Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 94: The music of Castlevania III, Shovel Knight, Galaxy Force II, and Contra III | Retronauts Radio

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

Boss Key Studios audio expert Jack Menhorn joins Jeremy for an in-depth discussion of the latest new releases of retro- and retro-style game soundtracks: Mondo's Contra III and Castlevania III, Brave Wave's Shovel Knight, and DataDiscs' Galaxy Force II!

This week in Retronauts, whatever happened to my Transylvanian twist? service with more than 180,000 titles to choose from. Get a free audiobook and a 30-day trial at audibletrial.com slash game. This week's episode of Retronauts is also sponsored by Barkbox, and I know what you're thinking, you know, Bob, I spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on my free-loading pooch, and why should I spend a penny more? Well, you know what? Just look into those puppy dog eyes and realize that he deserves or she all of your money,

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So each new box is unique. And if your dog is a little persnickety or doesn't like a particular toy or treat, Barkbox will even send a substitute item in return. And Retronauts listeners can get a free bonus month of service by signing up for a six or 12 month trial by going to getbarkbox.com slash game. Hi, everyone, and welcome to episode, oh, crap, I wasn't paying attention. What is it? Like 90, not quite 90. Retronauts, 90, 80 something, 80 something. I don't know. Anyway, hi, I'm Jeremy Parrish. You're incredibly disorganized host. And this is the fourth edition of Retronauts Radio.

And after the positive response that we had to the last episode, where it was me and Bob together in the studio reminiscing about Nintendo's stuff, I decided not to just monologue this episode, and I've brought in another special guest to the studio. So why don't you take it from here and let everyone know about yourself? Hi, I'm Jack Menhorn. I'm a sound designer at Boskey Productions here in North Carolina. Carolina. I'm also a writer and contributing editor to designing sound.org, which is a website about news, reviews, interviews for the pro sound industry. Right. And Jack is a longtime friend of

Retronauts as well. And so I thought, you know, it would be perfect to have him come in and share his expertise for some, you know, occasional episodes of Retronauts Radio because, one, he likes classic games. Two, he understands video game music like Inside and Out. So what better person to have come in and talk about video game music than someone who makes their living with it? So, yeah, Jack, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. I'm a huge fan of retronauts.

This is a pleasure. Yeah, well, awesome. I appreciate you taking the time. I know you guys just had a beta for Lawbreaker as the game you're currently working on. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. We need to get Cliff in here sometime to talk about like some of the shooters.

he loves. I know he loves like a Leste and things like that. So I'm going to use your influence to get him in here someday. Well, the two founders of Bosque Productions are R. Cliff and Arion Broussay. And they made Jack Rabbit together back in the early 90s. Right. Yeah. No, I mean, those guys are like fonts of video game information. So they're on my, they're on my hit list someday. Anyway, but for now, we're going to be talking about some video game music. I know that I said that my goal with retronauts radio would be kind of a variety of content in terms of what we're trying to get kind of a variety of content in terms of what we talk about. You know, formats just current and recent classic gaming music releases, but, you know, across a spectrum of formats. So, you know, the vinyl resurgence has been really

big for video game music lately, but there's also CDs and, you know, just free releases from composers who put their stuff on SoundCloud or whatever, or fan creators, fan composers, such as yourself who uh who you know create tributes and covers and arrangements and so forth um i know you were on the material collectives zodiac album yeah for final fantasy tactics i did uh i think duke's anger was the track i did and i also uh was on successor which was the final fantasy eight uh material album which came out a year ago okay i missed out on that one yeah it was a year ago and before that they did uh final fantasy seven the the collective actually started out they did a Final Fantasy 7 arranged album.

Right, hence the name, Materia Collective. Yeah, so I, you know, my goal is to talk about music that is different degrees of accessible to people who listen to the episodes. So you may not be able to invest a lot of money in video game vinyl, but I would like for people to be able to go out and pick up, you know, free fan arrangements or inexpensive arrangements online. Unfortunately, I'm not holding to that this episode, and that is because in the past, well, the past month or so, past few weeks, there have been a ton of really, really great video game classic arrangements and music's on vinyl. And so this episode is all about LPs. If you are not a fan of vinyl, and I apologize for that, and if you don't have the budget for vinyl, I understand that. Um, this is a sampler and, um, maybe it will entice you to consider trying out listening to some vinyl, uh, video game vinyl. But, you know, if, uh, if that's not your jam, I guess you

could just listen to this episode and say, oh, that's pretty nice. Too bad. I'm never going to buy it. Well, as, as someone who doesn't have a, a record player, uh, listening to, to, to some of these, these albums and, and looking at what the, the albums look like, I wouldn't mind just grabbing one and hanging it on a wall. Some of these are incredibly gorgeous. Yeah, definitely. I think probably my favorite, just in terms of art, released this time around, is the Galaxy Force 2 Thunderblade, release the dual game vinyl from data disks, which actually doesn't have any Thunderblade art in it, probably because there was no good, like, source material for that arcade game. But the Galaxy Force 2 has, like, you know, what is that guy's name, Soijima or whatever? Like, it's, it's, It's art that resembles his chrome women and, like, that sort of 80s, fetishy stuff. But without being quite so, like, I don't think my parents should be seeing this as that original artist that they're sort of riffing on. It's a bit more subtle.

Just a bit, though. I mean, there's still robo-nipples. I mean, you got to take that with it. But it's not quite as, like, you know, pin up cheesecake. It's more, like, weird robot girl with blonde hair flying a spaceship through space. blowing stuff up as you do as one does yes so anyway um yeah that's that's this episode we're going to talk about four records and uh next time i promise we'll get some other stuff like cd releases in there i promise but uh this time it's just all lps

So we're going to kick off talking about one that I've been looking forward to, and I'm happy to say that this release did not disappoint, and that is Mondo Records Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse soundtrack. When the first Castlevania release from Mando came out a few months ago I was pretty hard on it because it was pretty lackluster

The Did you, I don't know Did you happen to listen to any of that Or read the review that I wrote for U.S. Gamer I don't think I did Okay, so the problem with that one was One, the mastering was kind of weird Like it was super hot, very loud

So it's like The balance is way, off compared to other records I have in my collection. But more concerning was the fact that the sound was pretty much just taken from, it sounded like they just took it from one of the CDs, I think Dracula Best. The arrangements that they used for the Castlevania soundtrack included foli effects of like game sound effects in there. And they were exactly the same as a CD release from the 90s, which like, okay, if they wanted to reissue this as like a, you know, a, you know, a modern reissue of that CD on vinyl, that would be one thing, but that's not how they pitched

it. Like, they created their all new artwork for it and everything, and it was just, it was, it was really disappointing. But they did a much better job with Castlevania 2, which didn't have any of those sound effects and also included, like, I think new audio capture of both the NES and the family computer disc system audio. So there were two versions of each game on a, on a, on a 7-inch, you know, uh, EP, basically, uh, or 10-inch, I think, a 10-inch EP. Uh, but Castlevania 3, Dracula's Curst, they went to town. And this is a double LP, like full 12-inch, uh, 33 RPM release of the game's soundtrack. And one LP is the NES soundtrack and one is the Famicom soundtrack.

And of course, Castlevania 3, the Japanese version, has one of the most famous instances or infamous instances, I suppose you could say, of changes and modifications being made for technical reasons in converting the game to the U.S. edition. And I don't know if you want to talk about any of that. I don't know how much you're familiar with the, like, the VRC6 and the MMC5 and all the maver chips. I feel like I've talked about it so many times. Probably should get someone else to step in here.

Well, put me on the spot. Well, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Famicom version has three extra sound channels due to the chip, whereas the NES version doesn't have any extra sound channels. Although the NES version uses the MC5, no NES consoles couldn't take advantage of any extra third-party chips. So it just has to use the standard channels that are on any base NES game. Yeah, the MMC-5 is weird because it's a Nintendo mapper chip. And that was like the nicest, most advanced chip you could use for a game in the U.S. because Nintendo limited what kind of technology was available for U.S. licensees.

But because of the way the NES was designed and some changes that were made from the Famicom, like, yeah, the MMC5 had the ability to produce extra sound, but the NES hardware couldn't actually do anything with it because I think those connectors were deactivated or moved to the port on the bottom or something. I've seen different speculation and explanations of what exactly happened. But anyway, yeah, so we went from basically a chip that was created specifically for the purpose of creating a really rich, high-end audio arrangement for the Japanese game. And they had to scale that back to the American version to fit the standard NES technology. And I will say that they did an amazing job of rearranging the tracks.

and long before I knew anything about the extra sound chip, I loved Castlevania 3 and thought it had just the most amazing soundtrack. It had a sound test option in the American version, and I would bring that up and just listen to it and be like, man, that music's so cool. So, you know, despite what was lost, it's kind of a testament to Konami's composers and their programmers and arrangers that they managed to, I think, pull it off,

despite the deficiency, but this record is great because Mondo's release, you know, puts the two tracks or the two versions on different discs. So you can kind of choose, like, which one do I want to listen to? And you can really, if you're into that sort of thing, sit and, you know, just kind of soak up the differences and really see what it's like. And I've never heard the, the Famicom arrangements sound as good as they do on this LP. It's kind of a sticking point because, you know, different emulators or things like the, uh, the analog NT Mini or the, you know, HDMI, NES mods and things like that. You can choose the balance of the, the add on channels for chips and, you know, kind of define how you want it to sound. But this is sort of canonical because

it's taken from Konami's archives. So this is, this is how they wanted you to sound it, uh, hear it, how they wanted for it to sound. So yeah, I'm really a huge, huge fan of this record. And it's definitely one of my favorite pieces in my collection. Yeah, as someone who didn't play very much Castlevania 3 growing up, so I don't necessarily have any nostalgia for the soundtrack, and I've been listening to it all week, and I absolutely love it. It's just, it's a Nintendo ass Nintendo soundtrack, and it sounds real good, and it's, and what's interesting is since both sides, or both LPs are so different, you can kind of just keep playing through it, and although you're hearing the same track in two different ways, they're different enough that

it's still satisfying to listen to. Yeah, the VRC6 chip was the one that was designed specifically for this game, and it showed up in a couple of other games. And I, like, one of my favorite all-time interviews in my time in the games press was with the guy who designed that, Hedinori Maizawa. And I went to meet with him without realizing he had been involved with its creation and composed for, you know, Dracula's curse. It was an interview set up by my boss at the time, Sam Kennedy, who

wanted to meet him because of the Contra connection. He had composed or like arranged Contra for NES, the soundtrack. And when I mentioned the VRC6, just kind of in passing, like, oh, did you ever work with that chip? Like, he perked up and got really animated and started like drawing charts and stuff and like showing like, oh yeah, we had the sound wave or

sawtooth wave and the square waves and so forth. And he was like, I could tell, like, you know, all these years later, he was still really proud of this thing that he had created specifically for the purpose of making video game music sound better. And that was, wow, that was almost 10 years ago. It's been a long time since I've had that interview, but it still sticks with me just because it was such a great, like, oh, wow, what did I stumble into here kind of moment? But, yeah, the VRC6 audio, you know, I did an episode recently on the VRC7 and Lagrange Point, which added, FM synthesis to the NES, which is like completely different technology. It's like totally transforming the NES into something that it never was, whereas the VRC6 just adds more of the same. So you have basically the NES sound, but twice as much of it. So when you listen

to the soundtrack, you can really like, the clarity of the LP is so great. You can really stop and just hear all these different things happening. And you know, the NES had five channels by default. One of them usually, or sometimes two, were used for sound effects. So you would generally get like three or four channel audio compositions. And you'd have games like Mega Man 4 where it was like four channels, but then if you charged up your, you know, Mega Man's charge shot, the sound effect for that would cut out some of the music. So you had to make these compromises.

But the VRC6, you didn't have to do that. It was just like a tiny digital orchestra. And this record really captures that in great. great style, great clarity. But again, the NES disc also sounds great. It's simpler, but it still has a lot of power to it. And I think some people prefer sort of the minimalism, the leaner sound of the NES arrangements. I do. I think partially because of nostalgia, my brain wants to hear the NES sort of soundtrack. If I'm going, hey, I want to listen to an NES soundtrack, it's going to be more similar to the NES version rather than the Famicom version.

I also think the, because there were less channels they could work with in the NES version, they had to get to the point a lot easier or quicker with the melodies. So it's kind of, it really is, you got the melody, you got the baseline, you don't necessarily have a lot else going on. And it's just a bit more pure and also just a bit more sparse. It seems like with the saw wave and square wave channels that they had on. the Famicom version that kind of use that a lot for like organ-esque sounds and pads and just kind of thickening the sound, which makes it very buzzy at points where it's just a lot of

that spectrum is taken up, whereas, and so it's almost like a difference, I mean, it's certainly a different character, but it's almost like a different atmosphere to the game, whereas the NES version, since it is a bit more sparse, to me it feels like the game would, would play a bit more like you're alone and isolated, whereas the Famicom version, it's very obvious with the VRC6 that they, certain tracks you can tell, like, oh, they were trying to emulate an organ here, or they're really trying to make this be a harpsichord, or there's even one track where I think they're playing two channels are playing the notes simultaneously, but slightly detuned, so it almost sounds like a detuned piano. So you can tell that the composer

was trying to emulate instruments on the VRC 6, whereas on the NES version, it was more, this is the sine wave, this is the pulse wave, we're making a melody. Yeah, and I think there's arguments to be made for both styles. And, you know, the VRC6 chip also enabled some actual, like, gameplay features. There's different enemies and more animations and different graphics, like, like, some of the enemies are different and some of the backgrounds are more detailed in the Japanese version like the swirling fog and some of the stages. So I kind of feel like the the Famicom soundtrack goes better with that. Like it's a it's a richer looking game. And so having that richer sound,

it really feels like they've kind of exceeded the limitations of the NES and like gone beyond the platform a little bit. Whereas, you know, the American version is more like this is just kind of the ultimate NES action game. And there's something to be said for both approaches. But I feel like the soundtrack technology and arrangements fit each game. And I think that's nice to have that sort of consistency between the two games. Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, both soundtracks are incredibly enjoyable to listen to.

It just depends on your mood if you want the bit more bombastic, orchestral, very much organ-esque family. or the more plinky NES version. Yeah, I mean, just kind of looking track by track, I feel like there are some tracks that work better in one game than the other. Like, the first track

in the game, or not the first track in the game, but the first stage track beginning is an all-time classic of, you know, the Castlevania franchise. And, like, that's a great track on NES, but when you hear it on Famicom, it's just like,

it has this driving power to it that really makes you feel like I am setting out on a quest and I'm going to kill some Dracula's. Whereas, you know, the NES version is just like great NES music again. On the other hand, you know, some of the more, like, you know, some of the more, like, hectic tunes, like, what is it called, demon seed? I think works a lot better on the NES because it does have, this sort of insistent pulse to it and it forces you to kind of uh i don't know like it it seems like it fits better with the the sort of simpler clearer sound

Clockwork is another one that I'm actually kind of torn on that one because they both sound great. But that's the one I think you were talking about sounds like harpsichord. And it is sort of supposed to say, like, you know, you're in this clock tower and there's these spinning gears and it all around you like is technology. And it kind of has that like anxious harpsichord sound. But sometimes, I don't know, case by case by case, like, what's my mood that day? Sometimes I just like the simpler the simpler NES arrangement for that one. Yeah, absolutely. I think when I first started listening to these, I started with the Famicom ones and getting through it.

I'm like, man, I'm just getting a bit. My ears are just getting a bit tired listening to this. But then when I came back to it, I was just in a different headspace. And I was like, well, this is really, really rad. Yeah. I'm just going to call out a few tracks here and just add them into the show so people can hear them for themselves and compare. Yeah, so I'm just going to call out some tracks, kind of give you context of where they belong in the game, and let you hear the two versions, fade one into the other and then back again

to sort of see, like, what's the difference? And these are all taken, ripped directly from the vinyl. So it's not compressed aside from, you know, the cruelty that happens to podcasts when we post them. But yeah, obviously you're not going to get the full effect of the music here. But hopefully there's enough clarity that you can kind of get an appreciation for it. So I already mentioned beginning and clockwork, but another one is stream, which takes place on the aqueduct. And I always associate that level with the wizard Seifah,

because if you take her along and she collects an ice spell, you can actually freeze the aqueduct's water momentarily by using her ice magic. So she's like sort of the superpowered character there. Every, one of the great things about Castlevania three is that, you know, you have the three companion characters that you have to kind of choose between. And everyone is a tradeoff. Like each one has his or her own strength. And, you know, you can also fight alone as Trevor Belmont if you really want. That's a good challenge. But each stage has sort of a situation where one character might be more valuable than the other. And stream is kind of like to me, that is, it's not technically Syphist theme, but I kind of think of it as Syphus theme. But I kind of think of it as Syphus. speed. Aquarius is another great track, which you said you hadn't played Castlevania 3 much. Did you play it at all?

Okay. So Aquarius is the flooded ruins, which is kind of this multi-part journey. So you're initially just fighting through battling against fishmen who jump out. And then you fight a boss, it's like two vipers. that come up, and then the place starts to flood. So the second half of the stage, after the boss, you're escaping while it floods. And Aquarius is, it's just, yeah, it really drives home sort of the tension of being in these ancient Roman-looking underwater ruins. I'm going to be able to be.

Which is one of the areas of Castlevania 3 that most calls back to the Lupon, the third movie, Castle of Calliostro. I don't know if we've ever seen any of those posts that compare, like, the art of Castle of Calliostro to elements of Castlevania 3. But it's like, it's really obvious if you sit down and do comparisons that Konami's graphic artists at least were like, we really like the castle in this Lupan movie. And this one really, like, you know, the conclusion of Castle of Calliostro is like the revelation of this ancient Roman ruin. And it feels like here's the video game version of that where you're fighting through it and it's flooding. So this is like the prequel to loop on the third, I don't know. And of course, I can't not mention deja vu, which as the title suggests, is a throwback to the original Castlevania. It's the vampire killer theme, basically.

When you start out the original Castlevania in stage one, this is that. And this is one that I think is really, like, you just have to hear it in the VRC6 version because the standard NES arrangement is like, oh, it's a, you know, it's a little more detailed version of the classic Castlevania theme. But when you hear it with the extra sound channels, it really feels like sort of the culmination, like this is the journey of the NES. We started out and look how simple that old game was. And now look here we are with Castlevania 3 and everything is so much more elaborate and complex. And here is music to accompany this more intricate version of this game from four or five years ago. And that's also just the interesting thing about the history of cartridge games is we can't do that anymore. We're never going to have a PS, a launch PS4 game soundtrack be wildly different in technological capabilities as a,

end-of-life PS4 game because we're not physically adding hardware without, you know, revisions and stuff like that. Yeah, I wonder if the possibility for that exists in some capacity with switch or Vita. I'm guessing probably not because those are like tiny. I don't think that there's really room to add on these things. I don't know if the systems are even designed for like, would you be able to bridge like added technology in there? I don't think you would.

It seems like in both cases those are just a proprietary. proprietary cases for flash technology, so probably not. But I suppose if they wanted to, it would be, I mean, it has to have a, well, maybe not because, you know, like a switch cartridge doesn't save anything. So the console might not be pushing information to it just from it. I feel like the last time I saw anyone do anything crazy with add-on technology like that for a cartridge was Konami with the Boktai games for Game Boy Advance, which, you know, have the standard cartridge and then have the UV sensor.

attached to it that stuck out the end of the system. I just don't think that's possible anymore, partially because of the design of the systems, but also because those were, you know, like silicon ROM chips as opposed to flash technology. So, yeah, I think, I think you're right. I think we're beyond that now. So you have to go back and listen to Castlevania 3

and be like, oh, that was hardware evolution happening in software. Yes, the, that was the logical conclusion of the, the iterating on hardware, whereas Sega went even further and just jumped the shark with hardware add-ons. Yeah, I think kind of limiting it to just the cartridges was probably the better idea. Although, I guess the Sega philosophy kind of lives on now with Xbox 1S and Scorpio and PS4 Pro. I'm sure Switch will get some sort of iteration because Nintendo's done like the new 3DS. So I guess that's kind of how it happens now. Well, so yeah, now, now the analogy is the console developers are iterating like Apple does,

but perhaps Apple was iterating like Nintendo did. So Apple stole from Nintendo. Inception. So anyway, and then, yeah, there's a few other tracks. Riddle is one of those really tense ones. You know, I'm going to be able to be. And then Overture, I'm trying to remember. I think that's like the final stage as you're marching up to Dracula's Lair.

And there are not that many challenges in that. So it's kind of like a slower, more intense stage or theme that sort of builds up to, like, to create tension as you go up to Dracula's Tower and finally take him on. And then there's two different versions of the final battle theme, which I'm not really that crazy about. But Overture is great because it does have just the sense of like, this is that your journey has been all for this. Here's, you're going into the final showdown. Really great intense stuff. So I guess I don't want to belabor the point too much. I don't want to make this whole episode about Castlevania 3, which would be a very easy thing to do.

But, well, I will say the, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show, the art of the discs themselves, of the LPs themselves looks, looks, looks. There's a few different versions that Mondo put out, I think, for what the actual LP looks. Like the vinyl itself? Yeah. Yeah, there's like a spatter effect and then there's a half-moon effect. And I ended up with a half-moon effect and I really like that. It's like sort of a deep coffee color on one side and more of an orange. So it's kind of like, you know, the half moon, I guess.

Yeah. And the art itself is, it looks like, is well drawn. Yeah, I'm not really crazy about the artwork they went with on this LP. Like, it's very strange. Well, it's like heads coming apart and you can see inside them. Yeah, there's like stuff going through their skulls. I don't know. It doesn't say, oh, Castlevieve.

3 to me. It's very nicely drawn, like you said, but it just seems like a little bit of miss, especially after the past two. I would rather personally see like actual Konami archival art, you know, 12 inch cover art from the NES game. But okay, so we can't have that. I did at least like, you know, the Castlevania and Castlevania two selections. Hopefully with their upcoming LPs, they'll be a little more on point. Like, this one is an interesting choice, but it doesn't quite work for me. But anyway, whatever, minor complaint,

it's a great release, even if I'm a little like, huh, with the artwork? The gatefold inside is nice, so at least there's that. But just in terms of the music quality, like this is the definitive Castlevania 3 soundtrack release. Like, absolutely any fan of the series owes it to themselves to consider picking up a copy,

Even if you don't have a record player now, maybe eventually you'll get one as we travel back in time and CDs become unpopular and we travel back to the world of LPs and mixtapes, you'll join the party eventually. So you might as well stock up now because I'm sure this thing will sell out and records tend to be pretty limited pressings. So I would say better late than never. I'm not getting paid to say that. I'm just saying like this is this soundtrack release is kind of why I got into buying video game sound. because it is, it's just that good. It's really great. Yeah, it's fantastic. So the second topic I'd like to tackle this episode is the shovel night release from Brave Wave, which came out, it's been about a month now, maybe a little more than a month. I wasn't able to talk about it last time, which is a shame because last time I could have talked

about it with Bob Mackie, who did the liner notes for it. But alas, it'll just have to be us posers talking about it. So Jack, I assume you've played shovel night. I have indeed. You've probably played more of it than me. I keep meaning to finish it up, and I've only beaten like half the stages. I don't know. It's been a while. I think I got it when it first came out on Wii U, and I played a decent amount. And I really enjoyed it, but it was one of those games where it was still kind of NES hard in some spots. So you have to be in the right frame of mind to play it and have the right, the devotion,

the time investment and the right temperament. Right. Yeah, I really need to sit down and play the new Inspector of Torment, the new expansion. And it's one of those situations where I'm a little bit annoyed and I shouldn't be because they sent me a code. for Spector of Torment for Switch. So I downloaded that,

and then it turns out that's just Spector of Torment. So I could spend $25 and get another copy of Shovel Knight. I already have it on like two other platforms. And that would also have Spector of Torment in it. So it's kind of like... Is the DLC on like the older version,

older consoles, like Wii U? Probably, but I just want to play stuff on Switch now. It's such a nice little system. Well, that's when I found out that Shovel Knight was coming to Switch. I was like, oh, so I can... When I get a switch, I can get a switch, I can get, I can get Zelda and this.

Yes, exactly. That was my thought, too. And, yeah, so I just need to stop being a cheap skate and buy the game and then finally play through it. I don't believe that the Shovel Knight LP, which is a two-disc LP release, I don't think it has any of the Spectre of Torment music. I don't know if there's actually original music in Spector of Torment. I haven't had a chance to play that yet. That's on my to-do list with so many other things. And, yeah, I need to sit down and check that out. say that it is a great release. It's very different from Brave Wave's last release, which was the, this is the second

entry in the Generation Series that they're doing. The first one was a four-disc release of Street Fighter 2. I don't know if you were familiar with that one, but it kind of predates Retronauts Radio, so I'll talk about that very briefly. It's a four-record box set that is a complete remastering of the Street Fighter 2 soundtrack across both different hardware arcade hardware revisions, the CPS1 and CPS2, I believe.

So they went back to the original soundboards and recorded directly off the arcade hardware. And like those two arrangements, you know, basically Street Fighter the World Warriors and Super Street Fighter 2. They're very different takes on the music because the hardware just had different capabilities, CPS2, which was much more powerful,

both in terms of visuals and music. So it's a really great release, although my biggest complaint with the Street Fighter LP was that there is a lot of sort of like, I don't really need this music on here. It's complete and it's exhaustive and its completeness. So you get like the, each multiple version, each stage theme has multiple versions,

like the standard fight version, and then the Time's Running Out version where it gets sped up. So you get both versions of that, and then you get like each character's game over and each character's end like ending theme and various other effects which you know like in terms of completeness is nice but I don't know that it really works with vinyl that well because you can't just skip past right although I imagine if you were wanting to buy an LP of those tracks in any case you would want you why not make it complete because because who else is going to buy this, except I think a very niche market anyway. Yeah, I guess so, but it kind of gets into the

philosophy of like collecting music and curating music. There is a difference. Absolutely. And I feel like, although it's nice to have the sort of complete release, I would have been okay if Street Fighter generations had been just like, say, three LPs and skipped some of the sort of superfluous stuff that I don't really need. But whatever, it's fine. It's a great release. They did an amazing job of recapturing that sound and presenting it. The mastering is great. The music sounds as good as I've heard it. And shovel night is actually was a much simpler process for them, I'm sure,

because they didn't have to go back to arcade hardware and deal with the self-destructive encryption that was on CPS2 boards. Like, I'm sure that was some sort of monumental slog. Whereas shovel night, they could probably just get the original files from the composers Jake Kaufman and Manami Matsumai. Mostly the record was composed by Kaufman, but Matsumai did, who was the composer for the original Mega Man and some soft, sun soft eight-bit games. She did kind of step in, help out with some arrangements, and composed a few tracks. So, yeah, like, I don't think this is as monumental and undertaking, but it also feels less, like, there's less extraneous material here.

Like, it's two LPs, and there aren't very many tracks that I'm like, I could live without that. It's all pretty solid. Which could partially be because of just the nature of composing music now versus back then, especially for, you know, in comparison, in comparing it to Street Fighter, where it's an arcade game versus more of a linear experience with shovel night. And so those tracks ideally will be more enjoyable to listen to, especially in sequence. Yeah, so what is this, you put in the notes about a FAMI tracker? Yeah, so I remember when.

shovel night came out that I had heard that it was the entire soundtrack was able to be played on a Nintendo and so I actually asked Jake on Twitter if that was true and he says yeah as he composed the whole game in a tracker

a FAMI tracker which is a different way to compose and was used in older games instead of like a horizontal view that most digital audio workstations have this is more of a vertical view with in numbers more note on note off uh you know uh you know so somewhat like midi where it's it's it's it's all

just numbers and and and ons and offs and you know set set volume to this set pitch to this um and i asked him if uh it was possible and he said yes because since he composed it all in fami tracker as long as you have a modded nes or a famicom uh and you can load up the uh the fami tracker file in the in the original hardware it'll sound exactly like it does in the game do you know if those available online as like NSF files? I'm not sure. I would assume so. Okay, because the analog MT Mini actually has a built-in NSF player and it supports all those, you know, the different chip extensions

so it can do VRC6. So that would be really interesting, actually, to play shovel night music on that hardware. Yeah, so I wonder if they actually use the files for the LP or if they recaptured with a Famicom. Now that you say that, I don't think it's said in the notes. Maybe I just missed it. But yeah, they might have actually captured from a Famicom now that you say that. So if so, then Bravo to them.

That's authenticity right there. Yeah, I remember. So right before the show, I looked it up. And, you know, there's an article from a few years ago that, you know, said all of that stuff. And that the, is it, yacht games that made that developed, yacht club. That developed the game itself. They tried to be as faithful to NES as they could, but they still had to. fudget, sprites are a bit bigger.

There's like two extra colors and stuff like that. But the soundtrack itself is fully authentic. Yeah, I had a conversation with Sean Velasco, who was the lead on the game, back before it came out when they were still showing it off. I think it Pax East the year that came out. So what was that, 2015, I want to say? Sounds right. Maybe 2014.

Maybe 2014. How old are we? Very. Okay. So, yeah, anyway, before the game came out, like I, there were a bunch of games that had that sort of NES look to them at Pax East, but his was the only one that looked authentic. And I, you know, I talked to him for a little while about that. And he was like, yeah, we actually made the game look too good. And we had to go in and take out animation frames

from characters because they were just, you didn't see NES games that looked like that back then. So in order to make it more consistent and feel correct, we had to actually, you know, make the game look less nice. But they did a good job of sticking to proper color palettes and you know maybe the sprites are a little too big and you know you don't get the flicker if you have more than eight sprites per line but I don't think anyone really misses that you don't get the slowdown that's fine it's like NES perfected basically right it's smoothing the rough edges of NES yeah and both uh you know the sort of simulated NESs that have been coming out the ABS and the NT Mini both have the option to turn off sprite

limitations for the per line so like you can even do that with, you know, simulated original hardware. So I don't think that they were straying too far from intent. No, but I'm glad that they kept it pretty, they still kept it rained in because there's, there's a definite sort of uncanny valley of indie, you know, of NES-esque indie games out there that are just obviously too smooth or too many colors and it just looks off. Yeah, like Double Dragon Four is a good example of a game where they're like kind of made it look like an NES game, but then in a lot of parts, they were just like, oh, we don't have time

or budget. Let's just, okay, whatever. Just put some bitmaps back there, even if they don't look like the NES. So, yeah. So the soundtrack is a great reflection of Yacht Club games commitment to authenticity, to fake authenticity, which I admire. That's great. Like, they realize, I think, that part of the experience was the way the games felt.

And for me, that's why I've gone to such troubles to get a CRT and, you know, play games through RGB mod outs and things like that, just because I want, like, the best possible experience. But when you start getting things like input lag and, you know, odd scaling on, on HD screens, things just feel off. And I was really put off by classic video games once we made the transition to HD TVs, and it It wasn't until people turned me on to the fact that, yes, you can go back and play on CRTs, that I kind of found my love for them again. So it's nice because the great thing about shovel night, and I don't know why I haven't played more of it, is that you don't have to go back because it does capture that feel, and it really does have the authentic NES vibe to it, which very few people have managed to pull off. Yes, and you get to get that NES vibe on practically every current gen console.

out there because they've ported it to practically everything. Yep, at this point, there's not too much that it's missing on. So in terms of the soundtrack, I feel like Vert was very heavily influenced by European composers like Tim Follin, who had a very different work process and kind of pursued different things with their music than the Japanese composers who most people sort of admire. I think a lot of European composers on NES were sort of overlooked by most people because they tended to show up in really crappy games by probe or ocean. And so you have games like Silver Surfer for NES. And the only good thing about that game is the soundtrack. And you get that like, you know, you can tell these guys came up playing and composing for C-64 because their music does have that sort of like hyperactive demo scene feel where there's all these guys like RPG.

and just like crazy, I don't even know the proper technical terms, but things like panning back and forth and stereo and you're just like, how are they getting that many notes out of the NES when they only have five sound channels? What's going on? They didn't even, like, Tim Follin didn't need a VRC6. He just did that with the NES hardware. But it's, it definitely has a different feel than, you know, like typical Konami or Sunsoft or Capcom composers. Like, they tended to take a more mathematical, precise, less like, let's go to a rave and more like, hey, let's, let's, you know, enjoy our love for Badger and Journey and so forth, like a little more of a classical rock and roll construction, I think. Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think Shovel Knight has a

bit more of a frantic or frenetic feel to it. A lot more melody changes or instrument changes in the middle of the melody, so going back and forth. And although they were very faithful to the hardware that they were emulating, but they weren't necessarily as faithful to kind of the style of a Japanese developed and composed NES game and soundtrack. Because it very much so feels a bit more modern than if it had come out in 1989. Yeah, but at the same time, like you did hear, this kind of sound with

European composers back then so if you did suffer through some of those games like I don't know Hudson Hawk or something would be like oh well I'm not having any fun but I like the music and this captures that and I guess you know you mentioned that it was composed for the VRC 6 spec

that Castlevania 3 in Japan used and I don't think any European composers had access to that I don't think a lot of their games came out specifically for Japanese releases. So I guess this is kind of like in the way that Shovel Knight, the game is sort of like the NES experience optimized, Vert's soundtrack is like, you know, the European NES composer experience optimized, like what could Tim Follin have done if he had had access to, you know, the advanced Japanese mapper chips?

What could have been? What world could we be living in? So I kind of feel like Shovel Knight's soundtrack has a little bit of an acquired taste if you're more used to the Japanese approach to NES composition like I am. But it's very, very good. And like if you can get past the fact that especially the main theme is pretty strident and very hyperactive, like you said. Once you kind of develop an ear for that, you can really appreciate all of the different things going on on the soundtrack.

Do you have any particular favorite tracks? Not necessarily. I think it is a good, it is a good album. to listen to maybe not back to front as much as say that the Castlevania soundtrack

is or some of the other soundtracks we'll talk about but it's definitely a good well composed collection of

music and but I do think you can tell a little bit in some cases which were composed by Jake and which were composed

by the Mega Man composer Matsamai yes with Matsumai there's definite Mega Man esk feel to some of

the tracks. I think actually Vert did do some of the Mega Man-Man-ish pieces. And Manami Matsumai went on to compose for some other companies like Sunsoft. And so she, I think, picked up

different styles and approaches to music. So I don't think, you know, it's just like all she does is Mega Man style music. Right. But I think, you know, she could make a lot of music. She could make a lot of money if she did that, though. Probably. Yeah. But I think, I think she definitely had an influence on VIRT and I think you know this was a collaborative effort so so a little bit

of you know their styles kind of bleeds into one another so that that that I think that helps sort of even out the soundtrack a lot absolutely probably the most Mega Man track in the in the entire game is high above the land which yeah I'll just I'll just put it in here so people can hear it I'm going to be able to be. I actually, I think I enjoy sides three and four of the, the LP more than the first disc, just because you have fewer of the, like, the reprises of the main theme, which is kind of like a light motif that runs throughout the record. And you start getting into more of some different compositions and a little more, I think, tonal variety. So it's not quite so exhausting, like so up-tempo. Right.

I think side two has a lot of the town themes and stuff, which also kind of slow down the pace of the listening experience, I think. Yeah, the album starts out at a breakneck pace. Like, the first few tracks are just exhausting. And it's not until you get to the track, an underlying problem that the tempo slows down slightly and you're like, oh, I can breathe. And it kind of, you know, gives you a respite that you need.

I think that's, that may be one of the big weaknesses of the album is that just as a set of music is that because it is like this intense action game, you don't get a lot of the breaks that you need to sort of like mentally sort of give yourself a pallet cleanser and say, oh, okay, time to dive into the next big one. Right, peaks and valleys of any good album flow. One that I also like is the donor's despair, which feels like the 8-bit chamber music. It's not so much of like the hard rocking style. but it kind of feels almost like something that could have come from the Castlevania 3 soundtrack.

It has an almost harpsichord-like sound to it again. So, you know, I think they were definitely kind of looking to the best tricks of the A-Bid era and saying, ooh, we should do a little of that, a little of this. And I think they pulled it off. They did a great job with it. The Flowers of Antimony isn't very Mega-Man-like. It's more ghosting goblins-ish. It's really, really intense, but it's not as sort of in-your-face and aggressive as a lot of the other tracks on the album.

So that one really sticks out to me, and it's one that I can just listen to over and over again. And just in terms of, you know, reprises of the main theme, I think the best one in the game comes toward the very end, the inner struggle, which is like this big heroic reprise of the theme, which changes the tempo a little bit and gives it a different texture and flavor. So it's not so much like the, you know, the breakneck pace. It's more like, it's like the main theme is sort of an RPG boss battle, like the lead-in track or something. And then finally the Betrayer, which I think is the final boss theme, but don't quote me on that because I haven't played all the way through. Well, there's also DLC, so who knows what the final boss is. I need to, I really need to do more shovel nighting. I'm not

I'm not I'm not I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm at the

I'm I'm a I'm The Betrayer, I think, is where the European, I think, is where that European, like, European, like, hyperreier. activity really works well because it is you know this is the end here this is the big showdown so yes everything should be just like flying in your face you should be stressed out and hyperactive and kind of you know on the edge of your seat so um so even if it takes a little while to kind of get a taste for that that sort of like constant up and down cycling in some of the early

tracks like here that's what you want so i think i think they did a great job of bringing that all kind of together at the end of the game absolutely yeah and if anything just listening to the soundtrack does make me want to play show a night more yeah just sitting here talking about it I'm like okay as soon as we're done here I'm going to go play specter of torment I got to plug my WiiU back back in dust off the game pad yep yeah or just you know pick it up on switch do you have a switch yet I don't have a switch yet I do you switch it's so good I don't know what it's supposed to replace they keep they keep saying it's the 3DS replacement but no it's not it's a Wii you replacement but no it's not i don't know well it's it's i guess it's the second pillar whereas the ds was

the third pillar right because it was certainly not supposed to replace the the game boy at advance right so that's what they said right i think they that was just their escape hatch and i think nintendo's doing the same thing here where they if if the switch was to bomb phenomenally they would still be able to go oh wait 3d s but it's certainly going to replace it yeah but anyway um however you play a shovel night Yeah, I think both of us are probably going to leave this recording session and go play some more shovels brings. Absolutely. Finally finish that game. Hey, Retronauts listeners, it's me, Jeremy.

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That's correct. And that is a mattress, specifically a Casper mattress, which I don't think actually is really that similar to the bed in Dragon Quest 6 because the bed of Dragon Quest 6 was based on magic, whereas Casper mattresses are all high-tech with dual latex foam and memory foam. It's all scientific and even has tons of awards. Yes, we have to give a disclaimer. The mattress will not fly out of the box. You have to do that on your own, but I like this idea because buying a mattress is such a pain, and when I moved out to California to pursue my dreams, I basically just slept on a piece of foam for years because I did not want to go through the hassle of buying a new mattress. Can you talk about just

Like, what will this do for your life if you need a new mattress? Well, for one thing, you can just shop online, which is great for, you know, books and stuff, but doesn't usually work for large items like mattresses, but they offer a no-risk return system and also great prices. So their prices start at $500 for a twin and go all the way up to $950 for a massive California king. And if you're not happy with it, you can return it easily. They have free shipping and easy returns. And on top of that, Retronauts listeners can get $50 off their first mattress purchase,

by visiting caspertrial.com slash game and using the promo code five zero sleep and remember as always terms and conditions do apply fortunately to fly around in dreamland on these mattresses you don't have to beat the dark lord or anything like that just order online at caspertrial dot com slash games i'm john horn i'm the host of geffen playhouse unscripted i'm here with our very first guest rain wilson hi john looks like i'm the first guest on the geffen unclothed unscripted unscripted yeah let's go with that a marriage made in heaven i guess or westwood tune in for some of our exciting upcoming guests david copperfield neil labute neopatrick harris josh gad rita wilson and many more be sure to download new episodes every wednesday on the podcast one app and on iTunes and don't forget to rate review and share and i'm rayne wilson the first guest you're the very first guest this was a huge mistake so we are wow we're kind of getting on in

time. We're at 50 minutes now and that's without sound being added in. So I guess we'll kind of speed through the next two LPs because I don't want this to be hours long. We've got lives to lead places to go. And also it's going to be an editing nightmare if I keep going. So let's talk about the latest data disks release, which is Galaxy Force 2 and Thunderblade. It's I think the first time they've put two games on a single album. What they've done in the past when they've had kind of short arcade soundtracks is just released them as like 45 RPM 12 inchers so you get a higher supposedly sound quality to them but this one they released as a 33 RPM record that just has two games on it now are these do these share the same developer do they share the same

publisher why would they have yeah yeah everything everything data disks has done so far this is their 10th release has been Sega like that seems to be all they do is Sega games a lot of Genesis, Mega Drive, and also arcade. They did also Shenmu, which was, you know, Dreamcast. Right. Or was it Shimu too? I think Shenmoo. But aside from Shenmoo, yeah, everything's been sort of like the System 16 or the Sega

Genesis. So these games are from the System 16 arcade systems. So they're like that rich, deep FM synthesis sound. the LPs a little backward actually Thunderblade came out before Galaxy Force 2 but Thunderblade

is the B side but I kind of feel like they put it on the B side because it's not as good as Galaxy Force 2 I would agree with that there's not really much happening in the Thunderblade

soundtrack I mean it's fine it's good solid FM synthesis audio but it's kind of like it has a thinner sound and I feel like it's very repetitive

I guess when you sit down and listen to each track individually. They do, like, they're distinct, but when you listen to it as a whole, it just kind of feels like there's no real variety to it. No, and I wonder, it seems like with Thunderblade, there's a lot more use of samples than in Galaxy Force 2. A lot of the drums and, like, high hats, there's, it seems like there's a bit more sampling going on there, which could help lead to its repetitive nature, especially if they're reusing a lot of those instrument samples. Oh, that would make Yeah, I did notice that the percussion tracks in Thunderblade really sound monotonous from one track to the other.

So, yeah, if that's all sample-based, I would explain it because they are just basically using the same sounds over and over. And, you know, sampling percussion was a pretty popular trick back then, and some composers did it to great effect. I know I've mentioned Kji Yamagishi from Tecmo here before on Retronauts. He kind of had a gimmick where he would use the NES's sampling track for his percussion. And it led to really distinct sounding NES soundtracks like Ninja Guidon and Captain Subasa and TechMobile. And all those games, you can tell they're by the same guy. But I never felt like his use of sampling was really just monotonous. Whereas Thunderblade does have a bit of that.

Yeah. In Thunderblade, it's a pretty funky soundtrack. A lot of kind of frantic bass lines and, you know, you know, upbeats and off-time drummings to make it sound, I guess, a bit more supposedly interesting, but then your ear just can't follow it as well. So it's just kind of is a mess.

Yeah, trying to be like, I guess, sort of a loose jazz feel almost. Sort of fusion jazz. That's actually from, I think, 1987. So, yeah, maybe it's a little bit innovative, but maybe a little too innovative. Well, I suppose especially if this is an arcade, you know, release in 1987, if you want to find a way to grab someone's attention

and a sea of noise, a pretty frantic, semi-realistic sounding music will help you get there. Thank you. I'm going to be the I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm B.

. Yeah, but, um, Thunderblade and Galaxy Force 2 were produced for the same super-scaler hardware. So I kind of feel like Thunderblade led to Galaxy Force 2. And Galaxy Force 2, I don't know if you've played that on like the 3DS classics that Sega did. I haven't. I was looking at it. It is, I think, sort of the platonic ideal of the superscaler effect.

It's amazing, like, what all that game is doing. It's really hard to play because, you know, kind of placing yourself in the 3D space, is very difficult sometimes but it's just so cool it's like I can't believe they were doing this with just sprites it looks really good and yeah I would in especially you know

with somewhat bullet hell situations you can get yourself into it would probably get pretty frustrating to die because you just couldn't tell what's what but it you know especially in the historical sense it looks quite impressive and it sounds really really good

the FM synthesis and this is fantastic. Yeah, I mean, there's one track, the last track on the Galaxy Force II collection that is performed with live instrumentation. It's like the composers, I guess, performing a live rendition of the main theme beyond the galaxy.

And it's so good. I'm going to be able to be. But I mean, even the FM synthesis stuff from the arcade board, and it tells which board they pulled it from on the back of the sleeve, it sounds so great. Like, they were doing a lot with that FM synth that, like, much, much further beyond anything you ever heard on Sega Genesis. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it sounds great.

To back up, I really wish Side 2 was an arranged version of all of these tracks in the style that that last track on Side 1 is. But yeah, as far as the FM synthesis, I'm a big fan of FM synthesis, a big fan of the Genesis sort of sound. Then you'll fit in right here. Yeah, you said that there was kind of a jazz field, a Thunderblade, but I feel like Galaxy Force 2 really has, it's almost Zoon. tata ish in a way like they they really like it's it's got a driving sound to it but it's not too

driving like sometimes you know there's sort of like this freeform style that then coalesces into sort of a beat but it's not too aggressive a beat like it's a little loungy but without sounding like easy listening it's it's a really difficult balancing act that they pulled off like how do you make a shooter soundtrack that's intense but also a little laid back yeah i i'd agree with that it's um i get some some like prog feels from it as well where it's you know you said the magic word or it's it's it's it's it's almost like you know if if they were just noodling around for a little while and came up with with this soundtrack this track and that's what it was but it's it's interesting yeah i think i think this album or this this game soundtrack appeals to me on the

same level as something like brand x or national health which are some pretty obscure, like British fusion inflected, inflected, inflected, prog bands, mostly did instrumental stuff. And actually, Brand X was like a Phil Collins side project in the 70s before he broke out as a solo artist. Like, when he couldn't do enough jazzy stuff with Genesis, he'd be like, all right, I'm just going to go noodle around with these guys. And then he just made a bunch of pop songs in the 80s.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, he figured out how to make some money. but yeah like this this definitely has that same sort of fusion rock jazz prog what the hell is going on i don't know but i like it style um like you have some some like Seinfeld style slap bass in the opening track which would become basically the default bass sound for the super nes a few years later but this was 1988 so you know this came out this at the same time as the genesis hardware in japan so it's a step

technologically above what they could put into a home console. So imagine the Genesis, but like the next level, basically, the next level of quality. Especially with the Thunderblade, there's some definite like, oh, that's the Sonic baseline.

You can kind of get that feeling from some of the tracks. Yeah, I mean, I didn't actually sit down to look at what the specs on the hardware were, but my guess is that Thunderblade is probably closer in capabilities to the Genesis, than Galaxy Force 2.

If not, then, you know, if they're all on the same thing, then I don't know why people slacked off so much on Genesis because very little on Genesis sounds as good as Galaxy Force 2. And that's not a dis on Genesis. It's just this game sounds so good. I love the soundtrack. Like I mentioned Beyond the Galaxy, the opening track with the Seinfeld slap bass. But then you have the next track back to take back the galaxy,

which has more of an open, like a lounge feel to it. But at the same time, even though it's got that kind of like more, you know, like I said, open sound to it, bass is really thick. So it's like, like, you know, kind of that easy lounge style. But then the bassist is just like really going after it. And like, I'm going to, I'm going to show you guys. I'm going to fill the whole room. I'm not

I'm going to be able to be. I'm not. I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm going to I'm I'm going to

I'm I'm Yeah, they, there's a definite emphasis on the, on the base, just instrument in general on a lot of these tracks, they, the, the base is usually the driving force along with the percussion on, on these tracks, which makes sense. to the point that they'll even fade between like the Seinfeld bass samples and then the bass will switch over to the more sonic-esque FM base track and back and forth and kind of, you know, using what limited resources they have to get this very, very feel in these tracks. It's really good.

Yeah, and then it's hard to say what my favorite track on Galaxy Force 2 is, but I do like a lone fighter, which in the notes just says piano jazz, but with sense. So it's like it's doing a lot of things. things that shouldn't work together, but they do. So, yeah, this, I think Thunder, or, sorry, Galaxy Force 2 has been released, like the soundtrack has been released on CD in Japan, like 20 years ago. So this is kind of the first time, as far as I know that this entire soundtrack,

plus some outtakes and unreleased tracks have been put into a single compilation. So, you know, for fans of the Sega Zutata, you know, 80s shooter, jazzy style music, FM synth, like, there's a lot going on here. If you're a fan of that, again, this is another definite, like, must have. I mean, everything Datadisks has done has been great, and this is another great record. But it's one of the most surprising. Like, it's by far, like, side A is probably my favorite thing they've released so far. I just love the music to Galaxy Force 2.

Yeah, it's, of everything we're talking about, it's probably my number two favorite thing, right below Castlevania, obviously. And the great thing is, though, that you can buy Galaxy Force 2 pretty easily on 3DS. It's one of the 3D classics that M2 remastered. And because it was done by M2, it's got all kinds of crazy effects that we talked about on the most recent Retronauts East, actually, with the fake gyroscope camera or like a cabinet panning and everything. And, of course, the soundtrack comes through perfectly.

So if you don't want to shell out $30 for an LP of games that you maybe have never played, you can pay $8 and get this game. Actually, I think it also comes on the classics collection cartridge, which is probably like $20 now, and it comes with a bunch of other games. So there's really no excuse not to hear this music in some capacity. This way you don't have to play the game. And if you're like me, it's probably the only way you'll ever hear the music to the final stage. Absolutely.

But in any case, Galaxy Force 2 is super cool and has a super cool soundtrack. And I love that they put out this record that, you know, I think it would have been really easy for most people to overlook, but absolutely should be checked out. 100%. Thank you. And finally, we will wrap with the second Mondo release. Actually, they put out two in the past month. And another Konami one, I think that's kind of what they're doing right now. So you have data disks doing Sega and Mondo doing Konami and focusing on Castlevania primarily.

And this one is Contra 3, the Alien War for Super NES. And actually, I think this is the first LP that I've picked up that was based on a Super Nias soundtrack. And, you know, people sometimes are like, so isn't it kind of weird to put video game soundtracks on vinyl because it's, you know, digital music on an analog format? And I guess, but I mean, it comes through really clear and crisp and it's a really great way to get that music reproduced with no

compression but it does take kind of a slightly weird turn with super nias because that was all sample based and so there's already compression kind of built in at the the the fundamental level so it's this this record sounds like no other record that i've that i own it's a it takes a little bit of getting used to it yeah uh i didn't i've never played uh contra three um so i don't have any a nostalgia for it so as such this it feels quite dated to me Whereas, you know, if this was an LP of Mega Man X, which I played a whole lot, I might enjoy it a bit more. But you're right when it comes to, you got to think this is a, you know, a digital compression. It's a copy of a copy of a copy almost where the original sample of some of these sounds has gone through so many, you know, format iterations to get to what's supposed to be a very high fidelity format.

It's pretty interesting. Yeah, I think of all the records we're talking about, the music here is the most challenging. And that's, you know, in terms of like composition. Because one of the composers here was Masanori Adachi, who was also the composer for Super Castlevania 4. And if you're familiar with Super Castlevania 4, you know that that game had a really unusual soundtrack. It was very, like we talked about kind of a loose jazz feel for Galaxy Force, but nothing compared to. to Super Castlevania 4, there's like, you know, the tracks that are just like kind of free-form flute. And sometimes it was just like the sort of quiet piano melodies.

It's, it's, we'll get to that when Mondo releases their Castlevania 4 record, I'm sure. But this is his temperament and style being adapted to a game that instead of being very methodical, slow-paced platformer is a fast-paced shooter full of just constant set pieces and crazy things constantly flying in the screen. Like everywhere you go in Contra 3, something ridiculous happens. Like a robot bursts out of the background and you have to like jump up to the ceiling and avoid it as it tries to stomp you. It's like there's one stage that just consists of the characters traveling to the end of the

stage by climbing hand over hand on this salvo of missiles flying over through the air. It is a ridiculous over-the-top game. It is like they watched all the sort of Stallone Schwarzenegger action movies at the 80s, and we're like, that's nothing. Wait until you see this. Well, just looking at video, yeah, watching videos of Contra 3, it just seems like anything that's moving on the screen that isn't your character, it can kill you. Yes, and wants to, and we'll kill you over and over again.

It's a really hard game. But like I said, the soundtrack reflects sort of an experimental jazz mindset adapted to an action movie. And you can definitely hear some influence from, I think, James Horner and his alien soundtrack in here, or aliens. Like, there's entire stages that just sound like the APC evacuation sequence from aliens, like with the snare drums and tense strings, and it's all very martial. We're going to be able to be. but like the music doesn't sit still for more than just a you know like a just a few seconds at a time it's like every passage is is different from the last and it's all over the place which yeah which might make sense for uh or makes more sense for actual gameplay and it does because the game is like that like every screen is just something different oh wait now you're climbing a tower oh wait now there's a giant turtle oh wait now there's two giant robots punching at you like that game does does not slow down and the music reflects that but it is a challenging listen just on its own the music I think works better in the context of the game and it's it's a little more difficult to listen to

when divorced from that context right yeah I'd agree with that but that said like it's still really good music um but it just has a few things going against it and so I think you really have to love contra three to be able to really just sit down and be like oh yes let the music wash over me I think they did a good job of sort of recapturing the super NES sound, though. Like it has that muffled sort of soft quality, that mutedness that you expect from the super NES. And that is something that I normally like about the super NES. But again, I do feel like for something so intense and fast-paced, it doesn't necessarily, like, this probably would work better as an FM synthesis soundtrack. Yeah, I think so.

Especially when you get into, when something becomes so frantic. in high tempo, you're going to be playing those samples a lot more. So the listener is going to hear those samples over and over more and more. And it can just, that can get a bit fatiguing in my experience. Whereas it was FM synthesis, you'd be able to be more flexible with timber and frequency and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. I'd be interested in hearing like a demake or a remake of this soundtrack on a different

sound chip. It could be pretty interesting, I think. Oh, something like this on Genesis would be really interesting. Yeah, yeah. So rather than just kind of spitball a little more, I'm going to just read the notes that I put together about some of the standout tracks here and kind of express my feelings that way

and then let everyone hear the music and kind of come to their own conclusions. So stage one, I think, is very much like Castlevania 4. If you listen to it, like you can hear the same timpennies that Adachi used in Castlevania 4. but it's attempting to be a crazy fast action. Something that I find really notable about the way this music works, like the stage one music,

is that it doesn't have the rousing melody, like the call-to-action of 8-bit contra soundtracks. Like if you think back to Contra or Super C, like if you've played those games, you can immediately sort of hear the music in your head when you think about stage one. And they're like super high tempo, but very driven, like very direct rock themes. And they fit perfectly with the game. Whereas this is, it feels less like, you know, there's a central melody or sense of progression.

And it's more like the entire track is just constantly sort of ascending and building tension to a crescendo. And the crescendo never quite comes. I guess it's like the explosion of the action. Like you're constantly, you get the sort of resolution through the game rather than through the music, like through sound effects instead of music. So maybe that's why this works better in the game than as a standalone music release, because I think there's a certain element of like a fulfillment that you don't get from the music. And I think that's by design. So it's an interesting design choice.

And, you know, Contra 3 is a really well regarded, you know, it's a classic shooter and did a lot of just really crazy innovative things. And maybe this is one of those things. But you take it away from the proper context, and it becomes a little, a little difficult to sort of appreciate the same way. Right. It falls a bit flat. Or I guess, really not necessarily flat since it's so frantic, but it just doesn't necessarily fit into the context of putting on an expensive pair of headphones with a nice, nice whiskey and cigar in your study the same way. While wearing a dressing gown. Right. Absolutely. That was standard. Velvet. Yeah, stage two is another one of those tracks

It's just all over the place It changes tempos and mood every few bars I'm going to be. And again, that works with the manic design of the game. The one thing I really love about the Sage 2 track is that there's this analog synthesizer that just goes like, and just kind of comes in for just a few phrases. It's just like there, and then it's just like there and then it's gone, but it kind of like, you're like, I want to hear more of that. I want that sound. It's like, it's like, it really does have a great, like, analog. It's like, it really does have a great, like, analog. synthesizer sound like, you know, a corg or a moge or something, as opposed to the more digital

synthesizers that you expect with video games. And I love that they took the time to, I guess, come up with a sample. It was like something so specific, like a dated analog synthesizer. That's great. And yeah, I wish there were a little more of that sound in the game because I love it. Stage four gets us to the super NES slap bass. And maybe, and maybe in sort of keeping with the fact that it uses that sort of standard NES baseline sound, it's also the most focused and traditionally structured track in the game. Like, it feels the most like, oh, this is from a Contra game.

And it feels more like a rock track as opposed to like a, hey, enjoy our late night jazz improv. Thanks for sticking around at 2 a.m. Yeah, absolutely. And then finally, stage five, you get more hints of that Castlevania Four freeform jazz vibe. And then it does become a more heroic tune. And I really like the way that, you know, once it starts to sort of build up, you get this, like, synthetic double-tap electric guitar riff. It's like you could see, you know, Joe Satriani or, I don't know, Adrian Ballou or someone, like, playing this, this, like, video game melody. And again, it's like these little things.

they do throughout the soundtrack just once or twice you get like little tastes of things and there's no there's no element that they lean on um it keeps the the game from sounding repetitive but i do wish there were a little more like of a motif running through the right a little more like this is all part of a whole you can't hum the contra three e3 so it's it's uh just doesn't stick with you as much as other games of are the same vintage world But then you do get the But then you do get the Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dan, you know, the triumphant contra theme, you beat the stage.

that's kind of your payoff that's that's where the climax comes so so kind of the the noise and noise music-esque nature of it has the the the Pavlovian resolution of that that ending that the ending theme on the end of the level exactly um so yeah a pretty a pretty challenging listen in my opinion but i will say that of all the records um i said you know i loved galaxy force two sleeve but i changed my mind contra three mondo's sleeve for this their design is so good. It is a perfect recreation of like 80s hand-painted marketing art. It has, it really evokes like 80-90, 80s and 90s commercial art and specifically reminds me of the package art that Hector Garito painted for the GI Joe toys throughout the 80s.

It's got that hand-painted look. There's like dudes with guns screaming. There's explosions with like, you know, the. the white and yellow center sort of turning red on the outside. Like if you told me like, oh, yeah, this was the box for the G.I. Joe Contra crossover, I'd be like, I'm going to buy me one of those. That's awesome. Like, it hits me right in the childhood.

So this, but this album art is a re-curring. It's new, right? It's a completely, it's an homage to Contra 3. And it's definitely a different style than any of the official art. Like, the Japanese art was kind of stiff. and the American art had more of like an almost almost like oil painterly quality to it with sort of a layering and luminosity

whereas this is just like commercial tempera art it's very solid, it's very muscular, it just it perfectly fits the game. I really love the look of it. It's very authentic and period appropriate. Yes, it is. And

you know, compared to the Castlevania three cover art, which you're kind of like, what's going on here. Like, this is just, you know, ooh, rah, going to, you know, kick your super knee-ass in the teeth. Absolutely. So, if you ever wanted to buy an LP just to frame the cover, which I don't really recommend doing, but if you

wanted to do that, this would be the one to do that with. It's the cover artist so good. Anyway, that's the four records that we're going to talk about this time. Like I said, next time, we will talk about some things that are not released on vinyl. Hopefully get some digital releases

in there. Definitely have a couple of CDs that have just come in that I'm going to be talking about. So you can look forward to that in the meantime. Like I said, I don't want to make anyone feel like I'm trying to shame you into buying LPs or anything like that. And I understand if like you don't want to listen to records or you don't have the budget to buy stuff like this, that's fine. It's just great music. This is a great way to get these soundtracks, but you know, you can listen to them however you want to listen to them. these games, you can buy their soundtracks on iTunes, I think. Maybe not all of them, but a lot of

them. Or, you know, just listen on YouTube. Who cares? That's fine. But I just love having classic video game music in new releases as a thing that exists in 2017. So, yeah, there's some great stuff this time. And I have thoroughly enjoyed putting this episode together because it means I got to listen to a great, great music, a great amount of great music. Same. Any final thoughts on this stuff, Jack, or you think we should just wrap it up? I think all of these releases are pretty good, and it was enjoyable to listen to them all. I mean, I don't have a record player, but I'm tempted.

Barnes & Noble has them pretty cheap. Oh, don't get one of those. Don't do that. It'll destroy your records or destroy your love of records, one of the two. But, yeah, I mean, however you want to listen to music, it's fine. Just enjoy it. That's what this show is about, is just learning to love music, especially music from old video games.

So for Retronauts Radio, this has been Jeremy Parrish. And Jack, why don't you tell us where we can find you on the internet? You can find me on Twitter at Jack Menhorn, J-A-C-M-H-O-R-N. My web URL is the same. And I also do music as aura-heavy industry. You can find me on Twitter at O-R-A-heavy music. All right. And again, you work for Boss-Kee.

Yes. Boss-key Productions. We're working on Lawbreakers, which just had its first closed beta, and we're hopefully soon going to announce a second close beta. Does that have a release date yet, or is it just when it's ready? When it's ready. That's a good kind of release date, actually. As for myself, of course, you can find me here at Retronauts.

Retronauts.com on iTunes, on the Padcast One Network. That's where it's happening. We are funded through Patreon along with ads. So please consider giving and supporting us and helping to make these episodes possible. Patreon.com slash Retronauts. You can find me on Twitter as GameSpite. And Retronauts, of course, is on Twitter as Retronauts and also Facebook and so on and so forth. Yeah, we're taking over the internet.

In the meantime, I guess that's it. So look forward to a Retronauts East next week. And there should be a Retronauts micro in there somewhere or another. So lots of things to hear to fill your ears with. Thanks for listening. And we'll be back again next week. The Mueller Report. I'm Ed Donahue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House

a 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 showing. 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 Bryant 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.