[Schwere Viper]

[Rei]

[zombieman000]

Jesper Kyd also did Sub-Terrania's soundtrack. Am sure the other Zyrinx games sound just as great.

[Ketamine Kazoo]

So barring obvious A-list choices like Ristar and Sonic for technical excellence:



Huge guitar pads with fake filter sweeps are the coolest. Probably the most convincing representation of the classic Amiga sound on the system and definitely the best western soundtrack, partly because they weren't using the same gimped proprietary engine as everyone else (only took them the entirety of the system's lifespan to get right, game was finished too late to be published)

Toy Story
Inside the Claw Machine
Food and Drink

Tied with Spinball as the best soundtrack on that gimped engine, they must have really fussed with the software to arrive at the sounds they did. Instrumentation lacks punch, but the soundtrack occupies this completely unique timbral range for the system and it sounds nice

Socket
Stone Age
Future

From the Battle Mania dudes, the sound team really tried to carry this game's weight

Gynoug
Stage 5-2
Stage 4-1
Boss

Really sophisticated composition in this game, almost classical


Cocoon Fight 1
Earth - Peto Fight 1
Moon/Mars - Sakurabe Fight 1

Sonic Team's top sound personnel doing jazz fusion and somehow no one mentioned this already, like that isn't priority one importance

See also Metal Fangs, Twinkle Tale and Granada (prefer MD version to x68000). Also special props to Verytex for achieving such a full sound without even touching the DAC or PSG, it's the quintessential Genesis soundtrack

[The Blueberry Hill]

Lush posting KK.

[diplo]

Star Cruiser has a handful of beautiful pieces. I hardly ever see this soundtrack mentioned.

Was Hitoshi Sakimto responsible for the driver in Verytex? If so, that's probably why the sound is so heavy and rich (that's the case with Gauntlet 4, anyway). Too bad that maybe one track at most on the score is by him.

[Ketamine Kazoo]

[Schwere Viper]

EA was pretty good at Mega Drive audio back in the day, folks. Three variations of a title theme first!


The original speaker bleeder theme for Strike, from Brian Schmidt.


Brian Schmidt again. Great embellishments on the core melody.


Don Veca's handiwork. Notice the very different instrumentation, especially the guitars.

ROAD RASH! Rob Hubbard was involved with the first two games, along with Mike Bartlow on Road Rash and Tony Berkeley for Road Rash 2. Don Veca sneaks in for Road Rash 2 as well, but Road Rash 3 is all his handiwork, and man - what handiwork.



Redwood Forest has been stuck in my head for quite a while.


Geez, the bassline in this is catchy. I know what I'm learning when I pick up a bass. Great drum samples, too!


Fourty-five second drum intro.

Oh hello Don Veca.


Road Rash 3 has a "world tour" motif going, so all the music starts with a stereotypical intro unique to the country before transitioning into MASSIVE SHRED. Some wicked riffs in these.





Aw yeah, oriental riff all over the place on that last one.

This post is already huge, but one more for good luck...


By Jeff Dyck. Now, where's that brown plaid shirt...

EDIT: Oh my, Brian...

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Blog: Machines That Sing

[RT-55J]

re: ResQ

Matt Furniss (Sega-16 interview) was a very prolific Mega Drive composer. Additional soundtracks composed/ported by him that I'd recommend are: Alien 3, Daffy Duck in Hollywood, Puggsy, and The Lost Vikiings, and Wiz 'n Liz.

[lolipalooza]

Some stuff:

http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Mega_Drive/Genesis_Sound_Engine_List

Cube/Noriyuki Iwadare, Krysalis, SMPS/Treasure, T.S, Terpsichorean and Zyrinx are probably the most notable sound drivers/engines, SMPS variants sound better than GEMS in almost every case

Toy Story - Strange Things. Pretty much a .mod format, technically very impressive. As far as I understand it, this song heavily utilizes the Genesis CPU for processing, which is why it could only play on a menu screen.

Devilish - Prairie. Sakimoto soundtrack, clear instruments, decent "vocals" even!

Time Trax - Title. Unreleased game, soundtrack by Tim Follin. Dude had a lot of talent to extract the best sound a system could pull off.

Dragon's Fury - Omake 4
Beyond Oasis - Master Mind
Vapor Trail - Staff Roll
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[Wall of Beef]

[RT-55J]

[satori]

the mega drive is just a ym2612. for that reason, it would be reasonable and more entertaining to make a general fm topic, at the very least for the ym2203, the ym2608, and this ym2612 (which is somewhere between the other two). compare the mega drive versions of the first two the legend of heroes games to the various computer versions... particularly the fm towns version, it uses a ym2612.

so... DINOSAUR. it's a real shame falcom (and thus everyone else) only knows and cares about the ym2203 version of the soundtrack, because it's very incomplete in comparison. that doesn't always happen with ym2203... sometimes composers change things for the worse when moving to ym2608, like with pyramid sorcerian and Grievously Shrine.

i can recommend mega drive products though. here are some games i find to have very "complete" soundtracks:

-alien soldier
-earnest evans
-mcdonald's treasure land adventure
-mega turrican (the only good thing about the amiga version is that sweet new opening tune, every other song was ruined)
-out run (STEP ON BEAT)
-ristar: the shooting star
-same! same! same! (better than the arcade version. also yuge did the music, not uemura. uemura did (most of?) hishou zame instead)
-shining and the darkness
-sonic the hedgehog 3 & knuckles (as long as you have the ports of the sonic & knuckles collection music. mj must be eliminated for it to work)
-spatterhouse 2
-super fantasy zone
-super hydlide
-superman
-the adventures of batman & robin
-the story of thor: a successor to the light
-the super shinobi ii
-thunder force iii
-thunder force iv
-vampire killer

i could recommend all kinds of games with a few nice tunes all over the place as well; i'm tempted to put mega turrican into that category just for the dumb boss themes dragging it down, but oh well. aside from that, i'd like to recommend star cruiser but its complete soundtrack is scattered across the many many versions, and i'd like to recommend musha aleste and vermilion but they're missing a few very key elements. aside from that, i'm very interested in vixen 357 and how the entire package plays out.

here's an interesting bit... motoi sakuraba and mega drive. for some reason the instruments he chose really only work for earnest evans and sound very off for any other game. go check out the x68000 sol-feace and arcus odyssey.

i'm sorry that my posts seem so nonsensically long... i just have a lot to say about this stuff and very little skill in saying it well.
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We are Marvelous! What kind of CD? Good Selected Gaud!!

[shnozlak]

what do you mean by:

sonic the hedgehog 3 & knuckles (as long as you have the ports of the sonic & knuckles collection music. mj must be eliminated for it to work)

?
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[allensmithee]

i was listening to the adventures of batman and robin soundtrack and damn
some of that sounds like god damn death grips
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