Best soundtrack?

I sometimes listen [Deleted unrelated link --MOD] to NES soundtracks while I work. What game has the best music? My personal favorite is probably Bucky O'hare followed by Megaman 2

There are plenty i like a lot. In no particular order: Marble Madness, Solstice, Faxanadu, SMB2(u/e), Castlevania 1/2/3, Bucky O'Hare, Rush n Attack, Blaster Master, Batman, Mr.Gimmick.

There's this http://bestnestracks.captaintortilla.com/results/

Probably Ninja Gaiden for me. It's difficult for me to choose an NES game with the best music because a lot of it starts sounding similar to itself due to how inflexible the sound hardware is, imo.

That's great to know I'm not the only one who does that!
I recomend you to use a player that puts each square wave channel on a different stereo channel. That gives a nice stereo effect in my opinion.
As soundtracks, I think most Sunsoft ones are great, my favorites are Journey to Silius and Batman 2.
I also think that Dragon Fighter's sound track are nice, specially the last level's sound.
Konami too do some great soundtracks, I like to hear the music from the Contra, Turtles and Castlevania series, Gradius 2 has some nice music too.
As for Double Dragon, I enjoy specifically that crazy solo on the 1st stage's music of DD1. The last boss' theme of DD2 I find kind of inspirational. I also like the music of the street part and the inside the pyramid themes of DD3.
Oh, and don't forget Silver Surfer's somewhat Techno soundtrack.
Well, I think I'll stop now or I'll have a very large post!

The last time this was asked, I said Crisis Force. But Mega Man 2 is probably the best.

And I think Zelda stands out as excellent.

Out of all the games that I actually played back in the day, Faxanadu is still my favourite soundtrack. SMB2/Doki Doki Panic is probably second.

Castlevania 3, The Guardian Legend, and Life Force are some of the favorites I had as a kid.

Lately I've really been enjoying the Power Blade series, by the same lady who wrote half of the Castlevania soundtrack.

If you like nes music in general, it is hard to say "the" best one. So many that I enjoy that I would have a hard time to list all of them ^^;;

Many years ago (like in 1999-2000), I conducted a similar poll to the one above, and the results still match up pretty well:

http://www.chrismcovell.com/poll.html

I think nowadays I'd swap out my choice for MegaMan2 ending with Wily Stage 1, and Hero Quest's soundtrack has to go in there somewhere.

Megaman 2 and 3 are very good, but I prefer Megaman 3's.

I agree with Banshaku though. I can't even say which is MY prefered NES soundtrack, so deciding collectively which is the best is very hard to do.
I think one of the most overall quality and underrated ones is Chip and Dale. Also Yo! Noid. Hi no Tori. Pictionary. M.C. Kids. Rollergames. SF2010. Yeah. I can't decide which is the most underrated one.

If non-NES games are also allowed (I meant, games that were only released in Japan for the Famicom):
Fantasy Zone (the Japanese version): Triumphs the SMS and the PCE versions (in the PCE version this is THE one aspect that went horribly wrong).
Kikikaikai (FDS): Just listen to the opening theme.


Then, Gradius II: the Salamander/Life Force boss theme is even better here.

They are becoming clever, even understanding for the first time what this bbs is about

One should assume that if they were clever enough to post and come back later to edit a spam link in that they will be clever enough to come back again and edit it again.

Yeah it's pretty much to the point where anytime someone makes a first post, unless it was obviously written for NESdev, you can google search the text and often find these are just copied from posts on reddit. edit: And many times the posts are copied from elsewhere in the NESdev forum. Sneaky bastards.

Ok it's pathetic answering to this spambot, but since the harm was done anyway...

It's funny seeing Solstice title screen coming up multiple times among the "best NES song"... I really didn't expect it ! I like this song, and what makes it more awesome is that for the first 5 seconds or so it sound completely shitty, which makes you except a very subpar song... and then everything explodes with arpeggios all over the place and very cool sounding theme ! Tim Follin really outdid himself there.

What I'm sad however is to never see anywhere Battletoads (and to a lesser extent it's sequel Battletoads & Double Dragon) mentioned. It really has some of the best songs for the platform.

In-game, the first eight seconds or so of the Solstice OP are the jingle for "CSG Imagesoft Presents". The title screen fades in right when the arps cut in, and if this TAS is to be believed, the sequence is unskippable. I imagine players processed the two as two separate pieces of music, like the coin sound when you turn on Super Mario World or Super Mario Kart, or the simple fanfare when you turn on Rampart, or the contrast between the Capcom jingle and the rock OP to Super Street Fighter II, or the movie studio's logo and a movie's OP, or indeed the boot logo of consoles made by Sony Interactive Entertainment (CSG Imagesoft's successor) and the game's actual title screen.

I don't have a favorite overall soundtrack, but from the top of my head, there are 3 NES songs that really stand out for me:

- The title screen song from Layla;
- Wily Fortress theme from Mega Man 6;
- The bicycle training song from Punch-Out;

Meanwhile, I feel like an absolute vanilla newbie: my favorite NES OST is the one from the console's two LoZ games... But well, it may be because I've played these as a kid, and then as a young adult when the first LoZ game was released on the GBA, while most other classic NES games are things I've only experienced when getting into retrogaming a couple years ago.

Mother/Earthbound Zero
MANIAC MANSION
GOONIES 2
JORDAN Vs. BIRD
Metal Gear: snake's revenge
MANIAC MANSION
OVERLORD

You must really like Maniac Mansion!

Or maybe you listed the U and J versions separately, since they're completely different games.

It's hard, because my "technically superior, therefore, better" glasses are blinding me to a lot of well-composed but technically not as interesting soundtracks. I think Megaman 2 is a great example of that. Great tunes, but kind of generic instrumentation. Then again, it's kind of unfair to compare it to Tim Follin's techniques.
I'd have to make a separate list based on the technical achievements, and one based on the musicality of soundtracks.

It might just be me being skewed by what i heard first, but often feel some soundtracks that were originally composed for expansion chips were made better using just the mainboard channels for nes ports. This goes for most of the castlevania 3 soundtrack, and about 50/50 of the mr. gimmick soundtrack. One explanation is that they went over it a second time for the port, so they spent more time with their compositions. Another is that the more channels you have (and the more saturated they are, timbrally), the more apparent the lack of basic mixing utilities becomes - you have a limited range of practical volume settings with wide level gaps (especially as the highest ones are sort of useless for soundtracks), no EQ, and no stereo pan. The way the saw was overused in the famicom version of castlevania 3... the overtones makes the the rest of the sound picture muddy and eventually it wears my ears down.

For this reason, if i'm to compose an expansion chip soundtrack at one point, i've decided i'll mostly use it to provide additional echo and chorus effects (and these echo/chorus channels are the ones that get overwritten by game sound effects, instead of main tones). If i'm to use saws, it'll mostly be to provide an attack stage as a component of a composite voice, or just sometimes a short lead passage.

I enjoy the Battletoads soundtrack, but what especially tickles me is recognizing David Wise's signature sound, which I have always enjoyed. It's especially strong in the second stage Wookie Hole, which sounds right out of DKC2.
David Wise is absolutely one of the most talented video game musicians out there (Tropical Freeze is a straight up contender for best VG OST ever created), but I feel that Battletoads came out slightly before he truly found his thing, and managed to move beyond simplistic structures. There's some nice aspects to some of the tracks, but I can't think of a single one on the OST that really stands out. Which is your favourite?


I kind of get that with Mr Gimmick. A lot of people tend to pass off the PAL release as a downgrade of the music, but it's the only version of the game I have played, and it still sounds amazing and unlike anything else on the NES, even with the stock soundchip. I don't know if I'd say it's an improvement, but it's definitely perfectly servicable.

It's hard for me to agree on CV3 though. I can see where you're coming from, but there are just entire layers of songs that are completely missing in the non-expansion-chip version. A track like the clock tower one is just much less interesting. They are still all good, though.

yeah, i do like some of the more mellow / slow tempoed Akumajou Densetsu a bit more (such as "demon seed"); i think these songs have the space to allow for a richer sound palette. For me, the clocktower song is a draw. I like both.

You can hear that they've fine chiseled some melodies more in the us/eu version, probably as compensation for lacking the ability to portray chords. But in regards to chords, beside the blues influence it's a bit like bach (or mid-early depeche mode, for a more modern example): much of castlevania 3:s music is driven by contrapuntal movements which really only require a harmony between two notes to inform the mood, even when there are more notes happening. Those two notes were very well selected for the rearrangement.

The (scandinavian) NES version of the Gimmick soundtrack is butchered down. It was dowgraded very poorly. Sometimes the melody is completely missing and only the accompainment plays... sometimes they use the second square channel for unnecessary echo only, while a very important musical track was removed entierely.

Fortunately this is not the case with Castlevania III where both version of the soundtrack sounds great, despite the NES version having less tracks - 3 melodic tracks instead of 5. I think it's wrong to assume the music for CV3 has been a dumbed down version of those composed for Akumajo Densetsu - maybe they composted the NES version first, and later decided to use the VRC6 with sound expansion which enabled them to redo the soundtrack using more channels for the famicom version. We'll never know for sure unless there's a reliable testimony from someone at Konami.


My favourite song in Battletoads is the Silver Surfer stage, reused for Terra Tubes, but I really like the other songs as well.

i honestly think there's musical evidence of further elaboration in the (u/e) cv3 soundtrack. They might've worked on it in parallel or prepared for the port with good arrangement planning, but there is little sense in removing the fine details worked into the mainboard side that are exclusive to the us/eu port, so i find it more likely they sat down and went over it again, than that they developed the u/e version of the soundtrack and then added the j voices on top. I'll eat my hat if i have to, but i feel convinced this was the case. It just so happens that the style of pseudo baroque music (even if fused with blues/rock) plays very well with two contrapuntal voices, which the nes can readily do without expansion sound. Most tones in the (j) version are redundant to the function of the melodies. They just add an extra layer of frosting on the cake - maybe this is an argument for the 'careful planning' theory, but i think the nature of the musical style simply is lucky to work well on both versions and that the functionally redundant extras could be easily removed.

Frankengraphics obviously knows a ton more about music theory than I do, so I won't argue with her points, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be true. If the soundtrack is composed by an experienced NES/FC composer, it makes sense to start out with limitations familiar to them.

Well it's not unreasonable either. Even almost (imo) as plausible. I just have a feeling it was the other way around listening to it. Using a tracker today, i'd do something similar - start with the functional voices, bass first, then fill in extras. But if i had done something in the late 80s, i'd probably write the first draft with the help of a piano or synthesizer first (preferrably one with an onboard midi recorder, such as several yamaha synthesizers had at that time) or use a standalone midi recorder unit, then transcribe that to a format the music engine can understand. But i have no clue what music software (or hardware) they actually had. If using a piano or synthesizer for the first draft, adding less functionally important layers just comes naturally on the fly.

To me, the music sounds like it may at least in part have been written with the help of a live instrument (tracker music tends imprint its composing style on the music with distinct blocks, rhythmic stiffness, and note cramming) but it might just be that the composer(s) was(were) really good at not letting the tracker shine through the arrangement.

Moving the bass between tri and saw channels, i don't feel there's a way that is simpler than the other - moving a saw bass to the triangle channel or moving a tri bass to the saw channel. seems like equal amounts of work.



This is probably exactly where my "what i heard first is better" bias comes in, and why i prefer some arrangements in the SCN version. It works the same way with covers for me. If i hear the cover first, i might prefer it to the original.

That's funny, because while I'm terribly affected by "technical superiority" when it comes to judging graphics, I'm completely satisfied with blips and blops for sounds as long as the melodies are catchy. I guess that goes to show how much I (don't) know about the technical aspects of music.

Having realized that, I guess I can understand better when people are fine with graphics I find absolutely atrocious.

FrankenGraphics appears to be the really skilled one, with talent for both graphics and sound!

Actually, the wikipedia article states two things of interest here:



In other words, the chip was made for the game, rather than the game for the chip.


While i wouldn't use the term "downgrade" as backhandedly (i find it a bit disrespectful of the excellent work done), it seems the soundtrack indeed was composed for the vrc6 first and then had additional work done for the port.

re: tokumaru
aw, shucks! thanks. though there are plenty more skilled video game composers out there. I've never studied music theory as formal education, either. I honestly have a bit of a complex regarding that.

That's a very quick conclusion. This statement on WP should be taken with distance, you should look at the source, the context in which this was said, etc... Also it does not mean the CV3 soundtrack was composed for VRC6 first. Maybe it was still composted for plain 2A03 first and then they decided to test having extra audio and designed the chip.

They also had experience in CV2 where the jap version uses FDS sounds while the NES version had one less channel, and they did it well (the NES version actually sounds a little bit better).

I agree about the existance of this bias, but the scandinavian version of Gimmick is missing melody entierely in some parts. This is unforgivable.

Well the second quote clearly states that a person was tasked with rewriting the soundtrack to use just the APU. Source examination notwithstanding, there’s little room for ambiguity/interpretation.
Regardless what channels happened to be written first (which likely varied especially since there were 4 composers onboard), there’s some evidence in the music that it was not only made to fit the APU, but also elaborated further on for the u/e release, and the statement reinforces that. Guessing the opposite at this point is the more speculative approach. Music tracks were likely finished, then reapproached.

Same with simon’s quest. There’s no explanation why you would spend paid time removing the extra attention to details you can hear in the u/e version. More reason, on the other hand, to spend time compensating for the loss of an fm channel by making arrangements interesting in other ways.

Wikipedia's article on CV3 is a little weird about all this. It also states that the VRC6 was exchanged for MMC5 for the western release "because western versions of the NES did not have the ability to support external sound chips". That doesn't even make sense.


Can you point out a track where this stands out?

Yeah, i reacted to that statement as well.. whenever i find an "analysis" like that in a wp article, i try to just disregard it or assume that it was not well described. Not being able to tap in external audio does open up to technical alternatives (since you can cross out the particular requirements of the original soundtrack from the list), but without knowing any further details i'd maybe assume the answer would be related to business, logistics and economy. Might be that the could be had for cheaper. mmc5 was used for 24 releases (some being regional doubles or triples) according to bootgod's database, while a VRC-6 listing only shows three games. 5 mmc5 releases were by konami/palcom, though it'd be fair to count the german and scandinavian release as the same market move. Most others were by koei. Two by HAL laboratories. Just one by Nintendo themselves. The first use was by Koei in January 1990; a year and a half before nintendo found a use for the mapper chip for one of their games, or half a year before it was put to use in the US release of cv3. Might be that the chip was announced just in the right time and offered a better margin.

Or could it simply be that NOA required that US export licenses used nintendo mappers?

For example, contra got switched from vrc-2 to unrom. TMNT manhattan project got switched from vrc-4 to mmc3 (tlrom).

Because Wikipedia's policy prioritizes verifiability to established media sources at the expense of truth, it will reflect the misconceptions of the mainstream media. I too am inclined to agree with NOA's preference for Nintendo mappers as the more likely cause.

this thread seems to have morphed from its original purpose, but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents anyway.

All of the Mega Man games are really good, but I've always felt that Mega Man 3 was the best one in terms of both composition and technical proficiency. 1 & 2 have good melodies, but sometimes they're a little 'clunky'. 4-6 have smoother audio engines, but I don't think the music itself is quite as good. 3 strikes the best balance I feel.

some I haven't seen mentioned: I've always loved Zelda 2's music. It has a uniqueness--No other game really sounds like that one. Kid Icarus is also quite good. Metroid is my favorite game on any console, but Hip Tanaka himself admitted that soundtrack is more about atmosphere than melody. Dr. Mario has some really good tunes.

I recognize the unicity of zelda 2. It has pretty far out vibratos, so there's nothing quite like it. Whether you like it or not (i do, it has a special atmosphere), it is at least very memorable.

Metroid has a pretty special sound too. I might not want to listen to it if not playing since the loops are so short, but the moods are striking, which is unique when combined with the minimalist electronica style.

I've never actually listened to NES dr.mario, but love the gb soundtrack.

My two cents I don't really like the work of Link composer Akito Nakatsuka, who made other warbly soundtracks in the Famicom/FDS golf games... just not my cup of tea.

I re-listened to all 6 MM/Rockman soundtracks recently, and while 1-3 are rockin', 4 is schizophrenic, and... 5 and 6 really should be called "Jazz-man". No more driving melodies, wandering ones, more like. I was rather (again) disappointed.

Sees Willy 1, Bloody Tears and The Moon on top 5
Oh, for fucks sake!

Like others who posted here, I know and love waaay too much NES music to pick an absolute favorite. I'll say tho that I think CV3 strikes an impressive balance between technical prowess and good compositions. By this point in time, Konami had already mastered their idiosyncratic NES sound. I'd argue, however, that some of those soundtracks while very fun, catchy and over the top, don't have compositions as strong, as is the case with Super C for instance. CV3's mastery of counterpoint already makes it more interesting, imo.
Gimmick is also friggin' fantastic. In a way, it's like Sunsoft's CV3. Sure, Journey to Silius and Return of the Joker sound fantastic, but they're too rock 'n roll-y to me sometimes. I'd take Gimmick's jazzy chords and strong voice leading over them any day.
I'm also very partial to European composers as I'm, unlike others, a super fan of crazy arps. Tim Follin obviously is the first example that comes to mind, with Silver Surfer being the one everyone's familiar with and Solstice's intro arguably being his pièce de résistance. I do think, however, that his best all-around soundtrack has to be Treasure Master. Every track on it is amazing, and they're very much proggy, unlike Silver Surfer, which is a plus to me.

People often tend to underestimate Mega Man 4's soundtrack. I did myself, until a friend of mine opened my eyes to how interesting most of the compositions are, compared to the much more direct "rock" hooks of the earlier games. I think it's probably my favourite of the entire series. I kinda get where you're coming from calling it "schizophrenic" though.

It still does have amazingly catchy stuff. Some of my favourites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5I0Yp-7fo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9zoPeH-Ly0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-z1HLxLJto

It doesn't have the same memorable heights as the MM2 and 3 soundtrack does, but overall the entire soundtrack is just high quality stuff.

Ironically, though I don't know how many people would agree with me, but a lot of the great tunes in Mega Man 2 are not rock, but Disco.

That's just your opinion... for my tatstes MM4's soundtrack is by far the worst of all 6 (and also the game is the worst but that's another story).

Like I said, people tend to underestimate it

Literally the whole thread is just opinions

Well after 3 masterpieces of games with excellent music had been released, Megaman 4 was a huge disappointment for everyone. First time I played I thought everything sucked about the game (except the very cool intro). But since that I've noticed that Skullman's stage music is excellent, I certainly underestimated that game for a long time. Now I believe Megaman 5 is the worst Rockman game (although it's not bad graphic wise).

And programming! Multi-talent!

For Gimmick! this is confirmed in interviews though. It was a project that tried to focus on perfecting the action game genre and it was decided that the composer needed more channels for chords, so the 5B was designed for the game (hmm can't find the links to the interviews at the moment).

Zelda II is an example of a game where the NES version has arguably better music than the FDS version. The battle theme is much better in the NES version. Although it doesn't really sound like a battle theme anymore, which also probably is the purpose as it's not only used in encounter screens.
But the FDS sounds are only used for the title screen music (which is great in both versions) and sound effects, so it isn't really the FDS' fault.

Another game with excellent music that I don't think has been mentioned yet is Ai Senshi Nicol. The first stage BGM is great.

That's cool to know, thanks for sharing!

I guess you could split hairs and say that the AY-3 / YM2149 was an off the shelf part used just about everywhere in arcade games, computers and other electronic devices, but there's some design work involved in just including it on a NES cartridge, or even just deciding on that particular part, so the point stands.


well what takes someone with a programmers' background probably half an hour takes me a nights' spare time to figure out. Still learning a lot from everyone here!

Sure I can. The most glaring is in Strange Memory of Death, Aporia (Boss theme), Sophia (stage 7), and "Long Tomorrow" - some parts of the main melody were entierely taken off.

The absolute worst I think is that the soundtrack of Mr.Gimmick was dumbed down as if there was only one single square channel instead of making proper usage of the 2 square channels.

Comparing aporia now... yeah, it's evident. in the call and response section, they do use both channels for a thicker sound in the "responses", but it seems they didn't think to merge the expansion sound into the vacant "calls" despite it not being occupied by anything else. It does kind of work for the first half of it where the call is mostly a percussive layer to the bass (it sounds kind of cool solo), but the rythmically different melody of the second half of this part really feels like it is missing when having both fresh in mind. So yeah, that was a bit unnecessarily cheap. It's just a few 50% duty plucks with different release envelopes for the two parts of this section; wouldn't have been a big deal to transcribe.

OK here is an article series of the history of Sunsoft with several interviews. All the links can be found in this forum thread (six parts), but they have decayed. They still work with Google cache though.

Also I translated the Gimmick! manuals (both Japanese and Swedish manuals) to English some time ago but we have not yet released it. There are worries about this kind of thing are used in scamming schemes involving fake repros of the game.

I have an almost irrational love of the dreaded licensed Film&Television Nes titles. There is something magical about the context that is lost in translation in an NES port.
I especially adore the music from licensed games that take the source material and approximate it on the NES.

I made a quick list of some of my favorite 8 bit adaptations of film and TV scores:

Goonies 2
Gilligan's island
Airwolf
Top Gun
The Last Starfighter
Robocop
Hollywood Squares
Star trek the next generation
Indiana jones and the last crusade
Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back (these two have surprisingly faithful renditions of soundtrack)

Some of the sound design on these "covers" might be a little lacking, but simply hearing the 8 bit counterpart of real world music gives me the feels. There is something very charming and sincere about reducing music to it's simplest components. When the developers either payed the extra royalties to license the music and/or take the time to work out the composition, the results are some of my favorite in the NES catalog no matter how bad the games were (goonies 2 excluded).

Enjoy.

Continuing with licensed titles, Thunderbirds.

Though the game is just an average shooter (or a below average one, depending on who you ask, that it's published by Pack in Video didn't help) it's soundtracks are quite good (those lifted from the show were quite nicely arranged, and the original ones were nice too) and its cutscenses were superb.

*May need to confirm by playing the games again, but I seem to remember for unknown reasons the English version was shortened by removing the number of stages (no big deal, as stuff were being reused frequently) and some of the cutscenes were removed too (very big deal, as I think the awesome TB2 container docker scene was taken out), so the Japanese version was better.

If they license the movie but not its theme song, you get the garbage that is the soundtrack of Mindscape's The Terminator.

If only...

Ahh yes, good thought! I continually overlook that title. In some ways it seems like an average shooter, but the cut scenes really make it feel like a love letter to the source material. Pretty amazing in hindsight that they bothered developing a game for a 30 year old television series (at that point = 1989). In many ways it was a very forward thinking game in that they were soaking up those throw-back vibes, almost like the original "retro-tainment"...

If only someone had thought to make a Monkees title when they were being rerun in the late 80's *sigh*

Ah, the debate over Mega Man 4 music. I personally love it, I just think that 3 is better. I really love the first 4 though. I never really got into 5 or 6 though.
Another game that I don't think gets enough love is Bayou Billy. the track from the beat-em-up levels is really catchy. if they had kept the original Mad City difficulty but made the graphical improvements they did for the NES version, it would have been considered a classic. They made it too hard for kids to enjoy, and that killed it.

Megaman 6 is really great actually. It's not quite the level of the first three games but the second time I played it I realized that it's much better than 4 and 5. For music, I only remember Tomahawkman's stage music to be memorable.

Mad City is too easy, I beat it first time I played (probably because I played the NES version too much as a kid trying to beat it), but I think they managed to increase the frustration level as much as the difficulty level in Bayou Billy. Increasing the enemies' hit points to ridiculous amounts mostly makes it more time consuming than difficult once you learn the pattern. Same thing can be said about the mandatory alligator fights (in Mad City you can mostly ignore alligators). Bayou Billy also did something weird with the car levels that makes them more difficult, besides the fact that you die from one hit unlike in Mad City. As a kid I wondered what happened with the palm trees and street lamps that I could see in the car level screenshots in the manual, in Bayou Billy they are replaced by simple wooden posts. And car levels are just more ridiculous to play due to different logic or something. Driving feels more natural in Mad City.

I still haven't beaten Bayou Billy because I always died at the final boss body guards and it takes forever to get there due to the above-mentioned changes.