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Rate the video game music above

There isn't much I can point out that is 'wrong' with that track, that and it's just a pretty darg good one in general. 9/10

Now, I have two tracks for you, one of which is from the 8-bit era while the other is a remastered version of the same game, both of which are equally good as far as I'm concerned. Feel free to rate whichever one you like.


dat cheese tho...

 
What game is that from? Well, 4/5, it is beautiful, calm, somber; not sure what to make of it beyond that.

Etrian Oddity said:
Now, I have two tracks for you, one of which is from the 8-bit era while the other is a remastered version of the same game, both of which are equally good as far as I'm concerned. Feel free to rate whichever one you like.
Click to expand...
Wow, I correctly guessed which track that was without even looking.

Next up:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-75_JpXmb0
 
So much MSX-inspired love in this game! 8.5/10.

Moving backwards in time again from my last post, this time we're into the earlier days of SHMUP transitions to 3D... RayStorm is an interesting game for multiple reasons in relation to the other games in the series - it takes place in a completely different continuity from the other two games, and is also the only one to have been remastered in HD. You have two ships to select from, three in the special 13 Ships mode in the console version, and four in the HD rerelease.
  • The R-GRAY 1 is an upgrade from the RVA-818 X-LAY of the original RayForce. Armed with an upgraded pulse laser and a new Lock-On Laser with the ability to lock on to a single target with all 8 shots for increased damage.
  • The R-GRAY 2 takes from the unreleased original sequel to the original game, R-GEAR. Armed with the "Shadow Laser" and Lock-On Lightning, with the ability to lock on to 16 targets. Targeting a single enemy or point with all 16 shots fires a Black Hole. Both this ship and the R-GRAY 1 share the same special weapon, the Laser Barrage.
  • In 13 Ships mode, a grey prototype, the R-GRAY 0, is your final ship - once you lose it, the game's over. You have no special attack or full lock-on abilities, but otherwise it's fully identical to the R-GRAY 1. In the HD rerelease, it's purchaseable for regular play and this ship is modified to suit - Its appearance now resembles the RVA-818 X-LAY aesthetically, and has increased capabilities - it's faster than the other two ships and has a naturally more powerful Lock-On Laser than the R-GRAY 1 does, as well as a higher natural score multiplier (double the base of the R-GRAY 1), but still lacks the special weapon and full lock-on attack to compensate. Late edit: Oh, and the sound effects are also changed to that of the original RayForce's own, too, to complete the effect!
  • On a disc called the "RAY-RAY CD-ROM", there exists footage of an unreleased prototype called R-GEAR. Being the basis of RayStorm's R-GRAY 2 and possibly the game idea that came before RayStorm was conceived, RayStorm HD would later add a completely new ship with a new gameplay style named after this prototype, the R-GEAR. As the second purchaseable ship, it's equipped with homing missiles for standard fire and a lock-on system involving pods, as well as a special attack which grants double speed, a fire shield and the ability to spam the pods faster. This is the choice for all those aiming for the score leaderboards as its multiplier can be maintained for longer than any other ship playable in this game.

Thus we come to our music selection for this post. Composed by ZUNTATA, Taito's house band, these guys have composed the music for Taito games for at least 25 years now. They've built up quite the list of games under their belt! This includes the likes of RayStorm, which I'll show you below. The guy who composed this particular piece of music has since left ZUNTATA and formed his own band, Betta Flash, with singer Cyua.


GEOMETRIC CITY (AREA1) / Tamayo Kawamoto (ZUNTATA)
Raystorm

As of this post, I've thought of my next three entries. It kinda threw me off because when I went back to this post in the draft, I ended up forgetting that I had this song posted. In any case, the song I'm talking about will come next time!
 
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I can see Skull Kid smacking his assets right now. 7.5/10 - a calming piece in a time of turmoil...
Trainer Gabriel said:
8/10 That sounded nice. The dialogue threw me off a bit at first, but it was fine.
Click to expand...
I think that's a soundtrack-only thing, because most stages in the game don't last long enough to loop for as long as their album counterparts. One and a half loops at most, I'd say.

Moving away from SHMUPs in this post, but not at the same time - I scrapped an earlier post to make this because I finally found a proper upload of the song I'm about to show you guys today. We have a song from a SHMUP, modified for use in a game which - while still part of the Space Invaders series, surprisingly - is not actually a SHMUP! To better understand this, you can read into the history of this particular song and the game it originated from in the spoiler below. I actually recommend you read it this time if you typically don't do so because a lot about this piece of music is lost on people who don't know the source material - not that it takes away from it at all if you listened to it on your own, of course, but at least that's what I think.

The chart you see here is from the arcade game Groove Coaster 2, one in a line of rhythm games that started on the iOS. Its aesthetics are very stylised and resemble that of Space Invaders: Infinity Gene, a game released in 2009 and currently the latest SHMUP title in the franchise. All the charts of Groove Coaster are themed around the song you're playing, and many of them are stylistic depictions of the song in question, or in some cases, the game they originated from. This song was one of the first songs released for the game, coming from SPACE INVADERS EXTREME 2. Its name is Invader Disco, and has the aesthetics to suit - the classic invader, disco balls, and heck, even a section where you're repelling the notes as if the game was an actual Space Invaders game!


On to Space Invaders EXTREME 2 itself, both games in the series are actually very rhythm-based - any action that happens on screen, whether you fire at the enemy, destroy them or pick up a powerup, is all themed to the music of the stage you're playing, and it also matches the tempo - so if the music's faster, so is everything else, including your own shot! The music itself is dynamic to what's happening on screen - Going to a bonus round send the music into a low key state to allow for concentration, and then goes all excited if you complete it and go into Fever Mode. This is reflected in the Groove Coaster chart for this song, where the bridge before the breakdown contains various sound effects from the game - it's actually partially to do with the full soundtrack version of this song, which does a similar thing by cycling through all the musical states and contains a bunch of sound effects during the Bonus Round portion with game sound effects playing in the background, though there's one more portion that doesn't play in the GC version of the song (the boss portion).

For those who just read all that, hopefully you can better appreciate those intricacies - otherwise, just enjoy the music!


Invader Disco (GCZ Edition) / COSIO
Groove Coaster Zero (Original Soundtrack)
 
Sometimes vocals work in a song, and sometimes they don't. In this particular case, these vocals have been twisted beyond recognition. I don't like that, since they clash with the rest of the song as a result. Though other then that it's still a decent song. 5.5/10

On that note, when it comes to a track that incorperates vocals into it well, I have a pretty decent example right here:
Probably some of the best intro music I've heard to date BTW.


I like how they managed to keep at least some of the music in this version recognisable as a voice line even though there's no actual singing, I really like it when remixes that take away the vocals do that, just saying.


Feel free to choose which one you rate, as per usual.
 
Ohhh my. Action 52 had a soundtrack!? Around 0:45 my left ear starts playing cats, too, lol. 7/10 because it's so weird even though it's not particularly booming.
Etrian Oddity said:
Sometimes vocals work in a song, and sometimes they don't. In this particular case, these vocals have been twisted beyond recognition. I don't like that, since they clash with the rest of the song as a result. Though other then that it's still a decent song. 5.5/10
Click to expand...
This actually slightly upsets me for two reasons: Vocoders aren't bad, and listening to it a couple of times will reveal the lyrics are simply "INVADER" and "DISCO". So it's not completely unrecognisable.
I mean, if anything, it could be Invader GIRL! But I digress. I just think you're focusing on the vocals a bit too much in a song where it's more or less a sound effect more than it is actual lyrics. Sometimes you need to differentiate between those.
1.0
I could probably put a speedcore song in this just to spite all of you instrumentalist-focused posters... lol. But not now.

So let's revisit Raiden this time around. Ever since Raiden II and up until Raiden V, Go Sato has been the composer for the series' music, including the spinoff Raiden Fighters games which had a vastly different musical style. This continued even after the original owners of the IP, Seibu Kaihatsu, went bankrupt and the company MOSS formed to continue making instalments in the franchise. As one of the longest-running series of SHMUPs there is out there today, it's gone through a lot, including the initial removal of the original Plasma Beam (affectionately called the "toothpaste laser" by fans of the franchise due to... well, its appearance) and replaced by the Proton Beam in Raiden III, and its subsequent return in Raiden IV - something the developers have said they couldn't get working exactly the way it did in all the other Raiden series titles because they lost the original source code!

Below is one of the original pieces of music from Raiden IV, a game whose music was more or less a return to form for Go Sato after the less-than-stellar reception to Raiden III's soundtrack. As for what I meant by "original pieces", it's because half of this game's music rides on the nostalgia of Raiden II, with several remixes of songs from that game (as well as a special appearance by the original Raiden's boss music). The general opinion favours this soundtrack a lot more than Raiden III's, even with that in mind, and that may be because of the below song's similarity in structure to Repeated tragedy, the opening music to Raiden II.


A stormy front (LEVEL1) / Go Sato
Raiden IV original sound track -Ultimate of Raiden-
 
This song makes me wonder what kind of lost world this belonged to... 9/10.
CakeFairyForever said:
6.5/10
Click to expand...
PHEW! I was worried the thread died for a moment. Seeing this post is a sigh of relief!

Postponing my original plan even further, today I have a piece of music from a game that I'm not sure if many people are aware of. Metal Black is a SHMUP created by Taito which was intended to be a sequel to Darius II, but they thought the proposed premise for this game was too dark for the franchise - thus, they modified it to become a separate entity, though curiously enough, the arcade game itself starts off by saying it's "Project Gun Frontier 2" - this is mostly due to the staff from that game being involved with this one.
In the distant year 2042 AD, aliens originating from one of Jupiter's moons come to ravage an environmentally-damaged Earth with huge laser beams as weapons. Humanity manages to discover and reverse-engineer this power for themselves, and the U.N. kickstarted the development a prototype space fighter: The CF-345 Black Fly. By 2052, development of this prototype has finished, and their intention is to launch 20000 of these ships to combat the threat; However, due to the peace treaty signed by the U.N. themselves, use of this fighter craft is expressly forbidden in fear that an intergalactic war that could damage the Earth even further might happen. The aliens decide to ravage their remaining resources anyway, leaving civilisation with almost nothing left. Just as hope seems lost, a lone rogue pilot discovers the prototype Black Fly, and takes it upon himself to pilot it and save what remained of humanity from this threat.

While we haven't gotten a sequel to Metal Black since the original, a game made by Hiroyuki Maruyama, Border Down, is a spiritual successor. That game has a very interesting development story, to say the least! In addition, the Black Fly and other pieces of material from Metal Black have been made available as cameos or DLC for games such as Space Invaders Infinity Gene and Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours.
In Infinity Gene, the power source for your ship's evolution is directly lifted from Metal Black - the Newalone particles, now properly translated as Neurons. The Black Fly itself, making an appearance as DLC content for the iOS and Android versions of the game, has its signature Newalone-powered Energy Beam as its sole weapon. In Dariusburst CS, the Black Fly comes with its own stage pack inspired by Metal Black, and its own unique powerup system like all the other DLC ships. This serves as a slight bit of recursion:
  • In Metal Black, you could clash beams with the bosses, but unless you're at 75% or more power, you're going to lose. By clashing with the boss, eventually you both disperse your power as some sort of energy ball forms in between you. The stronger one will win out in this clash, and it'll deal heavy damage to the boss if you push their beam back and penetrate with your own.
  • G-Darius featured a system inspired by that of Metal Black's beam clashes, the Alpha Beam and Beta Beam. The Alpha Beam was usable if you absorbed a captured enemy, and depending on the enemy, it would fire a strong beam able to obliterate most regular enemies in your way. You could also clash with the bosses' Beta Beams with this mechanic; Doing so while tapping the button rapidly would prolong the Alpha Beam's life cycle and make it more powerful, and that would continue for as long as the boss itself held out against you; It can get ridiculously screen-filling if the boss fires several beams!
  • Both of these systems served as the inspiration for the Burst System in Dariusburst; You could Burst Counter certain enemies' attacks if you entered their beams and pressed the Burst button a moment after, making your beam massive and dealing a lot of chaos on the screen. Certain legacy ships based on the older games do not carry a Burst System, such as the Silver Hawk Origin and Silver Hawk Second, but other ships do possess it - the Silver Hawk Genesis, for example, is based on the ship from G-Darius and thus fires the Alpha Beam as its Burst System. The Black Fly uses the Newalone-powered Energy Beam as its Burst System; Just like the other Bursts in this game, it'll turn yellow if you successfully Burst Counter and become more powerful as a result, but also taking from its game of origin, the less Burst Meter you have, the weaker your shot is. The powerup system is inspired by that of Metal Black, too; Newalone particles will periodically spawn at certain points during each zone, and picking them up will refill the meter.

This song that I'm about to show you is considered a classic of SHMUP first stages, as much of a SHMUP anthem as Challenger 1985 from Gradius and Battle Garegga's Fly to the Leaden Sky, and is pure ZUNTATA goodness - something reflected in the rest of the soundtrack to this hidden gem of a game lost to the ages.

Born to be free (Round 1) / Yasuhisa Watanabe
METAL BLACK

Don't worry, you'll see what that "original plan" was next post. Maybe. No guarantees.
 
8.5/10
This sounds quite interesting for a first stage theme, especially the first 30 seconds or so where it sounds a more like an 80s pop song than video game music! It was slightly strange at first to hear the overall song lean more towards the atmospheric than the energetic in a SHMUP, but after seeing the level that it plays in, I think that it fits the whole post-apocalyptic/humanity's-last-hope theme of the game really well.
TouyaShiro said:
PHEW! I was worried the thread died for a moment. Seeing this post is a sigh of relief!
Click to expand...

I was getting a little concerned there myself, haha. I would've tried to revive it myself, but since it was so soon - post count wise - since I had last posted, I decided to hold off on that to see if someone else would post instead.

Summer may have just ended for a lot of us here, but here's another summer-like track anyway before fall really starts to set in:

 
It seems... wispy. I dunno how to describe that in musical terms. 8/10.

FINALLY, ON TO THAT "ORIGINAL PLAN" I'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT FOR THE PAST 3 POSTS!
These next two posts will be two arrangements of the same song, once again from SHMUPs. I'm sure you've heard me post a couple of things from Manabu Namiki before - his work largely involves SHMUPs, like Ketsui, Espgaluda, Mushihimesama and even Fantasy Zone, but also includes arrangements including the entire ReBirth series of games from Konami (the likes of which include Gradius ReBirth), the Duck Hunt Medley in Smash 4 and most recently, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. His work for the DonPachi franchise spans every single game starting from Daioujou to Saidaioujou, the most recent entry in the franchise, and below is a track from that very same title.


Michi (Stage5) / Manabu Namiki
DODONPACHI SAIDAIOUJOU / DODONPACHI MAXIMUM ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

I know one of you might actually be familiar with this piece of music thanks to TPP... But we'll get into that next post.
 

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