My fellow Digital Crack podcaster Grumpy Joe and I have a bit of a good-natured rivalry going on. His current love of Sony and my decades-long respect for Nintendo clash on many an occasion. Most would think of our adulation for the two companies to be approaching fanboy-ism, but I think Joe sums it up best when he discusses our “disagreements” to others. In his words, partially derived from mine, we are not fanboys; we are “apologists”. He will rail against anyone, myself included, who DARES put Sony down, even when they screw up. I, meanwhile, tend to defend the Big N when anyone contends, rightfully so, that they’ve slipped a couple of notches from their once-lofty perch.
I get Joe’s defensiveness; Sony revolutionized the video game market with the PlayStation brand, a brand that grew from Sony’s very own failed partnership with Nintendo in 1988. Sony has done some great, GREAT things in the video game space. But in my defense, Nintendo reinvigorated video gaming in the wake of the Crash of 1983, the moment when video gaming was presumed dead, and a topic that I SWEAR I will eventually touch on. And nowhere was my love for Nintendo more prevalent in the love I had for the soundtracks of NES games.
A bit of history, for those who are not tired of me talking about my previous history: I was a band major and a DJ once upon a time. I love music and all the memories attached to the music in my life. And for my history prior to the NES, video game music was something I only enjoyed in the arcade space. From Moon Patrol to Donkey Kong to Dig Dug to Gyruss, my video game soundtrack lived at my local Fun-o-Rama, served up one quarter or token at a time.
Video game music on the 2nd generation of consoles was a bit underwhelming. Yes, it was due to the limitation of the hardware, and yes, I got along without it just fine, but it was lacking. The beeps and boops of the 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision were not spectacular, but they got me by. It wasn’t until the NES came along that I realized just how AWESOME video game soundtracks could be!
Funny thing is, the NES was not a sonic powerhouse. The Master System, Sega’s 3rd-generation counterpart to the NES, was way more capable musically. I won’t get into the details of how the NES’s RP2A03 APU, or Audio Processing Unit, worked. This YouTube video can explain it better than I ever could.
But developers from Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Enix, and Sunsoft routinely created auditory magic with that hardware!
I bring it up only because I thought about video game music only recently, while comparing its state to before. Today’s musical scores are often beautiful, lavish orchestral pieces the likes of which older chiptune tracks cannot compare. But how much do today’s video game soundtracks truly stick with us?
Off the top of my head, I can rattle off a few modern soundtracks that resonate with me: Mass Effect, Halo, Dragon Age, and The Elder Scrolls are series I can quickly name with great scores. World of Warcraft probably sticks out in my mind the most, as its score is incredible and is still stuck in my head long after I stopped playing it.
But the chiptunes for the NES are as soothing as a nuru massage, without the embarrassing boner nuru gives me! Yes, I know that nostalgia and age color my commentary, but…COME ON! Listen to the opening theme to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES and tell me that doesn’t pump you up! That was done on a system with INFERIOR sound to its competition!
I can rattle off NES game themes that I love with my eyes closed. The overworld theme for Dragon Warrior is so beloved by me that it is my phone’s ringtone! Every time I hear it I feel a warm familiarity; it’s basically cathartic! Not content with that, the Duck Hunt riff when the dog grabbed a duck is my text message tone, and the coin sound from Super Mario Bros. is my Twitter tone! Other favorite tunes? Vampire Kiss from Castlevania, the Area 1 theme from Blaster Master, the opening theme for Sunsoft’s Batman, and anything from The Legend of Zelda. I mean, come on, the overworld theme for Super Mario Bros. is so iconic, even non-gamers and gamers who were not born during that time recognize it!
I have enjoyed in-game music after the NES. In fact, the SNES’s Sony-built S-SMP APU stands out in my opinion as the absolute best chiptune processor in console gaming history. Games like Actraiser, Super R-Type, and Final Fantasy II are shining testaments to my claim. But the NES holds a dear place in my heart because of its tinny yet capable soundtrack. Grumpy Joe may bitch about Nintendo’s current direction, and I am inclined to give him his props there; Nintendo is as tone deaf as many other stupid companies (SEGA!)! But I’m sure even he can acknowledge that the NES was the soundtrack of the 80’s-era gamer!
Okay, I realize I’m coming off as the old guy who’s always talking about how things were “back in my day!” I’ve had my say; let me know what you think. What do you feel is the best video game soundtrack? Do you agree with my love for the NES’s chiptune goodness, or did you prefer another console’s sweet sounds? Let me know in the comments below.
