a dream of mine and it came true. :)
Sunday Game Soundtrack: Pokemon – Red//Green/Blue/Yellow (1st Gen)
Hey folks. It’s Sunday and that means it’s time for another Sunday Game Soundtrack! While I spend a lot of time during the week looking for more obscure titles, its also great to find some time to post fan favorites! Today, we’ll listen to the soundtrack to the first generation of Pokemon games for Gameboy- Pokemon – Red/Green/Blue/Yellow.
Luckily, I managed to find the complete OST in one YouTube video (always awesome) so special thanks to OnlineOST for posting this. I’ll put the OST below so you can listen while you read along.
The composer for this game is Junichi Masuda. He’s basically been the guy behind all the music in the Pokemon series. He has a very interesting style, in terms of composition. I really can’t put my finger on what it is. His battle themes are very busy but still somehow light. If you notice, there’s very little use of “drums” throughout the pieces but it’s still very rhythmic.
There’s a couple things to note here about the music:
- The version of the music above has been enhanced, clearly. There’s a lot more echo, etc. The music we heard as kids was a lot more jarring.
- Pokemon was original released in Japan as Pocket Monsters – Red/Green in 1996. The original “Blue” edition was released later, and at first, only to people who were subscribers to CoroCoro Comic. The Blue edition featured enhanced audio (it was just tweaked a bit, from what I understand) and some glitches were removed. When the game was finally released here in the US in 1998, they decided to release the Japanese Blue version. So, our Pokemon – Red/Blue is actually an updated version of the original, in terms of sound.
- Okay, this is a serious warning. I’ll provide a link to this but listen at your own risk. Seriously. My ears are ringing right now. So Junichi Masuda wrote a different version of the Lavender Town theme for Pocket Monsters Beta game. It is probably the most disturbing, jarring, and bizarre track I’ve ever heard in my life. Like, seriously. You can listen to it, if you want. But this is my last warning. It seriously messes with your head. There are EXTREME high pitches that are inaudible to older folks but can REALLY hurt young kids ears. Crazy right? And yes, my ears actually hurt right now. I’m not even kidding. If you’re going to listen to it, listen to it softly at least and without headphones. Okay. Here’s the link. What a bizarre track.
- If you end up listening for a long time, you’ll notice there’s a lot of Japanese speaking at the end. I BELIEVE this is the Game Boy cry of each Pokemon followed by the a reading from the PokeDex. I could be wrong but that’s what it sounds like to me.
Okay folks, enjoy the OST and hopefully you didn’t listen to that Lavender Town track. I need an Advil. Wow. Ouch.
Covering a Tune: Arranging Music for Groundhog’s Day with Beta Test Music – Part 4
On February 2nd, my band, Beta Test Music (betatestmusic.com), will be performing another big concert of video game music and other nerdy favorites at First Unitarian Church in downtown Philadelphia (see here for information and tickets). This series of posts will highlight the music that I arranged for the concert, explaining the choices in musical selection, instrumentation, and overall presentation.
In Part 1 and Part 2, I discussed my musical selection process/performance considerations for my medley of music from Akumajou Densetsu (Castlevania III) for Beta Test Music and 2a03+VRC6. In Part 3, I discussed my arrangement of music from Earthbound/Mother 2. TODAY, in Part 4, I’ll talk about my arrangement of tunes from Nintendo’s Pokemon – 1st Generation (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow).
