Monday, May 4, 2015

Favorite Tunes #112: May Flowers

You knew this was coming. Well, you did if you checked out the previous Favorite Tunes. May has has begun so we kick of this month's Favorite Tunes with what proceeds all the rain that comes in April. 




The flower girl Cloud had an encounter with after his first mission with AVALANCHE. Aerith's Theme is played two times in Final Fantasy VII. The first is when her step mother tells you about Aerith's back story. The second is after Sepiroth impales her with his sword. Oh, sorry, spoilers. Jokes aside, this is without question one of the game's standout tracks and not just due to the character's death. It really is a powerful piece of music all on it's own. 




Despite the name of the tune, this is actually an arrangement of the Flower Garden theme from the 16-bit masterpiece Yoshi's Island. Originally composed by Koji Kondo, Noriyuki Iwadare undertook the task of arranging one of the game's most frequently heard tracks, keeping the cheerful nature of the tune but giving it an even more lively feel. 






Kirby's Return to Dream Land spoiled me rotten. Triple Deluxe, while still a good Kirby game just comes up short for me. The background and foreground shifting mechanics are a nice touch and I love the new power ups but that isn't enough to topple 2011's Kirby release. Even if you've never played the game you can hear this delightful jam in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U on The Great Cave Offensive stage.




December 17, 2012, Mega Man's 25th anniversary. Also known as the day a 35MB file took forever to download because Capcom Unity's servers were overloaded with activity from Mega Man fans trying to download Street Fighter X Mega Man, the free game that pit the Blue Bomber against numerous world warriors. A Rival delivered a magnificent soundtrack that blended music from both series for some memorable chiptunes. 





Dynamite Headdy was one of those other Treasure games on the Genesis. You know, one that isn't called Gunstar Heroes. It's a platformer and if you've read this far, no doubt you can guess what Headdy uses to attack. Thanks to some questionable tampering during the game's American localization, Dynamite Headdy is actually much more difficult than it's Japanese counterpart, even for a Treasure game. Be that as it may, you should still give this one a try. It sports that awesome Treasure sprite work and a masterful soundtrack.




The Street Fighter EX series is often viewed as the black sheep of the Street Fighter franchise. When every fighter under the sun was going 3D, Capcom followed suit with the EX games, which weren't terrible by any means but most viewed them as inferior when compared to the series' 2D outings. The arcade versions of the EX titles have good music but the PlayStation releases, which feature arranged music, is really where its at. 


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