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Aldynes - The Mission Code for RAGE CRISIS — Stage 4.

Galloping awesomeness.. game has an exceptional soundtrack in general, somewhat reminiscent of Castlevania.


Iridion 3D — Clouds
Iridion 3D — Pacific Ocean
Iridion 3D — Moon

Some crystal clear euro-tunes I like for a change - outrageously good actually, way better than need be


Scurge Hive — Excerpt 3 ~ Industrial
Scurge Hive — Boss 3 ~ Atlas
Scurge Hive — Boss 5 ~ Heimdall

Fairly obscure but cool game, composition by a relatively early Jake Kaufman, aka. virt. Hit-and-miss for me, but there are some rad interludes of bass and/or percussion!

Very fond of Aldynes' st3 BGM, classically plaintive yet catchy SRS MODE shooting. Helluva good take on the classic "ruined O'neill colony" setting, too! I remember its penultimate stage having a really cool downbeat accompaniment, too, matching the darkly alien aesthetic, though I can't recall the song itself offhand.

This isn't a pick, so much as a mild amusement. Was revisiting youthful obscurity (and honestly not too bad) VF clone Fighter's Destiny for N64. Noticed Bob's BGM is conspicuously reminiscent of Koshiro's final boss BGM Termination from Ys II (which is most definitely pick-worthy). If you're gonna steal, steal from the best

Isn't that the one where one of the characters uses snake fist?

Can't recall offhand, but it would not at all surprise me - it and its sequel are IIRC the only polygonal N64 fighters that took VF's semi-sim approach to real-world martial arts (the others being horror/fantasies like Mortal Kombat 4, War Gods, Dark Rift and Mace: The Dark Age).

My main man was always Brazilian wrestler BOB, who was totally not the Jeffery McWild to TOMAHAWK's Wolf Hawkfield. If I had to guess, Spaniard Leon (also totally not a VF reference!) might've used kung-fu, and there was also the standard-issue Chinese kung-fu girl (not Pai Chan!) mandated by Japanese law for all 90s FTGs.

(I'm dreadfully amused at them nicking Clown from Fighter's History, mildly rebadging him as "Joker" - a much more blatant ripoff than anything alleged by Capcom in their lawsuit against DECO )



Genki are good dudes, never really a headline dev but they've a solid catalogue of b-tier hits. I remember enjoying Multi Racing Championship too, despite having its obvious template Sega Rally on hand.

TL:DR - Some game stuff, some personal stuff about Stevens.

Times like this I wish I had my old stack of Gamefan's. Nah no joke, 3 D fighters were everywhere in the mid to late 90's, but mentioning Gamefan just now reminds me of a story from around 95/96.

This may seem like I'm emptying my purse a little, if so I apologize.

I grew up on Long Island, about an hour from where I live now. I grew up pretty middle class - mom stayed at home, dad worked two union jobs - NYPD and was a glazier. He went on the job in 1966 and retired in 86. The years my father worked in the city it was a shithole. Have you seen the NYC visitors guide from the 1970's?

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015 ... 0-years-on

Anyways I don't want to get to far off track. I subscribed to Gamefan at that time and realized that they had a shop on the NYC/Long Island border in a town called Manhasset. Which at 18 took forever to drive to. It was/is also a super wealthy neighborhood. And down the street come this 18 year old, wearing a flannel, and driving a Chevy Celebrity. Yeah I fit in.

Anyway Gamefan's store blew my mind. It was a wonderland of imports, anime, model kits. I can't stress how it blew my mind back then. Up to that point it was only stuff I had seen in magazines that existed only in Japan. But here it all was, right in front of me.

Over the next year I would make the trip a few more times and pick up a fair amount of imported Saturn stuff from them. Golden Axe - The Duel (awesome and terrible), Guardian Heroes (took me forever to translate), and X Men: COTA come to mind.

None of which I have anymore but I'm way passed all that. Man times were simpler back then. Not that things are overly complicated now, but yeah. I would sit in the den late at night playing after I got home (Yeah I had a curfew - think it was midnight my senior year), sometimes dad would wake up and come downstairs and we would talk while I played. Little did I know he would be gone within the year. Life happens really fast sometimes when you're only 18 and still trying to figure out who you are.

In the end though I think I did OK.

Anyways - SOR 4's ost, while not up to par with 1 or 2 still has some really great tracks. I'm also really impressed with how varied some of the single songs are.

God damn. I had seen photos of NYC's poorest areas in the 70s to early 80s, was already pretty shocking stuff (IIRC, some were used in Soviet propaganda, though the circumstances documented were most definitely real). The use of the term civil war also reminds me of this 1972 BBC documentary ("Man Alive: The Bronx Is Burning"), on the FDNY's "war years." I have a lot of friends and family living and working in NYC from the 90s to present, never heard anything nearly as crazy from them (9/11 being the obvious exception)



Diehard Gamefan, I think they called their mail order outlet? I remember poring over those old ads in EGM, before they got their magazine going. I've still got my handful of old issues from BITD. I distinctly recall their having a real fanzine aspect, early on (with Computer & Videogames even reviewing them as such, in their Zines column) - lots of typos and scrappy art, but a helluva passion. Had a great interview with Treasure, right after Gunstar's release, and gave Mischief Makers full cover treatment.

Their later, more polished years were pretty great too... an editorial by Eric C. Mylonas castigating reviewers for credit-feeding Strider 2's PS1 port helped point me in the right direction (I'd blindly accepted the usual "infinite continues = no replay value" nonsense, up until then), and they had a killer Armed Police Batrider spread with tons of in-depth commentary on not just Raizing, but Toaplan and CAVE, too. IIRC, my most recent issue before I drifted into online forums was Cannon Spike. A Psikyo game (albeit one featuring Capcom IPs) on the front of a US magazine, just superb.

I grew up between Jamaica and England, both places where NTSCU stuff were the imports, and actual JP stuff was simply mythological - I wish I'd not been so defeatist as a kid. Only got into JP stuff in the early 00s, and even now it still has an air of mysticism to it.

This had the not-unpleasant side effect of making games unobtainable and therefore cool in my age group. I know it's a cliche, but I saw a lot of unlikely friendships. Everyone loved Contra, SFII Turbo and later Goldeneye multiplayer. N64 AKI wrasslin could sometimes threaten those same friendships.

Sorry to hear you lost your dad so young in life, I don't know how I'd have coped.

Yeah that was the mail order. I subscribed to them for years, but then I remember issues appearing sporadically in maybe 99 and Gamefan didn't soldier on too much longer after that.

Halverson did what he could though. The shit show stories about Gamefan aside there was an undeniable quality those magazines. I did subscribe to Gamer's Republic after I found it was his, and later Play magazine. Sadly print was doomed.

Thanks for the kind words about my dad. He was a great person. I see what my relationship is like with mom now and kind of figure ours would have taken a similar trajectory. Not to sound really cliche - but ultimately I got by with a little help from my friends. And family. The people I was closest with in the 10 years after his death helped make me who I am today. I met some great people during those years. A few I am still friends with.

A resounding yes! Had in fact a hard time choosing as I wanted to only mention one track in order to encourage independent musiconautery. Brilliant gameplay and video methodology by Ex_Mosquito as well.

I’ve been listening primarily to Jon Dunn C64 soundtracks as well as the Apidya soundtrack by Huelsbeck

File this one under "not VGM but undeniably could be." Any fan of T's Music (Winds of Thunder, Sapphire, Bulk Slash) or modern Falcom will love this album.

Tony MacAlphine - Maximum Security



Can't believe I'd never heard of this guy! A Glenn Tipton-style neoclassical shredder who specialises in the sort of fiery, elegiacal melodies perfect for fuelling STGs and harder-edged ARPGs. Superb from start to finish - a few of the bigger standouts from my first run-through:

Key to the City (stage 2-1 )
Hundreds of Thousands (penultimate boss )
Tears of Sahara (staff roll, best track ;-;)

Improbably dead-on for this particular niche of emotive yet compact instrumental metal - highly recommended to anyone who ever ran their PCE-CDs through EAC back in the day.

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Speaking of moderately obscure horis, looked up Gensitou aka Prehistoric Isle in 1930 while replying to an STG music post in the main forum. And ho ho hoooly shit! I remembered this tune having a good riff, but it's outright killer. Breakneck chiptune speed metal, ferocious all-around.

HEAVY WIND (Boss 2)

Soundtracks a furious dogfight with a pteranodon, who creates deadly mini-tornadoes with his wings, much like IRL. After getting burnt to the bone by the inexplicably well-regarded Athena, I can't say I'd buy it blind before a quick MAME catch-up, but I do hope this one pops up on ACA (lesson learned there - buying a shit game hurts no matter how cheap! a blow to one's gamer pride ). 1930 has personality, if nothing else. Yumekobo's Neo Geo sequel is almost certainly the formally better STG, but I don't find it nearly as charming.

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Not exactly news, with Nazca's Big Tournament Golf being a well-loved game, and well-spoken for ITT by it290 - but as a newbie, the OST is amazing. It's like getting a brand new Metal Slug soundtrack from HIYA and co. Visualising all kinda rad stuff listening to this.

Lately, I've considered HIYA's music just as vital to the Slug aesthetic as Akio & co's legendary visuals - sharing the same inimitable balance of fiery bravado to black farce, anchored by disarming absurdity. While MS4 and 5's respective orchestral/metal soundtracks are sturdy works, when it comes to eulogising the legions of dead left in Slug's wake - some were scared, some were stoic, all were reduced from fighting men to unrecognisable dogmeat - their most ominous swells and shredding solos can't approach the impervious zen of an unhurried jazz combo, playing amiable music redolent of peace long gone.

The way Shadow Warriors (the *true* Ninja Gaiden, for you console miscreants!) does "different genres for different parts of the U.S." remains genial, especially for a game published in 1988. Not too sure how would I define each genre, if the issue matters to begin with, but I would just guess and say that the sequence is:

1. NY - '80s hair metal
2. NJ - quiet storm/lo-fi night jazz (NJ? Somewhere outside Nu Yahk)
3. LV - Jazz/easy listening/'80s porn with silicone bimbos OST (What happens in Vegas)*
4. XX - Dunno, something that work with the Grand Canyon? (Etc.)
5. YY - Melancholic rock for the Pacific coast/Midwest, maybe even proto-grunge (OK, clearly handwaving here)
6. LA - "Something else" metal while you beat the shit out of satanists worshipping Nostradamus (C'mon, it's LA!)

...really, the fact that the composer even tried was impressive in its own right.




*A DJ friend of mine hosts a graveyard shift radio show and only plays OSTs from '70s and '80s porn. He is being going at it for 9 years, now.

Ninja Ryukenden AC and FC were developed simultaneously by different teams, and the former actually came out second in Glorious Nippon (88 vs 89). The whole TRU VERSION thing is fake news - avowed AC supremacist BLOODF can ban me and delete all my posts and it won't change DICK.



Actually a sneaky, subtle lift of Bound To Break, by "Japanese Judas Priest" (and accredited Falcom rockers) Anthem. The whole song is repurposed and mildly altered, but the chorus drops all pretense:

"Shadow Soldier?" more like...

BOUND. TO. BREEEAAAK!

While later releases of the game scrubbed the cover of Sabbath's Iron Man, this remains. I like to think because unlike That Cunt Sharon, Naoto Shibata & co are good peeps.



Metal Yuhki is a man of many musical talents - nowhere moreso than Dracula X: Rondo's impeccably synthpop-informed OST. Shouldn't work, does! ...now that I think about it, he must've been pretty hyped to see Naoto Shibata himself head up the Dracula Battle project.



"NINJA IN U.S.A." indeed! Look at that old fatso getting all mad as Hayabusa takes his cash AND all the girls!



The arcade game's sense of humour is wildly undersung. Everybody talks about the iconic, ghastly "Continue?" screen, and the HS table is pretty gnarly too. I like to think it depicts a soundly beaten, bloodied hero reduced to hiding for his life under the floorboards. 2P Guy, is that you?



Or maybe it's a glimpse at the feral hellscape awaiting the world, now that BLADEAMUS the assless chaps weirdo has LAUNCHED TEH NUKE (to fulfill the prophecy of his grandpa Nostradamus, obviously). But it's also got a very knowing "Japanese Tourism... WITH MURDER" tongue-in-cheekyness. I think even the horror buzzsaw was a Goldfinger riff. Although, the grunt enemy is a Jason Voorhees cosplayer, so it's evident they had at least one foot in the Video Nasties bin.

"No, Mr. Haybusa, I expect you to deposit another credit!"

It has been scientifically proven than AC>>>FC. Why? Because I said so. This is shmups.com: We just yell louder and we are right!

...Anyway, let's move onto more pressing matters while the ArcadenGestapo will surround your house. Forgiveness will be perhaps conceded if faith in the AC will be true and genuine (100 "Hail Garegga" to begin with, thanks). I am sure that yout confessions to Father Pucci will be an excellent first step towards redemption, of course (Araki says: 2021 but STFU because funds, btw).



Ah-ah, I simply did not mention Judas Priest because my metal lore is not so refined, these days. I believe that at some point I actually knew about this lift. You only need a proper fan to listen to the song a few times and realise that it is an homage of something.



....nevermind, too lazy to look up who the composer was. OK, all of a sudden everything makes sense (and I probably forgot this bit of knowledge, too. Cue again Memento flashbacks).



I'd say that this and Night Slashers were purposefully designed to homage and mock (ultimately, the twin sides of re-interpreting) the slightly shifting Zeitgeist(s) of trash-pop culture. Actually, one could write a book or two about all these late '80s/ early '90s absolutely wacky and flippant games, and the same could be said with anime. Japanese creatives were once the masters of the absurd, this is a matter of fact.

In this case, I can imagine the designers watching one western ninja and one slasher flick too many, listening to one too many forgettable hair metal hits, and deciding to go and take the piss on the whole late '80s non-sense with panache. Let us not forget that the final boss seems to be straight out of an "Hokuto no Ken meets gay BDSM pr0n" dream mash-up, and is also remarkably easy. Clearly the way he walks tells us that he had too much gerbil fun before the final showdown!

Hayabusa-san was simply fed up with the whole Nostradamus thingie (1999 what? The showa era hasn't ended, suckers!) and decided to deliver justice with punch, punch, roundhouse kick/somersault plus neck-throw brutality. Winning concept!

...aside this, I am now vaguely curious about the other songs, too. Stage 2 actually sounds really like a lift from some sleazy porn, or maybe Blaxploitation movie. The plot thickens!

Saint Dragon's stage 2 BGM - yeah yeah, under merciless attack with volcanos blowing up everywhere, just chill alright? Sizzla "Viewpoint" Okamura (Y'all ready?) smooths out dire shooting straits like a one-man Zuntata.

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Sweet Jesus, Thunder Cross II's OST is underrated stuff... theme of second boss RAGAMUFFIN is a head-stomper. Darkly towering, calculatedly crashing orchestral metal.

I mostly know this soundtrack (and game) from Shooting Battle II's rather nice arrangement of DOG FIGHT III (love the verses' staccato power chords and ephemerally rising synths), but the rest of the OSV is well worth hearing. HEAVY METAL BOMBER a life-affirmingly battering exemplar of adrenalised shooter BGM.

EDIT: I typed all of the above, knee bouncing to Bomber's furious Motorhead pace, wondering who the composer might be - perhaps one of Konami's usual prodigies? Furukawa, Higashino, Yamane, Yamaoka, NON, TAPPY... turned out to be none other than Metal Yuhki yet again. Beautiful, brilliant soul. And suddenly, evilly operatic RAGAMUFFIN's resemblance to Gemini Wing's Luciferous Stage 4 BGM makes total sense.

Unsurprising that Shibata arranged so many of his songs for the Battle ASTs - real recognise real! Shooting Battle II's BATTLES OF BATTLESHIP blows the fuckin roof off, listen to that fatalistic front-line gallop and the dual leads Itano-spiralling overhead. This stuff was meant to be together.

This thread actually got me to check out the King of Fighters arrange albums. I had heard 95's years ago, but never listened to any of the others until recently, and fell in love pretty fast. 95 is probably still my overall favorite, but 99's more industrial vibes are excellent too.

This video rules; found it after the KOF links in this thread. Love the performance of Metal Slug's Judgment especially.

I missed this! Really great stuff.

While it's unquestionably an iconic Slug BGM, I've seldom listened to "Final Attack" on its own, possibly due to associating it with some very traumatic memories ( nothing sweeter than hearing it fade out as MSX/3's final bosses explode!) - but that performance was absolutely bloodening.



All the other tracks are bonafide classics ofc. Love how he translated the vocal and sitar effects of JUDGMENT ( now there's one for the evocative VGM titles thread... wait, nm, I already posted it ). I don't know the newer Esaka, but segueing directly into the immortally fiery "ESAKA?" takes care of that.

During my news fast last week I did a lot of listening to the Sega CD OST of Ecco the Dolphin.

Especialy this track. Give it a moment.

Man, if any genesis game benefited from the switch to CD, it's Ecco.!

Couple of Konami arcade racing tracks in need of more love, straight outta their late-80s OST golden age. Chequered Flag is generally likeable chugging hard rock, but a couple tracks approach Thunder Force IV levels of high-octane heavy metal fire.

GET ON THE READY LINE GET HOT GOD DAMMIT

> NIGHT LINE
> GRAND STROKE

Also, the remarkable HIGHWAY KILLER from WEC Le Mans 24 Hours. While the tone's not as gloriously chuggy as Chequered Flag's, the OSV VER again recalls Tecno Soft's tecnical furies. Real star is the VOCAL ARRANGE VER, balls-out cock rock with the best lyrics ever.



Bonerizing piano rendition of E.D.F.'s ARMED SATELLITE by its composer, Tsukasa Tawada

https://twitter.com/TsukasaTawada/statu ... 7195727872

OSV ver, some of the hardest upper-orbit bass slapping this side of SDI and Galaxy Force II.

While looking up some old Bloodlines GIFs, was reminded by Squire's posts of Another Iwanaga. No idea what stage the game is at (was the original ever finished? Jesus, I am wayyy outta the loop on everyone's favourite Alien Soldier x Ikaruga doujin...), but what a cool track! Very RSG/Ikaruga-esque. Could see it accompanying a grand zako-harassed climb up some movingly ornate, impossibly vast techno-edifice against a view of cloudy forest. Maybe that's the on-foot Ikaruga I recall of the first game talking.

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Speaking of quality Metal Slug covers, this was an instant sub for me. A favourite BGM from a favourite scene.





While I ultimately prefer the OSV's slightly bouncier riff, this one's stompier take is exactly the creativity I like from my arrangements. Moreover, the richly sustained lead tones absolutely slay.