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Rate the video game music above

3/10. The voice clips are distracting, and it sounds like a low-fidelity 80s pop song, unfitting for a fantasy RPG.


(Anyone know a good let's play of this game? I want to give this game a chance, but don't want to play it myself, and at the moment I think that the Unnecessarily Epic Yoko Shiromura Soundtrack is the only thing giving this game personality.)
 
Makes it sound like a stage play. Given the typical battle scene in Paper Mario plays out like one, sure. We'll go with that. 7.5/10

I got a double dose for you today because the first song is too short. This time, it's from the original soundtrack to DO-DON-PACHI DAI-FUKKATSU BLACK LABEL! We kick off this album with some Manabu Namiki goodness, and probably one of the catchiest select songs in the series, in a soundtrack that is one of the best of all CAVE STGs out there in my opinion.

Sally (Select) / Manabu Namiki
DO-DON-PACHI DAI-FUKKATSU BLACK LABEL Original Sound Track


Vertex (Stage1) / Manabu Namiki
DO-DON-PACHI DAI-FUKKATSU BLACK LABEL Original Sound Track
 
Seem very intro-like. Good for that purpose, at least. 7/10

Another Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu double dose for you today. This time, it's BLACK LABEL's Stage 3 theme, Flotage, composed by Noriyuki Kamikura!

Flotage (Stage3-A) / Noriyuki Kamikura
DO-DON-PACHI DAI-FUKKATSU BLACK LABEL Original Sound Track


Flotage (Stage3-B) / Noriyuki Kamikura
DO-DON-PACHI DAI-FUKKATSU BLACK LABEL Original Sound Track


Bye for now.
 
Come on, guys, are you gonna make me reply to all the Etrian Odyssey music? lmao. I hold this song at a solid 9/10. Also, I posted this exact song almost half a year ago.

Today, I'm stepping back into the early years of the new millennium. Around 2002, the first true sequel to DoDonPachi (developed by CAVE, at least) and fourth overall entry in the series would be released: dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU ("Angry Leader Bee: Blissful Death"). A new composer would step up to the plate after the previous three titles in the series, and it was none other than Manabu Namiki! He brings his incredible sound and history of STG soundtracks with him to bring a varied soundtrack with many different styles, and incidentally introduced several melodies that would be repeated and referenced in future instalments - perhaps you could call this the "true" start of Dodonpachi as people know it today. It's another double dose, as I really want to let the Select themes shine as well!
Set a thousand years after DoDonPachi (as the events of Bee Storm are non-canon), mankind has finally achieved peace. Ironically, as a result of the end of the war the DonPachi Corps waged against the world that a lone pilot managed to stop, humanity has solved its problems with overpopulation, pollution and the arms race. Sealing the remnants of Colonel Schwarlitz Longhena's mechanised army on the moon in the hopes that such an event would not occur again, humans would eventually go to colonise the moon itself in the process of rebuilding their civilisation.

However, a disturbance is reported on the moon. The sealed army was starting to reactivate, and the city of Lunapolis was taken over with ease - leading these remnants of the past to create automated production facilities for their army. In the process of preparing to fulfil their original ambitions to annihilate the human race, they start rebuilding their most fearsome weapon - Hibachi, the fiery bee, and mainstay True Final Boss of the series. With time running short, the United Nations order for the resurrection of the DonPachi Corps. In their haste, they're only able to create two ships for the war ahead of them, and it was unlikely that such a tranquil world would be able to produce pilots with the skills needed to rival that of the legendary DonPachi Corps of old - so to assist the pilots, the ships are equipped with an "Element Doll": Artificial life forms that increase the ship's destructive power and allow the craft to operate at an enhanced level. However, once again, humanity was repeating its own mistakes - waging a war of machine against machine...

Knowing full well that their mission was suicidal, the two ships are deployed on the moon to face off against the threat alone. The pilots have but one objective: Kill.
(Modified from Page 3 of Hardcore Gaming 101's article on DoDonPachi)


Fog Warning (Select) / Manabu Namiki 霧警 Select / 並木学
dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU / KE-TSU-I kizunajigokutachi ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK 怒首領蜂 大往生・ケツイ~絆地獄たち~ オリジナルサウンドトラック


East Asia (Stage1) / Manabu Namiki 東亞 Stage1 / 並木学
dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU / KE-TSU-I kizunajigokutachi ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK 怒首領蜂 大往生・ケツイ~絆地獄たち~ オリジナルサウンドトラック


As a fun fact, people have pointed out - and Manabu Namiki has confirmed - that the songs of Daioujou are named after the shooting game (STG) developers he wanted to show respect for. This isn't obvious unless you read the romanisation (rather than the translation), of or course the original JP title, of each song. While it's never been stated exactly which title refers to which company, the VGMdb entry for this album (as well as several other places, I'm sure) points each one out, and knowledge of several companies involved can allow people to guess correctly without that information. For the above two songs, Fog Warning is read as Mukei and is named after obscure STG creator NMK (a list of stuff they created can be found here), and East Asia is read as Toa and is named after Toaplan, arguably one of the most famous names of the entire STG genre, being the trope maker of bullet hell with Batsugun and actually responsible for the existence of several other STG developers after their bankruptcy in 1994, including CAVE themselves!
 
It may or may not be the compression of the video rather than the actual sound chip being used here, but with the somewhat filtered sound that both songs have, I can't help but be reminded of GBA music a little bit... but besides that, I actually preferred the stage select music more than the actual stage music itself. That's based on pure listening enjoyment only, I have to add... the latter certainly succeeds at creating an atmosphere, even if I probably wouldn't actively try to listen to it again outside of the context of the game itself precisely because of said atmosphere (which is quite creepy and ominous to my ears, befitting the bit of lore you've provided quite well). 8/10 for the stage select and 7/10 for the actual stage music.

Speaking of GBA music, here's some music that I'm sure is quite appropriate for a lot of people right now (especially if you happen to live in the U.S.):

 
That one Sonic flash game I used to play as a child... That's all this can remind me of, lmao. 8/10.
It may or may not be the compression of the video rather than the actual sound chip being used here, but with the somewhat filtered sound that both songs have, I can't help but be reminded of GBA music a little bit.
Aside from the addition of stereo (and not being bound to the limitations of its software), that's actually how it sounds in the arcade board it was originally present on, the PolyGame Master. It was relatively low-spec in comparison to other arcade boards of the time and it had a few different sound boards over various iterations as opposed to using something like redbook audio. At some point, perhaps I'll post one of the later arranges - there's versions of the soundtrack in its own arrange album, for the PS2 port, and most recently dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU Black Label EXTRA, the most recent port of the game on Xbox 360. That latter one is notorious for the initial port which involved 5pb. taking the code directly from the Arika PS2 port without permission, 5pb. later apologising for how it created such a terrible port. It took CAVE a year after they stepped in more directly to create a port worthy of its subtitle, but because of how bad it really was, Microsoft themselves had to step in! After that point, CAVE would take more direct action in their future arcade ports, making sure that everything released afterwards was much better (including the likes of DAI-FUKKATSU/Resurrection and SaiDaiOuJou) in comparison to DOJBLX's initial release. With that being said, Black Label EXTRA is more than likely the version I'll post next. There's a lot of comparison to the style of Daifukkatsu's vanilla music that you can make in Stage 1 alone - heck, to me it sounds like Mushihime-sama Futari's Stage 5!

No background this time, just more Manabu Namiki. Perhaps I'll provide one later, as there's some interesting trivia for how this particular soundtrack came about...

Subversive Awareness (Stage 5 - Cloud) / Manabu Namiki
BATTLE GAREGGA Rev.2016 Original Soundtrack - Rev.2016 perfect edition -
 
It's so adorable despite the game being relatively difficult. 9/10.

Took me a while before I decided which one to share. Many, many of the songs I would have sent today were probably not gonna be the best choice - despite their infamy (since they were all themes relating to Hibachi, typically going with something that goes in on your senses). Eventually, I settled on some more Dodonpachi Daioujou. Today, I bring you Stage 3's theme - the beginning melody of which, admittedly, reminds me a bit of Battle Garegga's Stage 2 theme, Underwater Rampart.

Strange Dance (Stage3) / Manabu Namiki 凄舞 Stage3 / 並木学
dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU / KE-TSU-I kizunajigokutachi ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK 怒首領蜂 大往生・ケツイ~絆地獄たち~ オリジナルサウンドトラック

As a side note, going with the last time I posted Daioujou, the song's name is romanised as Seibu and refers to STG developer Seibu Kaihatsu, perhaps most well known for creating the Raiden series of SHMUPs, and the associated spinoffs Viper Phase 1 and Raiden Fighters - eventually, after they went defunct, several members went on to form MOSS, and when the developers that remained moved over, they also bought the development rights to Raiden in order to keep making new instalments beginning with Raiden III in 2005. Perhaps I'll detail a bit more trivia from them when I post some actual music from their STGs?
 
Y'know, I might have a physical copy of this thing that I played as a youngin', but it seems I don't carry any nostalgia for this particular track, and and it doesn't help that the track in question is just kinda... meh, even if it is in glorious 8-bit and seems decently put togethner, it still gets a 6/10 from me. Maybe it sounds better out of the origonal hardware, who knows?

Also, speaking of music that's probably not that good from a game I played as a youngin'...
 
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