Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 185: The Music of PlayStation 1

Episode Date: December 3, 2018

Shane Bettenhausen joins Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, and a plethora of Retronauts listeners to enthuse about the games that took advantage of Sony PlayStation's groundbreaking audio capabilities by including bangin' soundtracks.

This week on Retronauts, you are not ready for these jams. thrilling extravaganza episode of Retronauts. I am Jeremy Parrish and with me this week in a room full of privileged white guys. It's... I am a Polygon Man advocate Bob Mackie. Bring him back. If Nat can exist, Polygon Man has a place in this world. Exactly.

Wow. It's hard to beat that. I was thinking about the Black Ikes disc, which came up before the PlayStation, which had a corn song. This is Shane Bettenhausen, huge PlayStation 1 music fan. And also Mr. PlayStation. Wow. No, I'm not Mr. PlayStation, but I...

Okay. I do work there and I... Let's see you the PlayStation. I own all of them. I mean, not all of them, but one of all of them. Mm-hmm. Do you even own a net Yarozé? No, but I passed up the opportunity to buy one twice

because I was like, how hard is it to find the games? That's a deep cut episode you should do in the future if a background... Net Yarros A? I don't know really anything about it. If you look hard on the net, there is a scene that chronicled some of the games. A few of the games came on demo discs in places. I believe Devil Dice started as a Net Yorose. You're right.

And, yeah, that's the only one I know about. Yeah. We're already on tangents. You know it's a good retronaut when we haven't even got through the introductions. Yeah. I forgot to tell what this episode is. Okay, so this episode is the PlayStation 1 music special. And this episode is not what it was going to be about two days ago.

But I wanted to put together just an episode highlighting the best music on PlayStation 1 because, in my opinion, that is the pinnacle of video game music. I love A-bit music. I love 16-bit music. Are you asking us to, like, agree with that or disagree with that? This is a debate now. You're welcome to have your own opinion. It can be, it can occur or you can disagree.

I look forward to you laying out that argument. Yeah, I'm going to. But anyway, I put out a call for listeners of retronauts. That's you, the people listening to this podcast, both by Twitter and by our website, to submit emails or messages on our blog. saying, here are my favorite PlayStation music picks. And it was going to be like a supplement, you know, the letter section to supplement the main podcast. But there were so many responses that I really feel like this episode just needs to be like us kind of celebrating your music picks because you pick some pretty great music.

And most of the things I was going to highlight have been highlighted by our listeners. So, you know, just to kind of save myself some work, I'm going to let them speak to why these soundtracks are great. I have a quick theory. Do you think possibly now the remit of retronauts has expanded to include, you know, the late, mid-90s. The remit of retronauts includes up to 2008 at this point. Right, because it moves. But like, originally, you know, back in the day, we're a bit of geysers. You know, our generation, many people in our generation view classic chip tunes as the halcyon days. And anything beyond that is kind of cheating.

Whereas I wonder, now that gamers have aged and, like, you know, millennials, other Gen X people have grown up on PS1 era music, that maybe a nostalgia factor that just the people who happen to be listening were excited, oh, that's the thing I grew up on and they maybe found it difficult to enjoy chip tunes the same way we did, just a theory. I don't know. Speaking as someone who never lost his love for NES and Super NES, et cetera, games, you know, the PlayStation era was really exciting for me as someone who likes good music, especially progressive. have rock-tinged music, so much of which showed up here. And, you know, like, so, so, yeah, let me, let me explain why I personally feel like the PS1 specifically is the best era for video game music, which is not to say there wasn't other good music in the past or present, because there is. I just feel like PS1 is where music, like the tech and the artistry really sort of came

together perfectly. So obviously, Sony was a company with a tremendous legacy of music. Obviously, you have, you know, the Walkman. Well, before that, the transistor radio. Right. Sony was kind of synonymous with music. There was Sony music. You know, they've been a label for ages.

The Super NES audio processor, the sound chip, was a Sega creation created by Kin Kuduragi. or at least headed up by his division. In many other episodes, you've talked about how that was really when that launched, one of the things that was so much different than Genesis hardware could really create this beautiful sample-based stuff that didn't sound like the Mega Drive Genesis sound chip. Right.

And so naturally, when Sony created its first home console, audio was very important. I mean, it was not only a CD-ROM-based platform, but it had great audio-out capabilities. The original model of PlayStation is considered like a reference standard CD player by audio files. Yeah, that's true. The one that has the three, you know, the red, yellow, white audio ports on the back. I would interject, you know, if the evolution of main home platforms had been, you know, Famicom NES to, you know, Super Nintendo Genesis to PlayStation, then it is like a cat, you know, a huge leap.

However, for those of us who did have PC engine CD, Sega, CD, early PC CD ROM, then there was this jarring transition from chiptune-based, you know, generated sound to amazing Red Book Audio. And that's kind of where I felt in. Like, you know, pre-PS1, I had played Sega CD in Tropic CD, Played Beast Book 1 and 2, Play, Looner Silver Star. So, like, you know, I think for some of us, PlayStation was we're kind of normalized, where all games that all gamers got to play had the same level of great fidelity and composition. but, you know, it wasn't this thing you could not have fathomed. Okay, I think there's also another factor to consider here,

which is disc-based systems before PlayStation either used redbook audio or they used internally generated, you know, PCM or... Where's the episode of you guys explain all those books? It's like the best episode. It's like two years ago. Yeah, it's been a few years. Literally the color of the book that the specifications were written in. There's binders.

Yeah, there was a red binder and a yellow binder and a green binder. I love it when I learned things from Retronauts. in that episode. So Red Book Audio, just to give a quick reminder, is pre-recorded audio that streams off like a CD player, like you're listening to a CD. At the same, like, her, at the same rate and everything. Yeah, you know, I mean, like, literally you can put a game with Red Book audio into a CD player. Skip the first track.

Skip the data track or destroy your speakers. And then the rest of it plays as a standard compact disc. Yeah, the Batman Returns Sega CD soundtrack, which is amazing. You guys were all wrong. That was in my, I was in my sister's car, CD. player. I stand corrected on that because I went back and when I added, like, edited in the music for that episode, I was like, all of this music is great and that's going to be like the music for this episode. I told myself I wasn't going to say you guys wrong. And we're like 10 minutes in, but like Spencer Nielsen's composition. I was going to say. It is Spencer Nielsen, right? Yeah. Yep. I thought so. Okay. So that's a, that's a digression. Yellow Book audio is when music is pre-recorded and then streamed. So much more of it can fit on. It's not. at CD quality and it's not indexed like a compact disc. So you can't play it outside of the game context. But it takes up far less space. It takes much more compact. But it's still super

high quality and it's easier to loop that. And then there is, you know, like the PCM, the internally generated chip tune music. So before PlayStation, CD-based systems either did Redbook audio or they did, you know, internally generated PCM. And that's great. But I don't think Red Book Audio is usually the best choice for video games, unless you have, like, a fighting game, that's great, because those are naturally, like, you know, 90 seconds maximum. So you don't have to worry about looping or anything like that, but you could only feel like 30 minutes of music on the disc. Yeah, but like for an RPG or something, you want hours of music and you want, you know, for like dungeon diving or extensive battles or something, you want music that loops naturally. And when you look back to, like, Lunar on Sega CD... It's got, like, 17 tracks, like 10 of them are good.

Yeah, it's got the aerobics workout theme song. It's got... But, yeah, like, the battle theme... The boss battle music is, it's fantastic. Yeah, it's great. But the thing is, if your battle lasts more than about 90 seconds, which often happens, the music stops. There's two seconds of dead air as the CD-ROM recues and goes back to the beginning of the track. Those are slow speeds, too.

I thought they, like, the song would have... at least fade out or whatever and then restart. But there was just the freeze in the song? No, like the song fades down. Oh, it fades down. It ends. Yeah. And then there's a gap.

And then it starts again. Yeah. That was like a one speed CD drive, right, or something. Sing a CD. Single speed, it's really bad cash. But it is true. Like, PS1 was out of the box a different musical experience. Right.

You had the support for Yellow Book Audio and just higher quality hardware and output. And as a result, I really think, well, you know, also you had a lot of developers who had only worked on cartridge-based systems like, you know, SquareSoft composers and Konami composers, who pretty much just worked for Genesis or Super NES games, all of a sudden having access to much more powerful hardware where they could bring their discipline to, you know, this new platform and really expand and explore the ideas they had in their heads without the limit. of those cartridges and worrying about, like, can I fit all these samples in here? Right. Well, and a lot of chip tune music would emulate other genres that we love, such as, you know, Prague or, or, you know, try to do hip hop or jazz or something. But it was always within the context of what could be done with that chip, you know, the chip process, the actual hardware in there. But now suddenly, if someone wanted to do a jazzy soundtrack or a heavy metal soundtrack, you know, they could really actually do that in a new way.

So, so, yeah, like I said, you have this sort of. of confluence of technology and creativity. The following generation, like the PlayStation 2 generation, Metal Gear Solid 2 destroyed everything because Hideo Kojima brought in Harry Gregson Williams, a film composer, and said, do some film compositions for me for the cutscenes. And, you know, so Noriiko Hibino

still did the game portions of Metal Gear Solid 2. But I really feel like that was a turning point at which game developers, publishers, designers, composers suddenly said, like, video games should not just look and act like movies, or like movies. They should sound like it, too. So you started getting into these sort of droning, you know, amelotic background filler noise. Like, if you look at the music of, you know, Xbox 360 or PlayStation 4 games, it's rarely as memorable as PS1 games because so much of it is film influenced, which isn't to say, like, there's no memorable music being composed anymore.

that's obviously not true, just that, especially for, like, big budget games. Well, I would argue that, you know, from every generation on, we've gotten less music in games, too. I think from a film perspective, too, like, you don't, you're not used to having BGM running over every scene when everyone talks, whereas 8-bit 60, but you really did. The music almost never faded away. And it's, it's kind of a detriment. Like, I'm playing Monster on a World, and I actually feel like, oh, man, I wish there was more music when I'm on, like, you know, just an expedition. It waits for the bosses, it waits for conflict. It's very dynamic.

And that kind of, by PS2, PS3, PS4 generation, we're getting, you know, few. were games that have music all the time, whereas I felt PS1, a lot of developers, especially in Japan, in Europe, still felt like, oh, we should be giving you music all the time. P.S.1 was where the classic, you know, original discipline of game music and, you know, the

same, like, mindset of creating game music and filling games with music that, you know, that held throughout the 8, and especially 16-bit generations, was still intact, and the technology was there to allow that music to sound great, and you know, the next generation

things would start to tip away, but PS1 is where all of those things really came together. And that is why I personally hold it as the best platform for game music. You're making a good case. I would also say PS1, because it was such a well, you know, well-made sound environment for making sound in games, you start to actually get interesting, well-done games about sound and music. Of course, we'll get to that later, and there have been a whole episode about that. But, yeah, it was this interesting intersection of technology and talent. Yeah, and I mean, all of these things that existed, like games about sound and music,

you had Otoki on Famicom Disc System and you had Marky Mark, make my venue or whatever on Sega Z. Or like Peter Gabriel's Explorer 1 or something. Right, yeah. Yeah. Because, so you don't like just pure Red Book Audio, so you prefer PS1 because they can't possibly do a full soundtrack with Redbook Audio. So they have these other alternatives that end up being better for games. Is that what you're saying? I'm not totally averse to Red Book Audio, but I think it has to be used smartly.

It has to be used tactically. There are some Red Book Audio CDs or soundtracks on PlayStation. Few and far between. Yeah, but like, you know, the Street Fighter collection. Right. And that's fine. But it was cool to have that because I could like listen to the soundtrack to Street Fighter 2 and not have to buy it separately.

Well, we're not listing aren't any games yet, but I guess I might as well just say like at launch, one of the key titles at the launch of PlayStation was Namco's Ridge Racer. And Namco's Ridge Racer was Redbook Audio and I played the hell out of that disc. But again, that's a racing game where you have a very, you know, you have a very, limited time on those tracks. Like, me and all my friends were listening to that like a CD at the time. And that was a very new thing. I was just thinking

of the composers who would just bring in their... I don't know how this worked. I mean, sure, there were libraries provided, but a lot of developers would have their own, like, sound fonts and sound libraries. Like, there's, like, a very distinct sound you hear in, like, Hitoshi Sakamoto's scores. He's exactly what I was going to say. And that sound, like,

that sound he had on the PlayStation. Like, all of his scores still sound like that. Like, they don't sound any different. They're just pre-recorded now. I don't know if it's the instruments, like virtual instruments he used, or just his use of reverb. But everything has like, and not just on PlayStation, also radiant silver gun. It's like his signature

sound. That's what bass escape music sounds like for the most part. But, you know, that was the opportunity for him to start exploring that. He composed for Super Famicom before that, and he was doing great compositions, but he didn't have his sound yet. But then, you know, Final Fantasy tactics came along, and all of a sudden

that allowed him and Masahiro UI to create, you know, music similar to what they did for Tactics Oger, but bigger and more bombastic because of the, you know, like the sound quality. It was like they were performing, they recorded their music in a concert hall or something. Well, and it is really, at this era already, I had my system, my consoles hooked up through, you know, a little stereo with speakers in my room. And I'd played Seagasy, I played demographics, but like some of these games did, some of the yellow book games on PS1 did sound almost just as good. Like, it wasn't as if I'm hearing, like, a scratchy, bad, low-volume version of this stuff, you know? So, like, it was, it was new and fresh. Yeah.

Yeah, I bought a few soundtrack CDs for Super NES games. And if you listen to those soundtracks, everyone was like, oh, it's a video game. You know, Chrono Trigger or Secret of Moner or whatever. Like, it was clearly video game music. But, you know, once I started listening or playing PlayStation games, I would buy the soundtracks to, like, Sweak it in, or Symphony of the Night or whatever. and people would hear that music and be like, what is this? It's really good. Is it a film score?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, people really were in, you know, I would, I would, when I was working at the student newspaper, I would listen to Symphony of the Night and people didn't know it was from a video game. I thought we weren't, what is this? I came here assuming we weren't allowed to say, Sydney the night because it's so obvious. It's going to be mentioned.

Okay. Well, yeah, and that, I think for many people, and that was, you know, two years into. Why would we cover PlayStation soundtracks and not mention symphony and that that's a weird idea, Shane? You know, I think that was one that broke open people's idea of what was possible coming out of the speakers of your game. And there was so much music in that game, too. So, yeah, it's obviously almost everyone's fave. All right, so I don't know if we want to belabor this any further. I don't know.

We could just get to the games. I feel like we should just go to the letters. I kind of wanted to go, but like, have you arranged them chronologically from release of games? No, I just, basically, it was first respondents, first served. But I guess before we get to that, you know, when I mentioned corn at the beginning of this, there was this weird CD, music CD that you could, like. later put in your PlayStation that you got if you put money down at retail to pre-order a PlayStation pre-launch, and it had corn on it.

And this was like the first time, one of the first times licensed music was thrust at the gamer. And, you know, very shortly after launch, actually at launch, you can wipe out, you're getting licensed music real good, interesting, avant-garde, IDM from Europe and stuff in your game. And within a few years, you'll be getting lots more licensed music in soundtracks as well. So I think that is a fundamental shift in this generation. Yeah, yeah, the use of licensed soundtracks. There are a few mentions in these letters of licensed soundtracks,

but to me I'm really thinking more in terms of like original compositions, like video game music. Right. But I think some people would point to license as a good thing, and that's something that didn't happen to the generation. Yeah, I'm not saying it's bad. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater gets a mention in here. I was thinking about that this entire time.

Yeah, I have wipeout XL on my list of top five, actually, because it really, for me, was like, I was into that genre music and it had things I liked, which, you know, that had. never happened before. Right. And, you know, this is kind of up until, like, 2000, 2001, so not every game has Dragula in it. It'd always be fun when I would see these games in stores, and they were to be, like,

with music by blank, and I'm like, who is God lives underwater? Should I care about this? If young people aren't familiar with Rob Zombies, Dragula, you should know it, but it should have been, like, own a dream cast. Right. It was in, no, but it was also in, like, Twist of Metal 2, I think. But there's in lots of games on PS1. And then, tragically, Sega of America added it to the amazing soundtrack of Jetset Radio

when they brought it to America his Jack Ryan Redo almost was like a slap in the face. Like, how about they can be a run a soundtrack? We're going to put drag in it. All right. So let's just jump in to the listener man.

We get letters and written letters in the mail. We're going to read them to you now. So from Haightani, the favorite score on PS1 is a cruel question. There are so many good ones to choose from. Just thinking about all the Squarespace games back then.

The soundtracks on PS1 in general were in a pretty awesome time period for video games regarding new technologies. On 8 and 16-bit consoles, you were limited by data sizes and had to come up with looping songs that don't annoy you after two loops, and most achieved that. This way, a lot of composers created very catchy, melodic tracks were all still humming today. When CD-ROMs were a thing,

it was a whole new world in regards to size and sound quality. With composers still living their last-gen mentality of creating melodies, they have created a whole lot of awesome video-gamy sounding, high-quality soundtracks. I feel like since console generation seven, we often had generic movie orchestrals because it's epic. So I did not actually read this letter in advance, but... Is this your secret pseudonym? No, I just noticed that, like, he, this person, he or she wrote in first and left the first message, and so I stuck it here at the beginning.

But yes, that's exactly what I was saying. Like, all the things that I was stumbling through, this person said very efficiently. So thank you, hi, Tani. I'm thinking about square soundtracks, the PlayStation 1. It's a game I would never want to play ever again, but I use the music all the time. I'm writing, that's Legend of Mana. I mean, the first major song is just an orchestral song or whatever. The rest is it streaming?

Is it sound fun stuff? It's streaming, yeah. But it's fantastic stuff. I think. Yeah. It's my favorite part of that game, actually. Yeah, it's understandable. It's the best part.

We'll definitely get to Legend of Mata. All right, from the one 6643, the one PS disc that my father and brother used to put in the car CD player in play was Vigilante 8, second defense. I can use two words to describe it, Fun K. That's great. This is kind of a spinoff of Interstate 76, that series, and that game was just like, how? a bunch of funky tracks on the disc that would play sort of like a car radio. They would just play an album of these

especially made tracks for the game. Yeah, kind of before GTA did that. Yeah. They're really good too. That actually sounds a bit like Naganuma's good stuff for Jets at Radio too. Nation of JapanMation says without a doubt, my top soundtrack from the PS1 has to be Ridge Racer Type 4.

Each track had a perfectly chill vibe, which reminded the player that no matter how fast you're going or how tight the races are, you should relax and just enjoy the feeling of driving. It's my go-to album to listen to while I'm snowboarding, as it just has a way of making me zone out and unwind. And Adam says, for me, it's got to be a ridge racer type 4. To those who have never played it, it might just seem like your average arcade racer from the outset. But Namco conceived an aesthetic for that game's UI and soundtrack that was the epitome of cool back in 99. And even today, there's still nothing like it.

The emotional acid jazz score not only sounds beautiful on its own, but contextualizes the story mode in gameplay, making it feel like you're racing for something more than a win. It's all great, but my favorite tracks are Pearl Blue Soul, move me, and spiral ahead. So it's spectacular. I mean, that game is wonderful. It's aesthetically gorgeous. But, you know, it's funny. I consider that on my list, but I end up putting Ridge Racer Revolution because it's a little more pure to the Ridge Racer vibe.

Like, I feel like RF4 is almost too classy. It's like you're at a jazz club in Tokyo. But that's why I love it. I don't really enjoy racing games, but Ridge Racer Type 4 is the one classic racing game that I have played in its entirety and beaten every race. I wish they would remake it or something, right? I don't trust them to do it right.

There was something about the musical quality, like high quality music, and like just the super chill vibe, and then the sort of abstraction you get from that level of PS1 games. I mean, that was an amazing-looking PS1 game, but you're like driving into the sunsets and something about like that that sort of dithered, low, like relatively low resolution, you know, just rendition of Europe. I don't think it would work as well in HD. It's true.

But I felt like that that sound drag deviated too far from like kind of the weird, happy, hardcore, super strange techno that the first two. And even a rage racer had some of that too. But yeah, he's right. It's something that was kind of forgotten about you. I think a lot of people might not know what this game even looks or sounds like. I mean, I went into Ridge Racer 5, expecting more. are the same and it was just like oh no it was back it was kind of more like greatest hits of the first yeah like ridge racer has never captured that vibe again it's no racer has and it's such a

disappointment has namco given up on the series at all the last few were like our racing evolution they weren't even developed internally yeah i feel like weird i mean i guess there was a new one on vita that was the last i don't think they released that i think i think the vita one came they did okay weird okay i played a demo and it was just like play with the logo with the touchscreen no i think it's rich racer it's a bit like ridracer five or six again Unfortunately, I don't have experience with this series, but I have to say a Namco game that unexpectedly has great music is Ace Combat. That gets a mention?

Okay, yeah, it's freaking amazing. We'll definitely get to that. But here's a few samples of Ridge Racer Type 4. This one's Urban Fragments. There are vocals, because, yeah, there are vocals in some of the previous Ridge Racer stuff, too. This is the opening movie. Oh, which is amazing. They always had a new, like, you know, CG image model,

and I think this one was like wearing a 60s miniskirt kind of twiggy looking. Yeah, great. Also, this game came with a 60-first FPS high-res mode version of Ridge Racer 1, one of the few high-res mode PS-1 games. And it was a crazy control of the JogCon controller, which wasn't as fun to me as the NedgeCon controller, but still worth seeking out of your crazy. The JogCon, the one you're twisted?

No, that's the NedgeCon. The J-Con has like that. like a wheel that you put your thumb in and then you'd spin it around. Yeah, I mean, the slap bass sounds real, you know? Yeah, that's just like the select screen, but it sounds great. So we'll get to the three that he mentioned, Adam mentioned. Pro Blue Soul is first. Man, it's taking me back to the club.

Oh, yeah, this is, I totally remember the song. You're gonna make me dig this game out, T-Fron. I'm just seeing glow-sit, glow-stick spinning around. That's not intense enough for that. There's not, like, that grinding hardcore sound. Yeah, you need to hear some of the weird happy hardcore from the first two games. It gives you headaches in a good way. Oh, yeah, it's got the flu.

and the electric piano. I thought, for me, like, this game, the soundtrack and the aesthetic of the game itself kind of reminded me of this Japanese band called Pizzikato 5. They kind of had crossover success in America around the same time, too. Yep. Yeah, very, like, you know, classy throwback to the 60s.

This is my favorite song from the movie. You're right, the soundtrack. You're taking me back to you, Froggy. Because, you know, I'm not a young man. And I think I reviewed this game. Wow. All right. I wasn't quite in the press at this point,

but it definitely spent a lot of time with this game. And, like, I, yeah, like, this is one of those synesthetic experience. Sin aesthetic experiences where you, like, hear the music and you visualize the game. But I'm kind of, it's kind of blown in mind how it is filling me with nostalgia because, you know, this is, it's a long, it's more than this is 20 years ago, right?

Like, you know, it's, and I don't think I've played a racing game with a soundtrack like this in the last 10 years. I wish someone would do it again. And finally move me. I'm starting to feel like a DJ. I'm seeing some results right now. This game had this interesting whole, like, long story mode of sorts, with different teams and some intrigue and lots of characters.

And there was a Klanoa car. There was also a Pac-Man car that looked like Pac-Man. It was hideous. It was, yeah, but it was such a hilarious contrast to this movie. So this game could get, you know, the soundtrack could get pretty intense, but for the most part, like I think of the really mellow Eurobeat stuff when I think of Ridge Racer type four. But I think I misjudge it.

I think it does on several these tracks, reference back to the first two games. Like, this song definitely references the first game soundtrack. All right. So, a series of ambiguous emoji rights, Chronocross, was the first video game soundtrack that I bought. And before I did, I used to park surge on the map of another world and let

dream of the shore near another world loop out of my TV while I studied. I have mixed feelings about the game as a whole. Put on Scar of Time, and I become a puddle of positive feelings. Okay, I think I wrote that letter because that's literally my... This is, I've, on this podcast, many times, I've complained about a Crown of Cross is, like, the worst characters ever. There's, like, you know, a damn cactus. Oh, you love Mojo.

It's like a rogues gallery. The game falls apart, but it's the best soundtrack. I mean, oh, my God. This is a soundtrack that I would drive around at night just to listen to the music. I still do. I play the soundtrack at work at least twice a week. Yeah, but it's something for me, like, Ridge Racer 4 is great for listening to while you're pretending to drive, but this music is like the night driving song.

This song is A plus prime perfect. I mean, come at me, bro. Like, really, like, I dare someone to think of a better midst of a track than this. maybe. Okay. But it doesn't sound that impressive now. Just you wait. He's got to kick in. When those drums kick in, the bass... Was this song Red Book on the disc or something? No. No. It was like attached to

cuts, like, CGI. Yeah, it's the opening. It seems all like, you know, mellow. They make you one and when the fiddles. I mean, I know you like Celtic. Well, you're not cold, but you're like... Hang on. This is like the Phil Collins in the air tonight's drum break right here.

Are you sure it's not red book, you can't just, uh, you can't just listen to it off a disc? What if it's, like, a pre-recorded audio attached to the cutscene, like... I think Bob is right. Yeah, I think there's something better about this track. Oh, I think I know why it's readbook because it's something that bothers me. If you listen to the recording, somebody drops something in the first five seconds. Like, there's a mistake. Like, somebody drops...

Oh, yeah, like, streaming audio catches all that. No, no, but you're right. There's actually, like, the sound of, like, a baton or something hitting something in the... Yeah. In this song at the very beginning, it's kind of low in the mix. It's like they couldn't do another take. Like, somebody dropped... But it's transcendent.

Yeah. And, like, what's more, like, that is, you know, it is represented the rest of the sound like, you'll pay some more songs. But I feel like this game, more than any other, like, four-disc, square PS1 RPG. There's only two, oh. It's three discs. Front across? No. Cross is three discs.

But, you know, it's more consistent than Final Fantasy 7 or 9. You were talking about, you know, being able to hear someone drop something. One of the things that really struck me about this track, this is Home Goldov, is that you can hear, like sliding on the strings, but it's still streaming. It's just like super high quality. But I love it because it kind of feels like physical. Yeah, it's like, it's gorgeous. I mean, do you agree that this is his finest work at this game?

Oh yeah, I think this soundtrack killed him. And he went into seclusion and only does like five songs per soundtrack. He does. I mean, the songs he does are good, but now he's just like a pinchheader, I think. Well, I think he also, he's more self-referential these days. Yeah. I mean, he did a okay soundtrack for a very bad game, Suganai or whatever. Suganai Atonement, that soundtrack is really good.

It's really good. That game is ass, but it feels like he is referencing his crono cross stuff a lot in that game. Yeah, I mean, he really got into the Celtic thing at this point. Yeah, there's such a wide variety of styles in this. I love dungeons there. People imprisoned by destiny. This is like Joe Hisishi. right here.

Like, this belongs in a Ghibli movie. This is a, this is a battle theme. It takes a while to get going, isn't it? Or is this the way? It stays, it's pretty mellow.

Yeah, this is the battle theme against Serge's father, or his father's friend? It's a sad battle. It is. It's in front of Lene's Bell. A saddle. Yeah.

At sunset. Like, I don't know if this means anything to anyone who hasn't played the game, but if you have played the game, and really got into it and, like, got into the story. You can't hear this without being, like, taken back to that moment where you're fighting this man, you don't want to fight.

But you have to because he's, like, you know, trying to stop you from accidentally destroying the world. So good. And also the fact of this melody is, like, this one of the other le motifs you already heard already, but it played in a minor key super slowly to make it this, like, crazy. Yeah, this is, like, the radical dreamers thing. Yeah, it's the same theme, just, like, totally distorted.

So it's, like, it builds to a crescendo, but it never becomes, like, a battle theme. Yeah, the soundtrack runs the gamut, but it's super cohesive, too. The instrumentation throughout is gorgeous. I have a feeling we're only going to get through, like, five games. They're going to be damn good. This game, I mean, you should do a whole episode on the soundtrack almost,

it's that good. Well, we'll do a full chrono cross. I just sort of time. Oh, the characters, though. And the frame rate. Go back and play that now. Ooh, yeah. Oh, the frame rate's terrible.

Single digits. It's like 12 frames a second and a handle. Here's a great one. This is an overworld theme. And this one calls back to KronoCrosser. I love the percussion. But, yeah, like the shaking drum. It's very Peter Gabriel.

Yes. This is like the in-your-eyes of Krono-Trader. There's just like this haunting beauty and longing to many of the tracks on this. Love it. And there's so much more, like, texture that he could add, you know, he could work with, all composers could work with on PlayStation compared to Super Nios. Like, Super, Chrono Trigger has an amazing soundtrack, but it just doesn't begin to compare what he did with this. And then, of course, you know, you have your progressive rock. one of my favorites again

I wonder if he felt like a competition with Uyamatsu because like you know between this generation like the soundtracks for Final Fantasy 7 and 8 sold like a million units in Japan or so there were legitimate hits I think that in terms of like instrumentation

he definitely won because I love the Final Fantasy 9 soundtrack but it does not in terms of sound quality is not sound as good as it is I don't know if the compositions are better I'd have to go back and listen to I think this has better compositions Yeah

Still great music But you're right Maybe he did like Kind of like Ruin himself By putting so much into this That he could never top it

But it totally holds up I mean like As I said Like I listen to this all the time I wish more games That soundtracks like this And we'll end Krona Cross with

What other than Radical Dreamers Mm hmm This is a real guitar. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. No, I mean, like, the thing about Yellow Book audio is it can be live recorded instrumentation. Right, right.

And it's streaming audio. The bit rate is lower. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to, like, get a feel for what it is because. But it was, but you can tell, like, the production, like, it was miced really properly. Like, you know, in a studio, lots of money was spending. Yeah, I mean, listen to the echo on the guitar strings. Yeah.

I just feel like games in this era, especially even Big Budget Games is like, you get one. You get like two songs recorded live per RPG. Like, that's basically it. So they got a beginning song and an ending song, and that was it. T. Frog, correct me if I'm wrong. Did the arrangement finally come out for this? Like last year and I failed to buy it. Do I need to buy it right now?

Yeah, there's an album. Wow. They've been talking about it for like a decade. I think it finally came out. But it wasn't out of TGS. Maybe it came out right after TGS. I need to buy it. No, I picked it up last year in Tokyo in May.

Was the vinyl out? I got the vinyl at the Square Store. That's where you got to go. You've got to go to the square next door in Shinjubu. I'm hopping on a plane after this podcast. I don't know if they still have it, but at the time, yeah, like it was selling for like $150 online and it was 40 at square store. But it's not as good as the brink of time, is it?

It's totally different. The brink of time is God tier. I read your review of this, and you said it wasn't as, it wasn't quite as good, but it's not, it's still really good, I think, right? Yeah, I mean, nothing is like the brink of time. Like, that is a, like, that's actually his, Mitsido wouldn't do an album like bring to time down. That's actually his most genius.

work. And I think, if you think about it, I think Brink of Time did influence. He was a little more adventurous with this, you know? Yeah, I can see that. From David Camacho, there are a lot of obvious, oh, sorry, we're going back to Mail talking about different names now. That was Crohnagrosse. From David Camacho, there are a lot of obvious answers to this, but I want to give

a shout out to Mega Man X6. Game gets a lot of hate. It's definitely a mess, but man, I love it, and some of that might be because of its soundtrack. The intro stage song and Commander Yamarks, the especially. I know you love this game, Jeremy. It's certainly not the localization that is noted for.

This game is a steaming pile of garbage, but the soundtrack is phenomenal. It really is. It's funny. I was looking back on all the Rockman games of this gen, and I was, even though I consider Rockman 8 a Saturn game more than a PS1 game, I chose X. I loved the composition and some of the remixes, but I don't even remember Rockman X6's music. You call it rock man.

So I'm excited to hear this because I played that game. I reviewed it, but it's not a good game. So, like, my memory is clouded with how bad the game is. Well, here we go. It's good. Sounds like Final Fantasy's happening, too. Kind of, yeah. So this game, yeah, I hated it when I played it,

but right around the time this game came out, Capcom or Suliputer released two. different sets of Rockman soundtracks in Japan. One of them was a box of Rockman 1 through 6, and one of them was a box of Rockman X 1 through 6. I have the Rockman 1 to 6. I picked those up. Yeah. And so

you know, I was listening through them and like, okay, yeah, this is good. And I got to the Mega Man X 6 soundtrack and was like, how do I not remember this music being this good? I guess it was because I was so angry and just like shooting daggers at the screen. Yeah, there are so many games that are awful

but have great soundtracks. I can think of like I listen to the Dawn of Mana soundtrack a lot. It's not PlayStation 1, but it's just like, there was so many songs on that soundtrack. That game is terrible. That's a Yoko Shimamura, right? I think it's a lot of people, but it's just like, I can't believe you put this much work into such a bad game. It's like four discs. I don't think they knew it was bad.

Yeah. Like, I guess they had a lot of ambition. All right, here's Commander Yon Mark. It's kind of a jazzy tone, too. I don't know that this would have been my pick as a favorite. I like it, though. But the other thing about this gen of Mega Man of Mega Man's soundtracks is, like, as great as the NDS ones were, the loops were so short. And here they actually, like, stretch out and have more exploration through the levels of this music.

Yeah, they have long intros before they get to the meat of the song. Yeah, there we know. And, you know, it's funny, Capcom's vibe this generation, one of my choices here, someone else probably mentioned is Breathfire 3, which is similarly jazzy. Actually, no, no one is interesting. Breathfire 3 has a spectacular soundtrack. It totally rips off Krono-trigger, too. It does, and it's a departure for the soundtrack.

I mean, it's a departure for the series because it has a jazzy kind of feel. And also, like, Street Fighter E.X, very nice jazzy feel. This is pretty jazzy, too. Yeah, you have Marvel v. Capcom 2. That is as jazzy as he gets. Two jazzy. It's going to take you for a ride. 10-second loop.

So my pick for Mega Man X6, actually, is the episode, or the track named after our favorite Retronauts, former contributor, Metal Shark Player. I think this is the one. It's just like quintessential Capcom synthesizer butt rock. Yeah, it's going to throw back to the 60-midero stuff. Oh, yeah. But then, yeah, all of a sudden. and they're like, oh, surprise, guess what?

It's techno. This game did not deserve this soundtrack. Nah. What the hell with you, Mega Man X-6? From Matt Cartwright. Here we go. Legend Amana has one of the most emotional and beautiful soundtracks of any game I've ever played.

The soundtrack itself is Yokos Shimomura's personal favorite. Even if you don't like the game, every single track has something to offer. from the calming nostalgic presence of where the heart resides to the uplifting adventurous wins a sign of a journey and the emotional finale of Song of Mana, not to mention the boss themes, which if nothing else will get your adrenaline rushing.

This soundtrack serves as an inspiration to me and remains the most memorable of the PS1 era. So let me see. Here we have a couple of selections. I did not know that she considered this her favorite work. I can understand why. I don't think it's my. Fine, but here, maybe I'll reassess it.

Do we know what language this is in? It's in a real, it's in a real language, not a... Actually, I don't think this is... Oh, this is not the vocal theme? No, sorry, wrong track. My bad. I miss queued. DJ.

Oh, my goodness. Kick me out. There we go. This is the one that made me stop and say, what the hell? It's like Welsh or. something I think it's like Swedish or something Gaelic

This is pretty I've heard this in 20 years Because you know I wanted to love this game We didn't we all want to all this game You're the guy who talks to the concert, aren't you? I was on board for the summer of adventure when this happened buying all those games Brave events

Shards of Faye Fence and There was a fusion before. This is like summer of 2000. Threads of fate. Threads of fate. Bigger's story. This. Corona Cross.

Such a good piece of music. Normally, I really hated the pop tracks in games of this era. I didn't. I have the win. Oh, well, that's an outlier. But I was going to say, you know, Square and other Capcom canada of this generation realize, hey, we can treat these games like anime, give them the opening and the ending theme,

spend a lot of money really writing and producing a good song. for that. It would make a big difference. It made the game feel like a big deal. It is Swedish. It's a sung by a Swedish woman that Yuccamer wanted to work with. You know, these days, she's not underrated as a composer, but back then, she's still pretty, like, new to the scene and not put in the same classes and others.

I don't know. I think she made her mark with Parasite Eve. As a known quantity. That's on my list. I assume so I was going to pick it. But, like, really, I thought of Kingdom Arts is where her reputation blew up. I think it's when she became a name. Because, I mean, Parasetti was good, but Kingdom Hearts was a Disney explosion. So I wanted to point out this track from Legend of Mana, Moonlit City, Roa,

because it brings in motifs of Hiroki Kikuta's soundtrack for Secret Amata, like the Gamalon elements, but it makes it its own thing. She really kind of takes the history of Mauna music and puts a new spin on it. I don't remember this one. You probably didn't play far enough into the game. It's possible. Yeah, I was like, I did not sign up for Final Fight with precious moments figures. That's what this game is.

Is there an arrangement of this, you know, of this album? I don't believe so, though. All right. I'm going to jump ahead to Mutecki, who says, I'm a sucker for the Castlevania Chronicle soundtrack. It includes with Quarveenia Chronicle soundtrack. Good choice. With quite high fidelity, all the original variations of the sublime music from the original X-68,000 version of the game, even of in America, if I hit all four trigger buttons when starting a game.

And also includes an excellent set of remixes of the tunes by Sota Fujimori, one of the more important names in the Beat Mania series. And appropriately enough, it means the soundtrack is some well-mastered dance remixes of the original tunes. Vampire Killer and You Goddamn Bathead, the final boss music, stand out as particularly inspired choices from it. I'm a big fan of whatever song that is where Dracula raps. There's a Castlevania. That is not this one. You're thinking of Dracula Battle? Yes, Dracula Battle's selection too.

I know it was in no game. I think it's, yeah, no, but like, that's a great choice. You know, obviously this is on my list as well. And he's... I will drink your blood like soda, pop. He or she is right about how awesome is to play, like, I think the three or four different variations of the sound chip from like the Sharp 68,000 and stuff that you can choose in this,

because they're all pretty different sounding. And the arrangement is really different sounding. And personal note, like this, this game game came out like two years after something like I think, right? It's like a 2000 release. It was super late, yeah. And at this point, you know, I'm a huge Castlevania Super Nerd fan back in the day, and this is post me getting to meet Igarashi.

And I think next year when I saw Mattiak gave me the soundtrack of this game, which blew my mind. He was handing them out to journalists. And I was like, because it's like $4,800 yen usually because it's two discs. So I was like, thanks. Oh, man. I should have been a journalist because I paid money for this. I know, right?

Thanks, Iga. All right. here we go with Crazy bombastic intro But yeah, when you hear the vampire killer theme Redone like this, you're like, what? No, but it reminds me of music from Ferodius

on PlayStation. like the same sort of instrumentation, the same sort of like beats and everything to it because I was thinking they have a really good version of vampire killer and I think sexy Frodeus

Mm-hmm Yeah, the incarcerated level in that game is amazing you fight Medusa Yeah, that's awesome Also, this game is notable because it has a crazy redesign of Simon

by Iami Phajima where it's kind of like glam metal I mean, he's a raver just like this music His red hair Yeah, like pinkish hair in like the flat art

It's crazy Also, this game was really hard. Did you ever finish it? I know. I got pretty far in. I beat it. It got really bad reviews. What?

No, it's good. It got mixed reviews, but it's actually pretty good. It's like an eight. I recall, like, this is short and hard. I think I gave it an eight. The expectations were different for what a game on a dish could be in 2000. I guess I didn't read reviews of it because I just bought it and was like, this is cool. This is the personal favorite from the soundtrack.

This is you goddamn Bathead. Are these official titles? Yes, this is the name of the track. It's all in English. I was really into you goddamn Bathead 20 years ago. Yeah, it takes like... I don't even know. What the hell is this?

Yeah, these are better than the Dracula X remixies, which is the Dracula X Arrange album, which I mean, certainly the Night Arrange album, which is, it's a problem. Yeah, well, so, weirdly enough, no one mentioned the Sweenekid and 2 soundtrack. Oh, really?

But this reminds me a lot of the Gothic Necklord theme when you fight the Necklord for the final time, and it starts out with this, like, you know, orchestrate, you know, an organ, like, symphony kind of box sort of thing. And then all of a sudden it becomes, like, a techno theme, that reprises the battle theme pair first. But that's not indicative of Svikod and 2 soundtrack in general. No, but it's such a, like, a, what the hell moment?

It's really great. It really sets off. But, okay, I can't believe nobody chose Freaking & 2. Someone's who choose 2nd and 1? Yeah, it's a mention. We're not going to make it wrong. There may be a second and third place just one game. But I say if you're going to do deserve mention.

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If your battery does need to be replaced, O'Reilly Auto Parts can help you find the exact Superstart battery that fits your car or truck at a guaranteed low price. O'Reilly Auto Parts, better parts, better prices every day. Oh, oh, oh, O'Reilly, Auto Parts. Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. So, yeah, we're still talking about PlayStation 2 music. You're still with the PlayStation 1 music. Oh, so you're still here.

Sorry, I just looked at Captain N2 and the number two got stuck on my head. Yes, PlayStation 1 music. I don't care about PS2 music. Not yet, no. Unless it's Katamari Damacy. There's other good ones. We'll get to that in due time. Okay.

Society is still around. All right. So Mr. Ray Barnhold couldn't be here with us because he's already recorded two episodes with us, and that's a lot to ask of anyone. Does he have a suggestion? Is it a Ray one next? He's here in spirit. It's going to be my summer vacation.

He made, no. No, that's PS2. Yes. He made some suggestions for our notes. And even though I kind of threw out our notes in favor of reader, listener solicitations, fortunately, Captain N2 stepped in and gave us a Ray Barnholt special. Many fine choices here. And I'd like to toss Intelligent Cube into the frame.

See, that was puzzle game. That's a good one. But with a sweeping orchestral score worthy of an epic JRP. So let's find out. I almost put that on my list. Wow. This game is super cool. And it was the first game that...

It was one of the first weird games that Sony published in America as well as Japan. I was super excited to buy it on day one. And it gets really stressful. What were you doing this game? I totally forget. It was running away from giant cubes. You had to find a safe space. I didn't really get the game.

Oh, I played a ton of it. Yeah, you had to, like, there was a, like, it was a mix of, like, surviving on a slot of cubes, but also, like, a puzzle solving, and the aesthetic was really weird. A stare. This is very, like, like, grandeur or something. It's a very, very Barthold. Sakaraba kind of. But this game is a very Ray Barnhill game.

It sounds like John Williams now No, here I am flying around on my Airship in Skies of Arcadia It's definitely incongruous with what's on screen Yeah, it really is Well, and the sequel to this game I'm not talking about PS2, but like it is weird as F you... Can that come out? Can I curse on here?

Yeah, we're allowed one F-bomb Oh, no, well it's weird as I'll get out Because this game has kind of like a flat look to it and it all makes sense in objective reality, but the sequel is like FM video of people dancing and, like, it's all, like, static, and it's weird. Hmm.

Strange stories. Yeah, but I'm glad. But a good one. I almost put it on. I'm glad it's in there. That's more of a forgotten deep cut, I think. I think so. From Hardcore Henry the 5th, or maybe it's Hardcore Henry 5,

with all due respect to the 20 plus comments here on the blog where people were posting remarks, there's hardly a bad choice among them, but how in the flippin'n' heck is Guilty Gear not yet mentioned. It's good. orders, owns your asses now and forever. Heaven or hell. As I said earlier,

very beginning this podcast, heavy metal was possible. And Japan is good at heavy metal, and they love heavy metal in Japan. The 80s never ended in Japan. No, like huge heavy metal tours are always selling out in Japan. Yeah, now we have baby metal, which is the news fan.

Well, maybe it was a year ago. No, they're still going. Still going, okay. Except for the crisis. Oh, no. yeah it's the real thing it's authentic it is it is all in it's very uh like joe satriani that's the only name i can think of but like much like this game where every single character is a reference to an actual heavy metal personality literally uh you know the sidetrack does

have i think it specifically references you know styles of different guitarists yeah and this game is beautiful and it was you know it put our system works on the Yeah, true that. I bought this game the day it came out. All right, we have another two, two and one, two people naming the same game. Bradenbinite, oh, Bradenbinite says, my favorite PS1 OST is probably going to be wild arms. Beautifully composed by Michiko Naroke. Gorgeous.

It matches the elements of the music exactly with the elements of the game, mixing Western influences with fantasy. The memorable intro theme into the wilderness, the fantastic. World Map theme, Lone Bird in the Shire, which sounds dubiously similar to a theme in the good, bad, and the ugly. And the town theme with its awesome pan flutes are tunes that I've always loved since my childhood. Have we done a retronauts on Wild Arms? Not yet. Not yet.

So Sigma Cemetery says the PS1 had a huge library of amazing soundtracks with the expansion to the CD-ROMP format. We all know the greats such as Yasunori Mitsuda with Kronocross and Zinogears or legends like Nobuo Uematsu, but I feel Michiko Narukei, who composed the amazing Wild Arm sound. track deserves more credit than she receives. Not only did this amazing soundtrack project a Western feel perfectly, but it also captured the feel of loneliness and the dying world perfectly. I feel as she could stand with the greats during this era, and it's a soundtrack I still

listen to regularly today. More importantly, this game came out before all those other games. Yeah, it was the game. It was the game that they snuck over and saw what was happening over there, like, oh, let's get this thing out. But the music's great. And the fact that it's Wild West, that really hadn't. happened before a JRP

with a Wild West setting? Not really. There was like Live-a-Live. Yeah, like the whole thing. I mean, to be fair, they don't really do that much with it. It's sort of just like a little spice they add to the whole like medieval RPG thing. Right. But yeah, this is amazing.

Another kind of just sort of okay game. It holds together, but it's, well, it's, no. I'd take only one wild arm's game is good. No, you're wrong. like the fifth one's good It's a little too ambitious for This one is crazy

It has nothing to do with any of the other games But okay Shane at the time With me, hi I was here I played this game When it came out, I enjoyed it It wasn't as good as Final Fantasy turned out to be It wasn't even as good as good as a grandia

But it was good and had good music And this story's not so great But the art's pretty good Babel graphics aren't great I'm not a fan of the game But the soundtrack I can hate it's a I could just watch this opening Oh yeah

It's like a good 6.5 The really amazing thing about this I said it was okay The really amazing thing about this intro is that the Japanese version is a song track by a woman, like a female vocalist. And it's okay, but they didn't want to license the vocal rights for this. But instead of just throwing out the track, they re-recorded the vocal track as whistling, and it's so perfect for Wild West. Yeah, it's evocative. Like, it's so much better than the Japanese version.

And it's a cludge, you know, to like work around rights issues. Yeah. And all those, like, tales. of games. I don't know if they still do this, but they would always replace the intro. That was like a J-pop song or J-Rock. It would always be just like a very bland instrumental song, and I like that they actually made this choice. Andy Linnon

says, I know I won't be alone here, and it's probably an obvious choice, but you absolutely can't go past Symphony the Night for a memorable soundtrack that enhanced the game experience like few others. Even as a musician myself, I had rarely paid much attention to soundtracks in games. They seem to generally run the gamut from annoying to functional,

but when Symphony the Night came out, it was the first instance I can recall being 100% blown away and engaged by the music as much as the graphics and gameplay. Its variety of moods perfectly complemented the locales. The instrumentation was top tier, and the compositional news was always compelling.

Let's just forget about the end credits song, shall we? That is no longer in circulation those end credit songs. I guess Celine Dion's doppelganger, wanted too much mulal. Leave Cynthia alone. Cynthia. Is she the Silent Hill lady thing? She is. And the

first Metal Gear as well. In its In its totality, this is the single greatest video game soundtrack ever made. And, like, you know, I have, I've had the, I think Jeremy as well as had the pleasure of meeting Miss Gem many, many times, and talking about this at length. But it is, and at the time, like, I bought, you know, did you get this when it came out in Japan in the game? Jeremy, like, mind-blowing. This is the first game I ever imported. Me, too. Well, not me, but for PS1, maybe no.

But, like, within the first hour playing this game, I remember being in physical awe of what was happening. And had you finished Rondo of Blood before playing this game? No. Oh, I had. So, like, I had, you know, like, I was so ready for anything. I had seen, really knew nothing what I was going to get into. And how this game re-contextualizes, Calceania, but the themes as well. It's just this, yes.

It's very eclectic. I like how there are so many different kinds of music in it, too. Yeah, so that's kind of your standard, like, opening synthesizer track, okay. Well, it kind of, it does have self-references to many of the other opening tracks from the last few games of Castlevania. Mitch says the PS1, that impacted me most in the era was the one from Symphony the Night. Until Symphony, I had not been particularly impressed

by the PlayStation's offerings. The blocky polygon graphics of most early titles did nothing for me so much that I generally assumed a PS1 game's music would be equally unappealing. Appropriately then, it was the music of symphony, a game of 16-bit-era pixel art right down to the reused Dracula X accents

that sold me on the musical power of the PlayStation. The soundtrack is the perfectly complemented the game's neo-gothic visual style. And while I was already a believer in the power of chip tunes, here was a soundtrack that could pass as the orchestral backing of some melodramatic musical. The soundtrack of symphony was essential to establishing the mood for the game's mini set pieces. It could make individual levels feel ominous or inviting in an age where so many video games struggled to imitate movies. Despite their polygonal limitations, Symphony of the Night made me really think about how music could elevate a game,

even an intentionally stylized pixel-laden one, elevated into a work of art. That's right. I mean, I feel like with this game especially, when you walk into a new area and there's a new song, like almost immediately you're left with an impression of what will follow from there I think. Right. So you go from like synthesizer rock or heavy metal to this is from the library.

When the harpsichord kicks in you know you kind of this is a different kind of area and like it's not scary, it's beautiful but it's true like the soundtrack is really only about 20% traditional Castlevania melodies and instrumentation. I'm sure you'll get some tracks that are much more desolate and terrifying and ambient.

This is one of the soundtracks that evokes memories not only of what you've seen, but the overall sound design. Like, I'm hearing the k-t-ch-k-tok-ch-ch-ch-tok of, like, killing the dolla hands and their skulls bounce off. Right. And what you're doing in this game,

ultimately, especially over the course of the two castles, is kind of mundane. You're re-traversing a lot of the same things, having kind of similar combat. So the music ends up being a larger part of the experience, aesthetically. Like, it really felt like a huge part of the game to me. Oh, personal favorite.

Like listen to the ambient parts that aren't sound effects that's part of the music, the drip of water. Well, this does the heavily processed drum thing that would become a lot more common in later generations. Right. Like, you didn't hear this style. The first time you ever heard that. I don't know about the first time.

Maybe. Quite that, to where it is in the mix, kind of. Yeah. It's like, it's almost. has that kind of like electronic you know trip hop not industrial like yeah like trip trip hop yeah like this could be a porters head track except then it goes all like into this sort of

but like this like chamber jazz but you know that yeah she has a broad history like you know jazz and classical she also had listened to like you know massive attack and trip hop and no and she's someone who has a very broad broad toast yeah there's like

there's no other track like this before it didn't do you in history and especially in california Although it does, you know, parts of it do kind of reference, like underground waterway music from Rondo of Blood, but an entirely new way, in a very modern way. You know, this soundtrack's 20 years old, 21 years old. And finally, Jeff McKnight says, I believe the symphony and the night's soundtrack is not only the best soundtrack on PlayStation, it might be the best soundtrack of all time. Yes. Every piece of music has great hooks and fits the area where it is used to perfection. The horrible music over the end credits fits perfectly with a standard cheesy type song that would be playing over the end credits of Hollywood music.

The use of no music in the load screen tunnels is perfect. It gives the game of natural feeling a break of a few seconds before the next piece of music begins. And that is why the Saturn version is bad. Because it has to... It's not the only one. No, but it has to load music like midstage.

Hang on, I didn't want that one. It's a good one. It's not... I hope you get, there's at least two... There's at least one or two that I think it should... I love this one because it starts out so sweeping, because you're coming in just off the outer wall, which has a soundtrack, or a sound very similar to this. But then, after like 15 seconds, it stops.

And you're like, oh, I'm going to Dracula. And this kind of references the Dracula Battle collection, which were the heavy metal arranged albums, which are really popular in Japan. Yeah. Yeah, this is a really great use in a non-linear game of music that builds off what by design would be

the previous area you've been to the first time you ever go to this area the castle key you would have been in the outer wall so this is really playing off the symphonic style of the previous track of music that you heard in a way that like completely kicks things into high gear

what was the one you wanted to hear I was thinking there's one of the boss themes that it's just like but it's not completely different than that but it's like really heavy I remember which one of what it was But, you know, on the soundtrack, I listen to the CD a lot. So I know it's late on the CD. I got it.

Well, let's move along to the next one. We're running through time here. Brian Kent says, I'm not sure if it qualifies as a score, but the Silent Hill One soundscape was sufficiently odd and creepy enough to give me the old hebie-jeevee. Thank you. This is the one of my list. And it was also, I was talking to Phil Fish other day to ask him what his favorite PS1 soundtrack was he said Silent Hill One. So this is not a, this is not a. like a melodic album, but it's very atmospheric.

It's much darker and more, and more, like, ambient than Son Hill 2, and 3, which are my personal favorites. But if you go back and put it in the context of the game, it actually, at that time, it was really scary. Because the horror games had, you know, it's like, what is a horror game soundtrack? It was one of the first horror games like this. Brian's letter says, I don't know that some of the insane metal scraping sounds and grating noises would have been possible without the use of CD audio. Besides that, there's a great theme song that has a somewhat twin peaks vibe with its twanging bass line and melancholia. Yeah, we haven't talked about this. This is one of the few soundtracks where it's like, you just really can't listen to this outside of the game, outside of like a handful of songs.

On Halloween. I will say that Mondo music has released this on vinyl, and they did a really good job with the vinyl version of Silent Hill soundtrack. Like, it's, yeah, it's not like just something you want to pop on for casual listening, but they did a great job of balance. balancing the melodic elements with the atmospheric elements. Yeah. Like the arrangement is really good. I will say the songs that do have melodies and, like, real instrumentation or more traditional instrumentation are very good to isolate and listen to. I like, I think the ending theme is actually really pretty good.

Yeah, it is very good. For Konami ending themes of the era. A mandolin-ish thing. Yeah, like, it is the only track that I have, like, in my library, really for play. Yeah, and the opening's spectacularly with his game. Yeah, my problem with the, I love Laura's theme, the opening for Sound Hill, too, but it's not, the instrumentation is not very good. It's like, it sounds a little cheap, a little hollow, but I still love the melody and, like, the emotionality of the song. Yeah, this goes from, like, man.

Mandelins to techno music, so it's gone some places. It is very referential to Kvigseudo, Angela Badlamenti. But in a good way. The audio quality here has kind of like that AM radio sound too, which I think is deliberately tying into the radio mechanic in the game. So it's a really, yeah, really interesting selection of music. I definitely recommend people who want a little something different in game music. to check out the vinyl release.

Joe Drilling says, I know Bob will be with me when I say that one of the best original soundtracks on the PS1 is the Tokyo Scott Paradise Orchestra skank into the beat score for Incredible Crisis. Like you were complaining

and the next letter was right there. I read ahead. Did you? I said you better not skip this next one because it's an insane soundtrack where it's just like it could only happen in 1999. All ska.

Earl Gray, the third says, without a doubt, the standout PlayStation Town Track for me is 2000's Incredible Crisis. The music from the Tokyo Sky Paradise Orchestra was a scott-loving teenager's dream come true and remains surprisingly listenable to this day. Playing now, I still like the game's title theme, but the love

theme, but I love the theme for the title select screen, a fittingly odd compliment for an odd game. This is the dancing stage music. You got to play the. the intro song. I still like put it on every every month, at least once a month. All right. Let me fade this down and we'll switch over

to the intro music. And I dare anyone to tell me what this guy is saying at any part of this song. From the Bob Servo channel. I uploaded this because I could not find a clean version on YouTube. This is all me, everybody. 41,000 views on Bob Servo's channel. Congratulations.

My highest ranking video that I stole and uploaded. Yes. And this is the extended version there's like a sax song, so a sax I can't just sit there the whole time. It's kind of amazing that this happened, really. Yeah. I think this was originally an arcade game in Japan, too. Oddly enough, I discovered that much later at someone's maim cabinet.

Was it licensed off a TV show? No? I don't think so. I have no idea. But Tokyo Scott Paradise, I think they're still around. Someone told me they still are doing SCA, keeping it real in 2018. That's good. The world needs some good SCA.

All right, let's see. One more track from Incredible Crisis. It's more of a A remix of the intro Get into Get into the synthesizers there The only good game ever released by Titus, everybody, you heard it. What about, uh, Blues Fight is 2000?

Uh, what? Blues Brothers 2000? Yeah, that's terrible. Tides the Fox is better than... But it's not as good as an incredible crisis. All right, here's one we were talking about during our break. Joseph Huckleberry says, as strange as it may sound, after Yoshi's Island, the first game to make me realize video games could be a platform for legitimately beautiful music was the original ape escape.

I love Soichi Terada's score of this game so much, it's the only game soundtrack I keep in its entirety on my phone. I think I'll be listening to tracks like Cravy Beach, Dark Ruins, Specter's Castle, and my favorite primordial ooze for the rest of my life. One really awesome thing about this game is that you could listen to a much chiller version of every level's music simply by crawling.

Seriously, do yourself a favor and go crawl around in primordial ooze. I forgot about that. I had also forgot about this. I said, I remember this having great music, but I never got the soundtrack on a CD. So that's the thing I returned to it a lot. But, yeah, the first two games I really enjoyed in the series.

I should probably have rediscovered. So this is Primordial Luz. I guess if you crawl around, you get more chill. I would think that the two different versions would be available. I'm sure the soundtrack came from available and jam with everything on it. No doubt. Yeah, the soundtrack is very much about, like, drum loops and stuff like that. It's really, it's really neat.

And very up its time. Definitely not music that you think of catching monkeys. Hmm. Probably a little better in the context of the game, though. Mm-hmm. You know, she does have a almost Nintendo-esque-esque. You know, you're mentioning Yoshi. I actually remember... Yeah, also it's a little rare-esque to me, you know, a little bit, too.

But, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, have you heard like, but do, but do, do, do, but it's kind of a, it's kind of a happy, you know, like, late 90s, kiddie fun techno songs. Ah, but then you get the counter melody in there. Yeah, I love this game. I think that game also ran in high-res mode. It was a pretty game. Yeah, it was like a technical showpiece to show off the, uh, the dual. And it was made for the dual animal.

Yeah. All right, we still have a ton of stuff to get through here. So I'm going to go ahead and save these for some other time. Well, just, you know, save me a put on the ledger, Metal Gear Solid, Paraside, Eve. We didn't really go into those. Those are for next time. Okay, no one actually mentioned Metal Gear Solid. That is an astonishment.

But I was going to put, actually, let's do one set of soundtrack or like one game each. Like, as your pick, what do you think needs to be called out? Well, before that, I also thought we had tabled pretty much Final Fantasy 7, 8, as, like, we've talked about those in the past. We're going to do full deep dive episodes into 7 and 8, so we'll save those. And as along with Parapar, Paraparandum, which you've already done episode on. But as, again, like, best in class, spectacular soundtracks. But, like, I would choose Paris ID, which be my final one, I guess. Okay.

So, middle of salt is also, you know, of note. Okay. Yeah. So this is Shane's pick. Also, Anthony Agnellos, is there any greater generation for game soundtracks than PS1? Picking an all-time favorite is hard. Yoko Shimomoros Parasite Eve OST is her crowning achievement. Out of phase, the police precinct theme is possibly my favorite game song of all time.

So he mentioned a few other games, Ridge Race for Type 4 and Masashi Hamazu's Saga Frontier 2. Which is good. Yeah. But, yeah, let's go into Parasic. You had to play the intro song, too. It's really good. theme of mitochondria? That's probably it.

Oh, no. This is one of the ambient tracks that you hear. Oh, it's really good, though. Yeah, like, this game does a great job of balancing, you know, like, kind of creepy ambiance in a different way than Silent Hill. Well, and with a sort of like cinematic Final Fantasy flair. Right. What's interesting about this game is it has, you know, a female protagonist, it's set in modern day,

has Tatumura character designs, this amazing Shimura soundtrack. It has a really great. great blend of real time and turn-based combat that that not a lot of games were doing at that point. And nobody did well. In fact, the sequel to this game abandoned it in a weird way. Yeah, it's like a Resident Evil game. Yeah.

I played through most of it. Yeah, the first one is really, really good and is popular at the time too. Yeah. Yeah, I love the battle theme in Parasite Eve because it's so different than any other RPG's battle theme. Again, it's kind of like down tempo. And it builds up with like these crescendos. and then before it quite hits the climax,

it drops down again. Oh, oh. I listen to like that sort of echoy piano. You just don't, you don't hear that in battles. There's a lot of battles. So like, this takes me back now. Yeah. Oh, so good.

But it really fits the style because it is real time, but it's also slow because you're running around. You're not just running around and pulling up menus, but you're targeting specific enemies. So there's a lot of, like, sort of minute granular strategy.

And as you play through the game, like the combat, actually gets more complicated as you get different weapons and you're switching and you're, you get like magic. Yeah, it's and the story's really interesting. The CG cutscenes are gorgeous at the time. But also,

the game begins in this like opera house and the main enemy kind of appears like this, you know, opera diva, right? Like infection thing, taking up with New York City. And there's like opera. One of the weaknesses of the soundtrack is that the opera is all like that Final Fantasy Six

sample voice. It's like, it's a Okay, it's not quite the opera of fundamentality six. It's a little better. It's better. But it's still like, but it's kind of club sample reference. Play it. Yeah, it doesn't quite work. But I will say that the, like, the opera scene.

Okay, they don't work outside the context of the game. Like, you can't just listen to the soundtrack because there's like these opera parts with a fake voice. And you're like, you're kind of right. But when you finally fight Eve, it brings back her opera motifs and turns it into like a battle theme. And that is where it all comes together. That's influence of deep. Yeah, this is it. I at the time thought she was actually referencing Uyama to, like, specifically to pay homage to him.

Here we go. But it's not just that there was like an opera intro. The opera becomes part of the battle theme. He interviews it. Yeah. To me, to me it felt like self-referential referencing 16-bit and like bringing it into like the club here in the idea. I remember interviewing Shimomura about this,

about a lot of her work, but I specifically asked about this album and like what the inspiration was. She went off on this kind of like sort of reverie where she was talking about how when putting this together this was a cooperative element between Square Japan and Square L.A.

And so she spent a lot of time in L.A. and she said, you know, while I was there, I went to this club. It was really strange, and there was this music. And I feel like she had some sort of experience there that was, like, she can't explain, but was really, like, deeply affected her. That's amazing. Yeah, you don't hear it in that song.

So what was the other track you wanted? in there? The opening? Well, I just remember being really bombast, but I think it just kind of reference that same, I think that kind of was a reprise of it actually, so yeah. Well, I feel like you did her justice. So a lot of the dungeon themes are kind of like

atmospheric, but then, you know, as the game becomes more intense and you start to like kind of gear up, then you do get more pieces like this. I think this is like once you maybe like once the police station has come under attack and you're like we're going to take the fight to Eve. Yeah, it's really,

this game is really cohesive aesthetically and I feel like her work was just stood out and unfortunately I feel like the sequels this game didn't really do justice I said two I really didn't like and then the third birthday for the PSP was also not quite as good as

official but I hope maybe they'll return to it in the future they don't have the rights to anything anymore yeah it's like wink third birthday all right so Bob what would your favorite well PS1 RP or PS1 soundtrack be I'm gonna cheat can I say I'm Dermer Lammy Is that okay?

Sure. Okay, fine. Well, my selection would be Got to Move, and I also would like to play the Parapa version as well, because the cool thing about this game is that for almost all the levels, there is a Parapa B-side remix with all new lyrics, and it's just a remix of the song. So, I'm Jeremy Lammy, Got to Move, is A-A-Tops in my book.

I love girl bands, and this is a game about a girl band, and I love 90s music because I am an old man. It's just a fun late 90s pop song before the horrible next decade could begin. I don't know if there are any real life chorillaries to this music or not. interesting you choose this track because it's probably my least favorite track in the entire game

but I still think it's great actually this is my favorite music game of all time because this is the last level yeah I think it's I do feel like and it goes to the place because this level

she references all the people she meant and like it changes as it goes actually this song changes it up later in it yeah I feel like the just like the the raps and parapa

all reference specific styles and even like individual emcees. I feel like all the music in Unjammer, I'm a jammer Lammy feels like it's, you know, it's from another game. Like, it's basically fight. Flight is

definitely metallic and Black Sabbath. Yeah. Firefire sounds a lot like Kung Fu Fighting. Of course, I Am a Master in You is like a reprise of the Chop Chop Chop Master Right. Yeah, chop chop Master Onion's rap battle theme, but done through a lens of like indie rock. But there's like the rockabilly song.

Yeah. So it's like, so it's like, it's much like Prapa, it is like five genres and the last song kind of combines it all intro just kind of a fun, a tempo J-pop kind of song. You should play the Perapa. Yeah, I'm going to play the Prapa version because it's totally, that one is different. Yeah, I've got that queued up right here. Yeah.

Again, go back to our Parap episode. Sorry, our Peripo-Lan episode. Yeah, this version is much better. This is... No time for tears. The goal is near. The goal is near. I think this one of the songs that is, like, one of the songs that is closer to the original with the Prapa. A lot of them are really different in terms of like the tempo and the lyrics and everything. But yeah, they did not advertise this on the box, God damn it.

They did not say Prap is in the game and there's a bunch of songs with him. They're so stupid. For me, I want you to play either the level four or level three. The baby song? I like the baby song. Either the baby song or the plane song. Okay, we'll do Baby Baby. That's really good.

I've got that cute. I think that's the best. But I think the plane is almost as good. The plane is just like metallic. Oh, but also the hell ones go to. It's probably my favorite one to play in the game, actually. Oh, this is long. You just tap a triangle bunch now.

To get cool, you don't do that. You have to take fewer notes. Oh, yeah. And bend, though, the shade's amazing. This is the greatest museum. I can get at cool in every level, and this is for the awful idol stage. That song is bad. I hate it.

Well, that's hell in the Japanese version. It's true. And the song is better, in the Japanese version. It's fitting that that's the worst song because you are in hell. But I actually think over the world of this game, the next level, the plane level, is the single best music game experience of all of us. Action. So finally, I will wrap up by saying the game soundtrack I want to call out that I think is often overlooked.

And the one that actually inspired me to put together this episode in the first place is Noriyuki Asakura's Tenchu soundtrack, which takes traditional sounding Japanese melodies and themes and reinterprets them as contemporary electronic tinged film scores. often with a choral element. Yeah, I wrote that down. Did you play a tonnecheo? It's hard. It's really hard. I never made it that far, but I bought the soundtrack

because the first few stages had such good music. And, yeah, like, I've visited the soundtrack over and over again. I wanted to like it, but it was so hard that I came out at the same time

as Metal Gear Solid, which did stealth so much better and so much less punitively. Instead of fog, there was just black, blackness. And it was like, where am I? I do remember, like, the two hours I play and having good music.

Yeah, this music's amazing. But I gave up. But it was really popular. Yeah, it's good. The production's good, like... Did you play other Tensu games? I did, and they never clicked for me. But the music in this game, so good.

Asakura did the soundtracks to the Ruroni Kinshin. Tetsu is from software throughout, right? In the original, who made the first one? That was from software. It was from the beginning from software. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I think it's by a choir.

Yeah. Oh, it was like you buy a choir, but then later it was buy from software. Because there's like, there were at least like five Tenchew games. I mean, I played them on PS2.

There are exactly five. Oh, wait. There are spinoffs. What were they, Bob? And who made the first one? Stealth Assassin. Was it acquired? I think the first one is called Tenchu,

self-assassad. It is. It is. Uh, choir, yep. Okay. Who made, like, by PS2, who's making them? Maybe it was always acquired.

It was crazy Were there ones on, like, PS3 and Xbox? I don't believe so. Oh, there might have been one in P-SPT. A multiplayer one? The PS2 one is developed by K2. Oh, okay. I forget what they ever did.

But, like, they've been published, Activision published it. Maybe there's always... Ubisoft, too. They published the last one in 2008. It's been a while, yeah. For Wii and PSP, a ignoble entity. Really?

Yeah. Oh, Blast from the past. Who made the Wii? That's choir as well. Okay. I think From made the PSP. Like a mini-tenchy retropros right there. I've learned things.

Yeah, I just like the combination of Japanese sounds and Hollywood score and electronic. It's such an unusual blend. But it sounds really good, and I wish the game were as good as the music. People really liked it, but it was just so hard. You got like nines in EGM and stuff. Yeah, but again, it came out like three weeks before Metal Gear Solid. Yeah. And by the time I got around to it, I played Metal Gear Solid.

It was like, nope. These tracks do take a little while to kind of launch. Yeah, but the production's really good. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, this is one of those game soundtracks that really stands on its own as just, like, a piece of music, great, like, orchestrated instrumental music, which you can't really say about all game soundtracks. But that was one of the things I really appreciate.

about the PlayStation era is that you did get these soundtracks that just sounded so good they held up so well. If you're thinking about really like the amount of work that went into creating a soundtrack for game from 16-bit to the 3, but it was something like 10-fold

because you couldn't just hire one dude with his synthesizer and give him a few months to make like 10 chip tunes. It was literally like making a film score in some ways. Yeah, so wow. You're right, Jeremy. I doubted you at the beginning of this journey. And you're right.

PS1 may have the single best live for soundtracks and game. And this was only half the letters we got from listeners. I really, I think we're going to have to circle back at some point and do the other half of the letters because one, those listeners deserve to be heard and also

the music that they've picked out deserves to be heard. So, yeah, anyway, I'm glad you agree that I made a successful case for the quality of PlayStation soundtracks. I'm glad I'm not hallucinating. It was a pleasure coming and discussing this with you. I believe you, Jeremy, and I believe in you.

That's excellent. I'm glad to hear it, Bob. That means a lot. So, yeah, thanks everyone who wrote in, whether we read your letter or not. I promise we will try to get back to it at some point. I don't know, maybe months from now. Who can say? But these are all in a Google document, and those stay online forever until Google gets destroyed. That's dark. Yeah, well, it wouldn't be a bad thing. Until they sell my documents at the highest bidder. Exactly. Some other retro podcast is suddenly going to have a PlayStation 2 or PlayStation music podcast. Sorry. In the ruins of our civilization, they'll find the retronauts, and that's how they'll know about these soundtracks. Our YouTube links.

You shall know us by our YouTube links. Anyway, this has been a retronauts episode. I hope that everyone enjoyed listening to it. I feel like it was kind of indulgent, but we weren't just indulging ourselves. We were indulging everyone who wrote in. So hopefully that kind of balances out. It's like community indulgence, a collective indulgence. And game music is not some niche thing.

A lot of people love music and it is a huge part of gaming experience as an nostalgia. Yeah. Don't feel so guilty about being indulgent. I always enjoy, you know, talking about game music and sharing it with people. So I think we should end every opportunity. I think we should end every show with an apology. We're sorry.

I'm very sorry about this episode. No, no. That doesn't mean I won't do it again, though. I'm not that sorry. mistakes were made, and we're going to keep making them. Anyway, thanks again, everyone who wrote in. Thanks, Shane for coming in. Bob, why don't you guys tell us about yourselves, Shane?

Well, you can find my long-indulgent guitar solos on my Twitter at Shane Watch. That's it. Oh, Shane has a real job. Never mind. I forgot. No Patreon for Shane. No Patreon. God, how do you live?

The Patriots are awesome. Yeah, they are. And hey, you know what? I'm Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And I make some of my bones from Retronauts, but I make most of them from the Talking Simpsons Patreon in our network of shows there. I do currently three podcasts for that network.

If you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, you can get both Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon, a week ahead of time, and ad-free. And we can also give you such exclusives as Talking Futurama and Talking Critic and a whole bunch of other things like interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff and wrap-up shows. And we just do so much there. So please check it out. If you don't even want to give us money,

I suggest checking out our shows. Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon. They're both free. Talking Simpsons is a chronological exploration of the Simpsons, of course. And What a Cartoon is us doing a different episode of a different cartoon every week with the Talking Simpsons treatment and some great guests. So I recommend you check those out. If you like me and my voice, thank you. Wow. That's a lot. You've both got great radio voices. Do I? When you read the ads, they sound professional. I've said this like a thousand times. I know. That's why. Yeah, I like that Bob and I both have, like, very different ways of reading the ads, too. I'm always very just kind of straightforward, and he's like, hey, I'm your friend and I'm here to tell you stuff. Jeremy always pulls off completely genuine when you're selling, like, a dog or a car or something, whereas once in a while I can tell Bob is, like, secretly not wanting to sell me the box of food. I am sincere. I stand behind every product that I get behind until there is a class action lawsuit that I duck out. Right. Anyway, I, Jeremy Parrish, your close personal friend, can be found on Twitter as GameSpite at Retronauts.com, where I'm writing a lot.

And finally, at, you know, the Retronauts podcast, which you're listening to, which is available on such fine networks as, well, fine podcast distribution sources as iTunes. So check us out that away. Or better yet, go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and subscribe for $3.3. a month, you get this episode, well, not this episode, but the next episode, a week early. If you liked this episode, you can get another episode today that is in higher bit rate quality and without ads. That's cool. Anyway, yeah, so that's what we do. We make podcasts. And it's very tiring making podcasts, and I'm very old, so I'm going to go take a nap. I have one more question for something for you to plug. What's your latest book? Because

I own several of your books and I love them. So I think by the time this episode comes out, my latest book will be Game Boy Works Volume 1, which is... But, you know, you... It's the 1980... You've been doing so much... You've been playing so much game. It's going to be good. I'm going to buy it, even though, you know, how I feel about Game Boy.

Yeah, well, it's the 1989 and 1990 Volume 1 books that I did for Amazon, or, like, through Amazon as paperbacks. It's combined into a single volume in hardcover, full color, and it's going to cost less than any of the, either of the individual books did. Awesome. So that's the magic of FanGamer. Because I have you... at fangamer.com.

I have your big NES ones, and those are good. So I need you like this. Even though, maybe you'll make me reassess Game Boy. Because, you know, I tend to discount because I hate you. I'm not a huge fan of the original hardware, but it's good. So, yeah, I'll buy that. After Game Boy, there will be super NES. And Chris Kohler and I are working on a virtual boy.

Oh. Yeah, I'm getting ahead at the syllabus here, but it's true. Yeah, like that, the whole 20-game library, the two of us are collaborating on a book and video series. You should pick that. So look forward to that. You should make that with a glossy coffee table book. That one, if we can pull it off, is going to have red-blue anastropic glasses with it so you can see all the screenshots properly. So good.

It's going to be the best Game Boy or Virtual Boy Book ever. That is something to look forward. So now that I've spoiled that surprise, everyone go home and you should also take a nap. You're very much as one. Yes. I've always been drifting high, I've been a sky that never ends. Through thick and thin, I always win.

Because I will fight both in life and death to save a friend. I face my destiny Every day I leave Let's say you just bought a house Bad news is You're one step closer to becoming your parents You'll proudly mow the lawn Ask if anybody noticed you mowed the lawn

Tell people to stay off the lawn Compare it to your neighbor's lawn And complain about having to mow the lawn again Good news is It's easy to bundle home and auto through progressive and save on your car insurance, which, of course, will go right into the lawn. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Discount not available in all stages situations. The Mueller report. I'm Edonoghue with an AP News Minute. President

Trump was asked at the White House if Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand, that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Maine, Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving of President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral. Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officer started shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral.

It's a tremendous way to bear knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police say acted as his lookout have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue.