VG Soundtrack of the Day 071: F-ZERO

The very first album featured in VG Soundtrack of the Day was an arranged album of music from this very game. I feel I would be remiss if I didn't get around to the original F-ZERO, so here we are. Much of F-ZERO's icon music tracks were birthed in this landmark title. Mute City, Big Blue, Port Town, Silence and one of my favorites but not as appreciated, Sand Ocean. Even by the SNES' exceptional sound capabilities, F-ZERO manages to pump out some amazing bass and blaring trumpets, set to some fast paced, exhilarating beats, making for thrill listen. What? You've heard of a thrill rides? This is a thrill listen.

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VG Soundtrack of the Day 070: Cool Spot

Licensed based games have certainly come a long way. During the 8 and 16-bit eras, Disney properties were safe in the hands of Capcom and SEGA and there were other exceptions. Still, you had a looooot of garbage licensed games but when something like Cool Spot came along, well that gave you hope that everything wasn't trash. The game was by no means remarkable but it was a solid platformer and it didn't suck. The game was on just about every gaming platform under the sun bu the two versions most remember are the SNES and Genesis versions and those are the ones I'm focusing on today. Why both instead of one over the other? Because I do not wish to open up the great divide between these two systems. You have Tommy Tallarico to thank for the sick beats in Cool Spot.

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database

VG Soundtrack of the Day 069: Metroid

Even for a game that originated during what some would consider the sound era of bleeps and blops, the music of Metroid still manages to stand out. Samus' trek through a hostile alien world begins with the triumphant, heroic theme of Brinstar but once you reach Norfair, the music changes to reflect a deeper descent into the unknown. In Japan, Metroid was released on the FDS (Famicom Disk System) and a few of the tracks benefit from the disk system's hardware. I personally prefer the NES version tracks over the FDS tunes, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. The embedded YouTube video contains the music from both the NES and FDS versions.

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database

VG Soundtrack of the Day 068: Ristar

An unsung hero during the twilight years of the Genesis is ever their was one. During the development of creating a new mascot for SEGA, a rabbit with stretchy arms was pitched. Given that the company settled on a speedy blue Hedgehog, I think we all know how that turned out. The extending arms concept was picked up and given to to Ristar. The game is a visual as well as an audio masterpiece. This game still looks and sound amazing after all these years. Splash Down!! is one of the GOATs for aquatic game music.

Ristar (YouTube)

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database

VG Soundtrack of the Day 067: Rockman Utopia

The sister album to Rockman Dystopia. As the name and album cover suggests, Rockman Utopia has upbeat, peppy music and focuses on the Classic Mega Man series. There's plenty of love in this album as it covers music from the original Mega Man, Mega Man 6, Mega Man 7 as well as Mega Man 8. Being two of the most popular games in the entire series, of course Mega Man 2 and 3 get attention as well. I hope you like medleys because this album is teeming with them.

Rockman Utopia (Spotify)

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database

VG Soundtrack of the Day 066: The King of Fighters '94

If you owned a Neo Geo, you owned an arcade machine. No, really. The Neo Geo ran off of SNK's MVS arcade hardware, meaning you weren't settling for watered down ports of arcade games, but an arcade perfect experience. The cost however, was not cheap. A Neo Geo would set you back a cool $600 and those big honkin' cartridges were $250. These days, the Neo Geo's library can be played for chump change via compilations and digital re-releases. I never did get to be one of the cool kids that had The King of Fighters '94 at home. I wouldn't play the game until about 2009 and by then, the numerous sequels had surpassed it in so many areas. Still, The King of Fighters '94 does have some of my favorite tracks from the series. It has the best ESAKA/JAPAN theme, fight me. Why, oh why did it not get into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate?

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database

My Dad Got Me into SHMUPs

My dad is a pretty cool guy. He just turned 66 and looks pretty good for his age (sorry ladies, he's taken). He's always got great advice to offer, is an excellent listener and he still looks out for me and my big sister. So yeah, my dad rocks. He also played a huge roll in getting me involved in one of my absolute favorite genres.

I loooooove shoot 'em ups, or SHMUPs for short. Like, I can never get enough of these games. It wasn't always like this, however. During much of the NES era, my time was spent honing my platforming skills with the Super Mario Bros. trilogy, DuckTales, Chip 'N Dale's Rescue Rangers, the occasional beat 'em up and failing miserably in Contra as well as Super C. My second game on the SNES was a SHMUP called Darius Twin and it was my introduction to the long running Darius series. My dad was buying me a game of my choice for my 11th birthday. Toys 'R Us had non gameplay demos set up and one of the games you could see footage of was Darius Twin. All the bad buys were fish and the bosses were huuuuuge! I was intrigued by the game but I recall my dad being pretty hyped about it. My dad's enthusiasm pushed me to settle on Darius Twin and I ended up enjoying that game a great deal. Of course my dad like it as well and he would play the game when I was at school or when he wasn't working. Yeah, we both won out with that one and I've been a fan of the Darius franchise ever since.

Back in the days when renting entertainment was big, we would frequent Blockbuster Video. One weekend in either 1992 or 1993, my dad's rental choice was Space Megaforce, AKA Super Aleste, the very first game I played from SHMUP giant Compile. This game had some really long stages (lengthy levels are a hallmark for Compile SHMUPs) some of the coolest laser power-ups I'd ever seen and a killer soundtrack! Super Aleste is one of, if not my favorite Conpile shooter. At one point, it became my rental pick.

Another trip to Blockbuster and my dad rented Thunder Spirits, what fans often consider the watered down version of Thunder Force III or Thunder Force AC. At the time, I didn't know it was a different version of Thunder Force III and I didn't care. It was another cool SHMUP and as I watched my dad play it, I knew I had to take it for a spin. Thunder Spirits was the first Thunder Force game I played and when I had a chance to pick up a used SNES cart in the early 2000s for chump change, I did not hesitate to do so and this was knowing full well that it was an "inferior" version of Thunder Force III. If it weren't for my dad renting this game, I may not have discovered the Thunder Force so early on.

Every now and again we'd go to a different rental outlet, one that shared a complex with a pizza joint, so we could get pizza, movies and games. It was one fateful weekend that my dad rented Gradius III. Everything about Gradius III blew me away. You could pre-select your power-ups before starting a game. The different option formations, lasers, missiles and shields made for some nice customization. Music consisted of a lot of bass and synth and the music was unusually upbeat, something I wasn't really used to from this genre, but the music was so good, I didn't mind. Of all the SHMUPs I've listed here, Gradius III and Super Aleste were the ones that captivated me the most. Even with Gradius III's slowdown, I still adored this game. When I got money from my grandmother in December of 1992, I could have bought Gradius III or Super Mario Kart. I really wanted to buy Super Mario Kart but I really enjoyed Gradius III as did my dad. So I bought Gradius III and would play that game to death and so did my dad. It was such a struggle just to beat this game on the easy setting and I felt like a king when I finally did.

I think a great deal of my love for the SHMUP genre comes from my dad renting them in the early 1990s. Because he rented such good titles, I had fun over the weekend and was introduced to some of the best franchises the genre has to offer. SHMUPs have made quite the comeback in the current generation of gaming and thanks to the portability of the Switch, companies are more than happy to supply the system with a steady flow of titles. I actually added a few more to my collection as of this writing including Arcade Archives Armed F, Rigid Force Redux and ESP Ra. De.

I am always on the lookout for shooters and with the revival the genre has enjoyed over the last few years, I really cannot thank my dad enough for simply renting SHMUPs when I was a kid and exposing me to what would be one of my favorite types of games to play. I love you, dad. Happy Father's Dad! Thanks for getting me into one of the best genres on this or any other planet!

All screenshots from Emuparadise.

VG Soundtrack of the Day 065: Chrono Trigger

This game is a 16-bit era classic. The characters are memorable, designed by Dragon Ball legend Akira Toriyama, the plot spans multiple eras via time travel and the music is audio bliss. I could rattle off some of my favorite themes to entice you to listen to this soundtrack if for some strange reason you haven't ever listened to it before  (World Revolution, Magus, Memories of Green, Peaceful Days, Wind Scene, Robo's Theme, To Far Away Times) but trust me, you just need to hear this soundtrack. Chrono Trigger's music could easily hold its own to RPG scores released today. Yasunori Matsuda did the lion's share of soundtrack and man, did he ever knock it outta the park. It is almost unfathomable that this music came out of the SNES.

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database

VG Soundtrack of the Day 064: DOOM

So I went back to work in late May. I wasn't sure if I should keep doing these daily soundtrack posts. Turns out I'm getting more work days than I thought even with reduced hours. However, just because I've gone back to work and reclaimed some sense of normalcy, there are still a whole lot of people that are out of work. The pandemic is still going on and unless you've been living with your head in the ground, you are aware about the unrest that is currently gripping the world. I'll talk about that and COVID-19 on my other blog. Point is, I felt I should keep doing these daily game soundtrack posts. 'Sides, I really enjoy it.

Anyway, today's soundtrack is that of the classic PC FPS, DOOM. Having finished DOOM a few months ago, I was impressed at how well this 1993 title held up, both in terms of gameplay and the soundtrack. I found myself humming some of the soundtrack when the tunes were rolling back and forth in my brain. Sure, it have a very early 1990s MIDI sound, but these are still some excellently composed beats.

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database

VG Soundtrack of the Day 063: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES gained a pretty bad rap in the early 2000s for the Nintendo Hard difficulty it carried. Sure, the game is tough. Real tough. But so were plenty of other games on the system at the time and and many of them are considered good games. The game's tarnished rep is largely attributed to a very early episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd, which he has since come to regret. Anyhoo, if you're looking for some NES rock, this is the game soundtrack for you. The Miniboss and Boss themes are some serious headbangers.

VG Soundtrack of the Day Database