To my fellow gamers living in Japan and Europe, it was known under the super cool handle of the SEGA Mega Drive. In America, we call it the the not-quite-but-still-cool SEGA Genesis and many would argue that it was the best console to come out of SEGA. The console had a robust library of games. Unfortunately, the Genesis has gotten an undeserved rep for having poor sound quality. During the 16-bit console generation lots of Genesis games were also on the SNES and while it is true that some games did sound vastly inferior to the SNES version (looking at you Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers) others were much better. There are a plethroa of games that were exclusive to the Genesis that had outstanding soundtracks showing that in capable hands, the Yamaha YM2612 could work wonders. Get ready to get for a dose of audio nostalgia as we run through some of your and my old favorites Genesis soundtracks. Perhaps you come across a few new favorites as well.
01. The Revenge of Shinobi
Composer: Yuzo Koshiro
Known as The Super Shinobi over in the Land of the Rising Sun, there are a copious amount of reasons The Revenge of Shinobi has the prestigious reputation that it does. Obviously it has a badawesome ninja, and everybody likes those. The original print run featured some pretty well known bosses in the forms of Spider-Man, Batman, The Terminator, the Incredible Hulk and Godzilla (most of which are now gone). This is far from being the most difficult game on the Genesis, but Revenge of Shinobi will take you to school many times, forcing you to learn how to play by it's rules, though highly skilled players can make very short work of the game. Despite the steep challenge, Revenge of Shinobi is a really freaking good ninja game.
The soundtrack is as highly praised as the smooth gameplay, if not more so. Yuzo Koshiro had a gift for making the Genesis sound chip sing, making it roar out with ferocity or blow like a gentle breeze when the times called for it as demonstrated in tracks like
Terrible Beat and
China Town respectively. On the whole, the game has a very chill soundtrack and compared to most games that had lots of high energy music back then, that was pretty rare. There's been a huge revival for music in vinyl format and
The Revenge of Shinobi was given such a release. It is certainly more than deserving of the honor.
The Shinobi
Terrible Beat
Sunrise Blvd
Make Me Dance
Ninja Step
China Town
02. Rocket Knight Adventures
Composers: Masanori Oouchi, Aki Hata, Michiru Yamane, Hiroshi Kobyashi, Akira Yamaoka
In the early 1990s, a speedy blue hedgehog with attitude helped SEGA one-up Nintendo. Seeing the little rodents success, other game companies rushed to create their own mascots but many of them put the most emphasis on the "attitude" often missing the point that SEGA's new mascot was more than that. Rocket Knight Adventures was one of the very few glaring exceptions to come out during this time. Despite the American Kirby is Hardcore look Konami wanted gamers to believe on the North American box art, Sparkster's in game sprite showed off just how cute he really was, bobbing happily while standing still and looking to the player to whistle "Let's go!" Like SEGA's blue boy, Konami's opossum was backed by a good game. Do you want a game where you get to use a jet pack to zigzag every which way, ride mine carts and engage in a mech battle with your rival? This game has all of that.
There a lots of punchy tracks throughout Rocket Knight Adventures, full of that signature Genesis twang and some sweet bass. It remains unclear who composed what songs. Rocket Knight Adventures soundtrack only pans 20 tracks but there are seven names attached, one of whom is Castlevania famed composer Michiru Yamane. Rocket Knight Adventures and the handful of games it spawned never achieved the popularity of Konami's other franchises but it may surprise you to know that it was given a
vinyl release. If there's anything bad to be said about Rocket Knight Adventures' soundtrack, it is that the track names are pretty unimaginative. Those tracks listed below are indeed the official names and it hurts me that such a fun, jovial soundtrack has such lackluster names.
Stage 1-1
Stage 1-2
Stage 2-1
Boss
Stage 3
Stage 5-1
03. Thunder Force III
Composers: Tomomi Otani, Toshiharu Yamanishi
If you owned a Genesis and you loved shooters, then you probably owned or at least played through Thunder Force III. So popular was Technosoft's shooter that it was given an arcade rework under the name Thunder Force AC, which in turn was ported to the Super Nintendo under the title Thunder Spirits, which was my first exposure to the Thunder Force series.
SHMUPs are known for their brevity, but the soundtrack to Thunder Force III is energetic, highly memorable as well as extensive, clocking in at 22 tracks. I imagine it would have been easier to just go with one main boss theme and a different theme for the final boss, but Thunder Force III has a total of seven different boss tracks, so most of the bosses have their own tune. There's quite the tonal shift in the game's music from the beginning to the end. The first two stages,
Hydra and
Gorgon are fast paced, high energy pieces but from stage 4 and onward, the music takes on a more serious, somber feel and this is even shown in the track names. Stage 4 is titled
Truth, stage 6,
His Behavior Inspired Us with Distrust, and stage 7,
Hunger Made Them Desperate. Keep in mind, this is a Genesis shooter from the 1990s. The folks at Technosoft must have really loved the music from Thunder Force III because it would pop up in the companies other titles as well as get arranged in Thunder Force V.
Back to Fire (Stage 1 - Hydra)
Venus Fire (Stage 2 - Gorgon)
The Grubby Dark Blue (Stage 3 - Seiren)
King Fish (Stage 3 Boss)
Truth (Stage 4 - Haides)
Final Take a Chance (Stage 5 - Ellis)
04. The Hybrid Front
Composers: Naofumi Hataya, Junko Shiratsu, Sachio Ogawa
You may have never heard of The Hybrid Front and that's perfectly understandable. This turn based strategy game was released only in Japan and when it came time for a digital re-release on the Wii's Virtual Console in 2007, it once again stayed in Japan. Since the game's main draw was the story, which was heavy on text
Even if you've never heard of or played it, if you're a Sonic the Hedgehog fan and you've gotten your feet wet in the ROM hacking scene, you've probably heard a track or two from The Hybrid Front and given the nature of the game's soundtrack, that isn't too surprising. When one thinks of strategy games, a funky, dance inspired soundtrack is probably the last thing that would come to mind. And yet, that is exactly what The Hybrid Front's music is. What, you thought ToeJam & Earl were the only ones funkin' around on the Genesis? Nah, son. The Hybrid Front is also spittin' those phat beats.
If one name among the trio of composers for The Hybrid Front stands out to you, it'll probably be Naofumi Hataya. The man is famous for co-composing the music for the Japanese version of Sonic CD and he handled the lion's share for The Hybrid Front. Of course that isn't to downplay the efforts of Junko Shiratsu and Sachio Ogawa both of who turned in some fine music. Between the numerous BGM arrangements of Earth, Moon/Mars themes, it can be tough to nail down a favorite. Most of these tracks start off with digitized voice samples often saying "Let's do it!" or "Let's go!" before the beat drops.
Opening Theme ~ Title
Combat Scenario
Earth ~ Sukarabe Fight BGM 1
Moon - Mars ~ Sakurabe Fight BGM 3
Moon - Mars Cocoon Fight BGM 2
Ending Theme
05. M.U.S.H.A.
Composer: Toshiaki Sakoda
Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Armor or MUSHA for short, was yet another Genesis SHMUP. The game goes by the name MUSHA Aleste in Japan, which makes it part of the Aleste series (Space Megaforce, Power Strike, Power Strike II, etc.) Up until this point in the series, you would normally pilot a ship but for MUSHA, you're flying a mecha and as cool as flying ships are, flying mecha are ten times cooler. The far future Japanese setting also helped differentiate MUSHA from other SHMUPs that were out at the time.
With this futuristic Japanese lore setting MUSHA's got going on, you're probably expecting some feudal era type music, right? Nope. MUSHA's soundtrack comes spring loaded with tons of heavy Genesis rock and hard synth. Not too many Genesis games blare the synth to this degree but MUSHA pulls it off very well. Theme of Musha Aleste is actually an arrangement of the Power Strike (SEGA Master System) Title music. MUSHA was given a re-release on the Wii's Virtual Console, which has now been discontinued. Hopefully this Compile shooter gets another chance to fly again.
Theme of Musha Aleste
Fullmetal Fighter
Aggressive Attack
Galvanic Gear
Noh Specter
For the Love of...
06. Sonic the Hedgehog
Composer: Masato Nakamura
Surely you didn't think I was gonna neglect the fastest thing alive, now did you? Talking about exceptional Genesis soundtracks and not giving a slot to Sonic the Hedgehog would be like discussing the best NES soundtracks and omitting Super Mario Bros. It just isn't something that you do.
By the time Sonic graced the SEGA Genesis, the console was already out on American store shelves for nearly two years but wasn't doing much to entice customers. It took the presents of SEGA's new mascot (along with some very aggressive marketing on SEGA of America's part) to sway consumers into picking up a Genesis, which would later be bundled with Sonic the Hedgehog.
Some 27 years later, the original music to Sonic's first adventure sounds just as lovely as ever. Green Hill Zone still has the vibrant, peppy vibe, Spring Hill Zone is dripping with early 1990s western musical influences and Scrap Brain Zone sounds like a final area music track if ever there was one. Masato Nakamura's musical contributions to Sonic may have been short lived, but boy, did they ever leave a lasting impression. Fun fact, Nakamura was so terrible at Sonic the Hedgehog, that he had to have someone else play the game for him just so he could listen to the music he wrote for it. Someone should have told him about the level select cheat, which also let's you listen to the game's music.
Green Hill Zone
Spring Yard Zone
Labyrinth Zone
Star Light Zone
Scrap Brain Zone
Final Zone
