/vr/ - Retro Games

Bumping with audio wizardy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODKKILZiYY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGNSHNf-nlU

Tim Follin is indescribably great.

My favorite for the range and dynamics he brought out of the C64:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWkqfu2i_RQ

Both Solstice and Equinox stand on their own as videogame soundtracks of a whole different class from their contemporaries.

>>847736
Is it bad that I actually bought Solstice just for the title screen and box art.

Tim Follin, or how to make Pictionary fucking awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_Hsyo7lmQU

He's made some pretty shit stuff too though, this is just nonsense

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOZ8rbmlWrk

>>847746
You should play it. It's really hard but well designed. You gotta be used to isometric jump controls though if you want to stand a chance, I hope you were good at snake rattle&roll

But yeah, the title screen and intro with awesome music are my fav thing about the game

>>847752
Oh don't get me wrong, I play it and love it. The game itself just isn't the reason I bought it. I only wish I still had a NES.

>>847741
If I had listened to that and you hadn't pointed out it was Pictionary I honestly would have thought it was Double Dragon or something.

CSG Imagesoft was a subsidiary of Sony. Sony also had CBS / Sony Group in Japan, responsible for such hits such as Paris Dakar Rally. I guess you could say Sony was plotting Nintendo's downfall since the NES days.

>>847778

check this one out, it's like you're playing double dragon but you just entered a shop à la river city ransom and you're just chilling out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8bVrwQxDXc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ctRrsPexs

>>847783
What would Sony even have to gain by taking down Nintendo by this point? It's not like Sony are going to poach Nintendo's built in fan base, even if they flop.

>>847741
>this is just nonsense
That's pretty amazing for the Spectrum

>>847792
Marketshare.

>>847791
Grittiest game of Pictionary I ever did have. It's like Pictionary on the streets of Mega-City two.

>>847797
I guess it's technically impressive but the music itself is just nonsense to me, it's going in every direction. It's like Tim Follin wanking the machine and see how hard it could jeez in each different position.

What? Noone posted Treasure Master?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wZGVazbJYY

God damn this tune is funky

>tfw if Solstice was released today it would fail for being "too hard"

>>847839
Fuck I hate that kid's face.

>>847791
Jesus christ that is a fucking jam. Holy shit.

I find it very interesting that all these impressive pieces of music were written in machine language.

>>847915
I saw an interview of Yuzo Koshiro saying he missed the pre 32 bit era, because once CD became standars, the programming side of making video game music got lost

not everybody could be a video game composer back then. You had to know both programming and be good at making music too.

I approve of this thread

>>847924
But didn't they sometimes have two people at once? One to write the actual music, the other to program it? Because the lead programmers can program the music as they see fit, as long as there has been a general guideline.

>>847934
In all fairness, it's fairly obvious when it is a two man job as opposed to soloists. It just never quite translates.

>>847924
>>847934
Not so much programming, but more of a trackier program, like MOD files, right? You might not get that depending on how old you are. Not trying to be condescending.

I used to make tons of music on Screamtracker back in the mid 1990s, it was a huge thing in the Amiga and demo scene all throughout that decade. I'm pretty sure 8 and 16 bit systems used a similar method of writing music, although they weren't using samples (most of the time). You had to make short bursts of white noise for snare or hi-hat sound, square waves for bass, etc.

Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UUvrj9yVVw

contributan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqyEbu8cmMg

>>847934
Sometimes, yes, particularly when the composer was unfamiliar with the hardware. Sonic 1, for example, was composed by Masato Nakamura but all he did were just MIDI demos based on the limitations of the sound chips, like limiting channels and chords and things. These tracks were then arranged and programmed by Hiroshi Kubota (Who, prior to Sonic 1, did a fantastic job converting the Michael Jackson songs in the Genesis version of Moonwalker, which sounded even better than the arcade version)

Speaking of Sonic, this is supposedly the problem Michael Jackson had with Sonic 3, according to Brad Buxer. He apparently wasn't used to the limitations of only having so many channels to work with and had a very hard time coming up with melodies based on these limitations. A lot of people mistake the interview as if Michael had a problem with the sound of the chip itself, which couldn't have been the case, since he wasn't even touching it in the first place.

>>847947
>>847951
The NES had to have it's music written in assembly, it couldn't support anything higher. Take for example Famitracker. Those songs sound good, but at the single cost of being very unoptimized for anything else. Writing music in machine code is much more tedious and the music doesn't sound good, but it at least functions in a game. Take for example "Unreal Superhero".

Machine Code:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjoCRPHA4Gc

Famitracker (with VRC6):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO4eL-_iR8E

I remember being 6 years old and renting this game over and over, just for the music. The biggest incentive not to die was that the music would be interrupted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rs1OznQhoQ

>>847746
I did the same.

>>847967
>>847970
Okay, thanks for the info. It makes sense that a composer would hand over a midi file and a programmer could turn that into music via assembly. Although, given the nature of midi and how easy it is to read and manipulate it, I imagine programmers were able to make tools to convert in some fashion and then clean it up manually.

It is pretty amazing what they were able to accomplish back in those days.

>>848008
They did have MIDI to NES converters. However, they didn't sound too good, and you were better off with straight up assembly. An example of MIDI2NES music would be Waynes World.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAjHrCLAQzc

>>848015
i wonder if a midi to NES program could be found on the internet and used for romhacks

>>848015
Eh, It's nothing amazing but it is alright.

>>848020
That's the best it could offer. This is what they generally sounded like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZY1RYOaLfg

>>848025
Even if that were the case, each game has a unique sound driver. You're better off using Famitracker and rework it's sound driver so that it can work in an NES game, and use convert the FT music data to NES code, and optimize it.

>>848043
To be fair, Rocky & Bullwinkle looks like crap too, so it's fair to say it was half-assed in all regards.

>>848060
>implying most Western devs can into NES programming
>much less Murrican devs

They didn't have the best track records, but there were some (like CodeMasters) who knew what they were doing. Tengen was very hit or miss, but when Tengen was good, they were good. Rare only made a handful of decent games, three of which are Slalom, Snake R&R, and Battletoads.

Sorry for the tangent, just wanted to say that it shouldn't be too surprising for the game to look the way it does.

>>848440
>NES programming

It's 6502 assembly you fucking idiot. It was literally invented by Americans. Stop being such a fucking weeaboo.

>>848440
>Battletoads
>Good

No.

>>848458
Technically it's well above average for NES.

>>848458
Battletoads was harder than diamonds, but it was an excellent game if you put in the effort.

>>848450
If the Americans invented it, then why are most American NES games terrible?

Americans - 0
China - 1
Yurop - 1
Japan - 1

>>848463
>china

Yes, because Mario 13 counts as a legitimate game.

>>848463
[citation needed]

>>848463
Because Americans have and will always base games around Hollywood unlike the rest of the world whom base their games around literature and animation. Two mediums which are far more fleshed out and varied than movies, in spite of what Roger Ebert might have had you believe.

>>848463
Same reason Japanese Atari games were terrible?

>>848470
Mario 13 is a legitimate game. It's called NEW SmB: Super mario Brothers: BAAH-ck to the Mushroom Ghetto.

By Tameem "Tamtam da meme" Antoniades.

>>848478
Those didn't exist.

>>848463
Almost all Western home console games were terrible after the video game crash, it took at least a decade for Western investors to agree to back anything played on a TV

>>848478
99% of games on Atari are dogshit.

well this thread went from awesome to shit. At least it took a few hours...

>>848503
Let's get back on topic then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSQlXbep8AI

>>847924
>the programming side of making video game music got lost
It doesn't have to be, they can still run up programs for synth sounds and so fourth and digitize them. You can use csound or limit your channels/sounds or chip emulators or trackers or don't.
Digital Music hasn't taken anything away, you can still bring out your old NES sound kits and produce those sounds and if you want you can RUN that sound through DSP you couldn't before etc... It's just when it comes out now typically as a straight file. Though you can do some funky dynamic situational music programming and shit too.

>>848572
I don't see why people don't more often. I know it's not really the same thing but it worked for Deus Ex.

If done right it can sound great and free up a tonne of space.

>>848575
Space is plentiful it's not something they need to 'free up' especially given that audio codecs make things small as is.

>>847960
Did anything ever show up from this game? I do know only the music survived, as the game was also out on the SNES and PC.

Also why is danooct such an insufferable cunt god damn

>>849153
>Also why is danooct such an insufferable cunt god damn

I bet you said something stupid and he called you an idiot, I wouldn't be surprised

who are you and why would you mention him here of all places