Official Nintendo Consoles Music Thread (Thanks for Listening!)

Week 106: Massive Shoulder Pads Week!

Wow, it turns out NES and Game Boy games can be really, cruelly, unfairly difficult. Still, I'm done with the first two Metroids now, it's onwards and upwards from here! At least they have amazing music...

The GNamer Metroidathon Part Two!



Like last time, I'm going to give you my favourite songs from the game along with the best cover versions I could find to make up for the plinky plonky game boy sound. That said, there are less covers knocking around for this game as it's a little less iconic, being on the game boy. Most people, presumably, think of Super Metroid as the true sequel and that's a real shame.

3: Staff Credits

Obviously, Metroid games often have quite dark, otherworldly music and they can have somewhat downer endings (can Samus set foot on a planet without exploding it?) but here we have a real kick-ass "Congratulations! You win!" tune which I really needed after this brutal game.
And here's a lovely orchestrated version by a clever German man.

2: Title Theme

Really creepy, really alien opening. This is where the tradition of non-musical Metroid music kicked off. Creates a fantastic ambience. Then the tune itself kicks in and it's every bit as hummable as anything from the previous game.
Weirdly, there were hardly any covers of this on Youtube. But here's one that sounds like somebody tricked their local brass band into playing it during the town fair or something.

1: Surface of SR388 (aka Tunnel Theme)

This is easily the most covered song from this OST and with good reason. Just a really nice, really adventurous tune to explore an alien planet to.
Here's a nice, simple piano cover. If you wanted, though, you could easily find guitar, violin and orchestrated versions of this tune all over youtube.

There we go, that's Metroid II out the way. Next week, the Balls Man makes a comeback, after that I might finally get around to covering the lovely music of Little King's Story and coming soon; Super Metroid! I can move onto Metroid games with sufficiently good music to not need cover versions

I've never played Metroid II - there's something about core Nintendo franchises and their second iterations - but the music was nice! I prefer the tracks from the rest of the series, but that might just be because I'm more familiar with them.

I can't help but notice the weird thing g with this and Zelda ii: two Nintendo games that aren't named after the protagonist both have the protagonist's name in the subtitle.

I'm afraid that I didn't have much to say last week, apart from a rather snobbish remark at how the pianist in the "simple piano cover" sounded like he was trying to play it for the first time.  All my favourite Game Boy sountracks run mostly on nostalgia, and I've never played Metroid 2.

And now for something completely different.

GNamer's The Balla Strikes Back Music Week 107: 'Nova Good Place to Eat?

For one week only!  Or however many others Drunkalilly wants me to fill in for, really.  Don't get me wrong: this is still very much a drunken show, and I won't be stealing any of the big games like MK8.  Instead, I'll pick up some of the more niche titles that Drunka might have missed.

Kirby Triple Deluxe



No more re-sized images, no more cover versions - just good old-fashioned games music from a good old-fashioned game.  Such is its old-fashioned fashion that many may give it a miss, on the grounds that it doesn't do much in the way of new stuff.  They'd be right, but it's impeccably presented, including - yes! - a lovely soundtrack.

Dreamstalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_nxOyr1GMo



You all know this song, but it's so damn cheerful!  Made me burst into smiles when it started to play, so it did.

Mysterious Trap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifPY74W6gCE



GilvaSunner says it's called that, and I believe him.  If I were doing my pre-Drunka one-tune-only weeks, this'd be that tune.  Brilliantly mysterious and catchy at the same time.  Not that there's much mysterious about a GIANT SPIKED WALL, but whatever.

Dedede (minor spoilers in video title): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xStEdivU9JE



I mean really minor.  Dedede spends most of the game being dragged around by this arachnid-type thing, but when he's finally dropped, this remix of his theme plays.  The tempo psyche-out at the beginning is worth the price of entry alone.

I hope you enjoyed this interlude.  Back to Buska next week!

If I am more noble than you...
If those who work hard are more noble than those who are lazy...
Then who is the most noble of them all?
Week 108:
GNamer's Quaint but Infuriatingly Hard Week!


Sorry this one's a bit late; I've had a busy weekend, working and drinking and everything else.
To Balla: Yeah, I'm not sure what was going on with those Metroid II images. Also, the Kirby music was nice and all but I didn't have much to say about it and I thought kit would be funny if nobody replied to your triumphant return.

Anyway, without further ado; Little King's Story! Much harder than I expected, and with a soundtrack that sort of cheats by using Beethoven, this was a wonderful little game that has music worth celebrating.

Opening

A really, really lovely little piece of music welcomes you when you turn on the game. It sets you up for the beautiful, lovable world you're about to enter perfectly. It absolutely fails to prepare you for the severe beatings the game is about to give you.

Guardian Battle

The ideal music for the bizarre, hilarious monsters the game pits you against. What other game sees you fighting a cow with a floating skull at the start, a man on his toilet half way through the game and standard rats as the end boss?

Superhero Channel

A briefly heard tune as part of a character based on watching too much TV, but this really wormed its way into my head. Amazing.

Well there we go. Next week I'm away at a Tranformers convention so you'll have to put up with the Balls Man again, and the week after that... well, you'll just have to pray for a true peace in space.

Drunkalilly wrote:

...and I thought kit would be funny if nobody replied to your triumphant return.

You're an asshat, and so is everyone else.  

Will listen to your LKS pieces this evening.

...That turned out to be a minor lie.  Had some hellishly busy evenings lately - apologies.  It's still on my to-do list!  In the meanwhile, it's time for another Balladeer's Music Week!  Or... Music Few Days?  I'm sorry, I'm rubbish, I know.

GNamer's Definitely Whimsical Music Week 109: Chasing Aurora
Child of Light

Definitely whimsical.  Definitely.

Jokes aside, I really did love this game, and it has a soundtrack befitting its dreamy nature.  Here's some tunes from it, all without the dubious synth choir.

Jupiter's Lightning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmwzWYzgoRk



The first battle song is perhaps the best.  Turn-based combat gets something straight out of Lord of the Rings, as it ought to.  Child of Light?  More like Child of Fight!

Down to a Dusty Plain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDf5w4Stk6A



I can't remember where this plays, but be assured that it's somewhere in CoL's gorgeous overworld.  There's no more haunting song to listen to as Aurora skims, fairy-like, over the plains below.  Child of Light?  More like Child of Flight!

Hymn of Light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-AVxC4838



This is actually the final boss theme, and no that's not the final boss.  I wouldn't be that spoilerish.  But this music, especially without the choir going "diddle diddle diddle" in the background, is too good not to showcase here.  It's another LotR-style piece, but where's the shame in that?  No better melody to back up your epic battle to cast off the darkness over Lemuria.  Child of Light?  More like Child of Light!  Oh...

Child Of Light is a pretty great game, especially aesthetically. I think/hope I said in my review that its only crime is not being long enough by far to appreciate the look and, as showcased here, the sound of the thing. Most of the tunes gave me the shivers... and I do believe it's in a wee sale at the moment. 

Not a music week, but since I've just come off an incredibly posh train, I've been thinking about and humming the Excess Express theme non-stop. Really would have suited my train well.

Boast boast boast.

Sorry about the delay in week 110. I spent longer than expected in Cornwall, then I had lots of shifts in work, then I jumped in a moat and got drunk and shaved my head again, then it took longer than expected to complete super metroid.
Will definitely be up this weekend, then business can resume as normal.

Excuses Balla can even post a track all the way from Thailand

GNamer's Music Week 110
METROIDATHON PART 3
GORGEOUS 16-BIT WORLDS WEEK

Oh yes. I finally finished this game tonight and it was phenomenal. What a game; I'll go into that elsewhere. For now, let's listen to some amazing music!


Wrecked Ship

One of the scariest locations in the game, this is some properly tense stuff.

Anticipation

Another tense piece, this lets you know there's a boss coming in great style.

Ridley's Theme

The hardest boss battle in the game gives us an awesome 16-bit remix of one of the most kick-ass bits of music in any Nintendo game.

Prologue

This game saw Nintendo being uncharacteristically cinematic, particularly here at the start. It helps that this is also an amazing bit of music.
And here's Smooth McGroove!

Lower Norfair

I just love this one because they somehow made the Super Nintendo sound like it had a real choir singer as one of its instruments. Phenomenal.
And here's an orchestral version.


Also, even though it's a little too similar to the prologue, here's the cracking end theme.

Ending Theme

I remember being thoroughly unnerved at the beginning of SM (and Fusion, indeed), largely by the soundtrack. Great stuff. Loving the Smooth McGroove too, of course.

Also, I finally got around to hearing the LKS soundtrack. It's brilliant! As a bit of a classical music buff myself, I'm very happy to hear such great videogame music out of the classics. For anyone interested, here are the links to the sources:
Opening (caution: is dead tedious)
Guardian Battle (8:45 for the LKS extract)
Superhero Channel (I've played the solo part in this! 1:47 for the LKS extract)

Dude, where were the two Brinstar musics? This and this

But thanks for any praise for Little King's Story's brilliant music concept.

To be honest, like most Nintendo games, I would have liked to include every song. As it is, the brinstar ones were good and all but didn't quite stay with like some of the others. That first one I enjoyed purely on the grounds of it being a bit funkier than the test of the soundtrack.

Mr. Drunkabuska, a question. Do you mind me, not as part of a music week but just as an ad-hoc "thing", posting some of my favourite MK8 tracks? I presume you're going to do a music week on the game somewhere down the line, and if it's going to be soon I don't want to tread on your toes.

You're more than welcome. It will be getting a week but not for a while. I'm actually still deciding what to do tomorrow.

GNamer's Music Week 111
Commander's Guilt Week



Here's a good ol' fashioned Balladeer one-song week, but it's something the Balls Man definitely wouldn't have brought you! Downloaded this for the Wii U VC recently and the music immediately took me back about a decade! This was a seriously brilliant little slice of Nintendo magic; nobody else could have such a cutesy, addictive, colourful little videogame about the act of sending hundreds of men to their deaths.

Battle Over

What is it about the GBA and trumpets? Here at least, they're appropriate. This sounds like exactly sort of thing the marching band would play at the end of a long, tough war and it always feels just right after a battle.

Next week; a big one I literally cannot believe the Balls Man didn't beat me to!

Probably because it had rubbish music. That AW music reminds me of nothing quite so much as Pokémon RSE: partly due to the era and the machine's sound capabilities, of course, but also because Hoenn loves trumpets too. And that percussion sounds familiar... Ahh, I too have gone all fuzzy with nostalgia.

There must be a joke there about big ones, beating, balls and even trumpets.

Where's beemoh when you need him.

Advance Wars is one that I missed - any other standout tracks from that series?

GNamer's Music Week 112
I Can't Believe It's Not Balla Week
Drunka Can't be Bothered to Read Week



Now this is a game. And that was a soundtrack! Now, admittedly it might've made more sense to save this until Xenoblade Chronicles X came out, or until the original comes out on New DS, but when I saw that the Balls Man hadn't already covered this masterpiece I had to jump in. The only non-Pokemon JRPG I've ever finished, this was a truly enormous, extravagant, engaging game with tunes to match.

MILD TO MODERATE SPOILERS THROUGHOUT


10: Memories

One might call this sentimental, Channel 5 daytime drama pap but for me it was just the right ammount of pathos for some of Xenoblade's many little character moments, conversations and hidden moments. What's that? It's just nostlgia talking? Umm... next!

9: Engage the Enemy

This, on the other hand, is just an udeniably great battle theme. Slowly ramping up the excitement while not jolting you out of the otherworldly soundtrack, these tunes made it a pleasure whenever Reyn Time rolled around.

8: Shulk and Fiora

The beautiful song that accompanied one of my all time favourite videogame couples, I was genuinely shipping these two throughout. It might have been that opening heartbreak. It might have been the unusually un-irritating voice acting. It might have been their story. It might have been a combination of all of the above. But it was definitely related to the music.

7: Main Theme

Just the right ammount of grandeur to open such a quest. Phenomenal.

6: The God Slaying Sword

Every final boss (not pictured, obviously) needs an overblown, grandiose, melodramatic fight theme and this game delivers. Up there with Gary Oak, Demise and SMG's Bowser. You can really feel the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

5: Hometown

In amongst the sweeping orchestral scores and the heart-pounding action, it's nice to return home to such a mellow, warm little piece. Makes the city really feel like a place Shulk and co have lived in forever.

4: You Will Know Our Name

Just another exciting piece for getting me pumped, as our heroes run headlong into battle. Awesome.

3: Eryth Sea

Just a perfectly weird, otherworldly track for a properly alien landscape. Amazing.

2: Satorl Marsh

It takes a little while for this track to grow on you, but for me it's one of the most beautiful locations in the game. Just really different and unusual.

1: Gaur Plain
Gaur Plain Night

As if it was gonna be anything else. One of the most impressive, gorgeous vistas in gamedom. The hills felt like they went on forever and there was another secret tucked into every corner. Every size and shape and colour of creature you could imagine wondered around waiting for a stabbing. Top drawer. And the music just absolutely made it. Sexilicious.



Next week, Jay steps in here at Nintendoland while I pay a visit to Other Formats Island.

I'm really fond of this one - the scene in which it plays is suitably epic too. I also really like the Colony 9 theme.

Objection!

But yup, totally agree with your top placed one.  Although I much prefer Satorl Night to Satorl Day.

...Actually, most XC's soundtrack is pretty great. I'll be very happy with more of the same from XCX.

God damn it! I searched your list and couldn't find it. Did you just write XC instead of the full name?

I think it's justified a Drunkalilly style 10-song week though, even if I ended up giving the number one spot to your choice anyway.