Overclocked Remix, the world’s largest video game remix community has just released an awesome 24 track tribute to Kirby’s Super Star for SNES! Directed by Arek the Absolute with beautiful cover art by PROTODOME, this album doesn’t sparkle in cosmetics alone.
As with all OCRemix albums, these are fan arrangements offered for free download direct from their site! They offer MP3 downloads either direct from their server or via BitTorrent. I suggest using the torrent, as it’s super fast and helps OCR save on bandwidth!
A good work ethic is one of those intangible things that I think you don’t just learn by attending school and doing your homework. I’ve been told I have an almost insane work ethic and I know part of it has to do with loving what I do and just trying to survive! But I’ve met people who feel no motivation from these same factors.
I dare you to find something that requires as much stress-management as this in your real life!
In retrospect, the ridiculously hard games of the 8-bit days and the complex RPGs of the 16-bit era taught me a few things that translate directly to real life. Was this the plan of the programmers of these games? I kind of have a hard time believing that was something done purposefully, but here’s a few things that video games taught me as a kid that I simply can’t live without today.
Resource Management
Perhaps the earliest thing I realized that video games had taught me was resource management. Take the common cycle of early CRPGS: You have X amount of health and X amount of gold. You go out and fight some baddies trying to make some more gold before running out of health. You might also have a special power or item to help you win a few battles, but these things run out. You have to remember that the gold you gain is great for buying new weapons, but if you don’t stay at the Inn and heal up, you won’t get very far with your new sword.
When I got my first job, I realized it wasn’t that much different with real money. It was tempting to blow it all, but I had to look at the big picture of how I used it and where it’d take me. In contrast, I saw many other kids who blew every paycheck they had and never had money for college, a car or other things that were ultimately more important in the big picture.
Tenacity
Metroid made me work hard. Harder than any other game I ever played. If you were going to play, you had to dedicate at least an hour to filling up your energy tanks before heading into new territory. Once you were there, you had no idea how deep you’d have to go to find a new item or make it to the next area. More often than not you’d die at the hands of some new monster or trip into a pit that you could not escape from. It was infuriating, but the pull of seeing what was beyond kept me coming back for more.
This tenacity translated easily into my work as a computer programmer. A difficult or seemingly impossible task was just another hurdle I could overcome if I put my mind to it. I often interviewed people to work on my team who would give up at the easiest programming problem during the interview. These people had no desire to pit their will against some silly computer, which is basically what I was doing with Metroid years before.
Managing Stress
Video games can actually stress you out. Even in something as basic as the original Super Mario Brothers, there are moments when you think, “I’ve come this far, I’m deep in Bowser’s castle, I’m going to die!” Multiply this by ten for early games that had few save points or no continues. After a while, these games taught me to sort of go into this calm, unthinking state when I got to the stressful part. I knew letting the tension get to me would ruin my chance of succeeding, I just had to silence that fear. Well, turns out real life works the same way. There are lots of stressful situations; tests, job interviews and other things where we just have to block out our fears and make it to the next level.
Perseverance Pays Off
The only games I ever played that consciously started to feel like work to me were some of the early SquareSoft RPGSs. Early RPGs made you work for every experience point and every new power. I remember getting obsessed with gaining every esper power for every one of my characters. It took weeks, but in the end, I had an almost unbeatable team and could just enjoy the rest of the game. There were tons of side benefits from working so hard, like my characters having super high levels early on.
I saw this to an even greater extent when playing MMORPGs later on. Spending a week hunting rats outside the city walls was boring, but when I got into more serious and dangerous areas of the game, my character was ready for anything.
Anything with serious rewards in life takes perseverance and sometimes long periods of monotonous or seemingly-unrewarding work. Getting a degree, learning a new skill, getting in shape – all of these things are “work upfront, rewards later” type endeavors, as were many of the early RPGs.
The music of these old games also helped motivate me. It made me feel like I was doing something really important (you know, like saving a fictional universe!) That heroic feeling was good motivation and something that sticks with you. I’m not going to go on a rant against new games and what they do or don’t teach. But I think it’s great whenever a game reminds you, “You don’t get something for nothing.” That’s just the way it is.
Beatscribe is a full time indie composer, musician and writer. By day he creates soundtracks for various mobile gaming companies, by night creates megaman-inspired chiptunes, in the afternoons he drinks tea. Check out his latest releases, tutorials and retro ruminations at www.beatscribe.com.
The lists of the best NES and Gameboy soundtracks are filled with familiar hits from Megaman, Zelda and Metroid. But there were a lot of less-than-stellar games for these systems that had some killer music. Here’s some amazing 8-bit songs you might have never heard.
Journey To Sillius
Journey to Sillius was originally going to be a Terminator video game but somehow Sunsoft lost the liscence and slapped a generic Sci-Fi story on this super tough platform run-and-gun game. Sunsoft gets two games on the top of the list for the same reason: Killer bass! While the triangle wave bass sound is one of the defining sounds of the NES, it also lacks character and punch of more modern synthesizer basses. While the DPCM channel on the NES normally plays tiny drum samples, that’s not all it can do.
The composers of Journey To Sillius loaded up beefy synth samples and used the noise channel to make drums. That gives these songs a lot more punch than your standard NES song. The added static from these 1-bit crushed samples actually adds to the power of these tunes.
To be fair, this soundtrack has gotten some recognition, it breaks the top 100, 300 and even top 20 on some lists, but I think it should be much higher. Check out the mind-blowing echoing part around 2:12 too!
Gimmick!
Gimmick is another Sunsoft entry to the NES line of games from 1992. Its happy, bouncy tunes are propelled along by awesome slap bass and crunchy samples that set it apart from other NES songs with their subtle bass parts. This game has got to have the busiest DPCM channels of any game out there. If you listen carefully you’ll notice that in some songs drum samples are playing in between bass samples. The resulting full sound never got the recognition it deserverd, probably mostly due to the fact that the game came out so late in the NES’s development cycle.
M.C. Kids
An annoying thing from the 90’s was that there was a video game that game out for every product imaginable. Every Saturday morning cartoon, soda, action figure collection got their own second-rate NES game. McDonalds didn’t want to be left out so they released M.C. Kids. It was basically a Super Mario 3 clone and brought little innovation or excitement. It’s graphics were also pretty weak. All that said though, this track is one of the most catchy things I’ve heard on the NES. The way they use the triangle bass is just great! I am warning you right now, if you listen to this song more than twice, it will be in your head for weeks. You may even awake from a sudden daze sitting in McDonalds with a Big Mac in your hand and have no idea how you got there. True story.
Turok
The Turok franchise started up around the N64 days around 1997. The Gameboy games had some amazing music. This Asian-infused little groove is really great. It’s hard to imagine this song sounding any better with modern instrumentation.
Conquest of the Crystal Palace
Conquest of the Crystal Palace was a hard-as-Blaster-Master platformer filled with weird characters (Dogs wearing Samurai armor) and impossible jumps. It’s one of those games that’s hard even if you use save states to cheat! The first level, however, has some of the most memorable Asian-influenced music you’ll ever hear on the NES. It’s got some great drum work too.
S-11
Released by Sunsoft and Paragon 5 in 2001, S-11 boasts some of the most amazing music for the Gameboy Color. You’re ears will have a hard time accepting that you’re only listening to 4 simultaneous sounds here.
Uncle Fester’s Quest
This super whacky Adams Family game might not have been the best game ever, but it had some killer music. This track uses the sampled bass trick that Sunsoft later perfected. You gotta respect that gritty bass sound and head banging beat. It’s very hard to make anything that truly rocks on the NES but this hits the spot. The interior “3d” areas of the game also have some of the creepiest music you’ll ever hear. I remember being on the edge of my seat exploring dark empty hallways, expecting something to jump out at me.
This is by no means a complete list. Post in the comments the long-lost gems that I might have left out.
Beatscribe is a full time indie composer, musician and writer. By day he creates soundtracks for various mobile gaming companies, by night creates megaman-inspired chiptunes, in the afternoons he drinks tea. Check out his latest releases, tutorials and retro ruminations at www.beatscribe.com.
Megman recently celebrated his 25th birthday, but he probably wouldn’t have made it past 2 years of age if it weren’t for one important game; Megaman II. Most lists put Megaman II near the top of best Nintendo games of all time. For me, it’s definitely number one. Of the myriad of Nintendo games I played as a kid, none of them impacted me as much as Mega Man II. If you haven’t played this game, I plan to convince you to get an emulator or pick up the cartridge and check it out.
The Developers Were Passionate About Megaman II
There’s an interesting story around the development of Megaman II. Megaman I was financially a bomb. Capcom was ready to give up on the blue bomber and move on to other projects. However, the team that made the original Megaman didn’t want to give up. They decided to spend their own time developing the game, improving the graphics and making more music for it. They put in 20 hour days and completed the game in about four months. This type of dedication and passion is exhausting but often leads to enduring products. Megaman II simply exudes this kind of commitment to quality.
I think this is something that gets lost so often today in games. Arbitrary deadlines cause people to give up their vision to get something out there to start making a quick buck. In the end, passion and creativity sell a lot more than dropping your game in the holiday season.
It’s Hard, But Not Too Hard
Crazy cliffhanger moments like this made Megman II pretty addicting.
Megaman II is the first game I can remember that really made me tense up. In airman’s level there are some moments where you have to make blind jumps into the void and hope one of those big robo heads is going to appear under you. Once you land, the robo head starts launching an attack. This section of the game still gives me that feeling all these years later. It wasn’t until much later 3D games came out that I ever got a sense of vertigo or physical tension from being on the edge of a platform or taking a crazy blind jump. All this said, the game is never so hard that you want to throw the controller across the room, a common reaction to NES games.
It Has Depth
The premise of Megaman is not that different than many other games like Contra or even Super Mario Brothers. You run, avoid things, shoot robots, hop on platforms, etc. It’s nothing new, but the way it’s all put together is truly ingenius. The underwater sections require special diligence since gravity is altered there.
At this moment, I realized just how much thought went into the weapons in this game. .
I think the thing that stands out the most to me about the depth is the weapons. You can play through the whole game with the default blaster and it’s enjoyable. But the game gives you liberal weapon refills when you start using the other tools you earn from each boss. Play through the levels in the right order and you’ll have tools to take shortcuts, get extra powers or take out enemy bots before they become a threat. Particularly, the seemingly useless bubble gun has such a cool secondary purpose of helping you identify false floors in one of the difficult final stages of the game.
The MUSIC….Oh man, THE MUSIC!!
Megaman II’s music is perhaps some of the best NES music out there. The game’s 21 tracks remixed hundreds of times in varying styles. The catchy tunes were composed by Takashi Tateishi and Manami Matsumae and many would agree that they’re among the most catchy and genre-defining songs of that Nintendo era. The game’s level selecting setup means there’s no “first level” to impress users with. This was common in a lot of NES games, the first level looked awesome and had great sound, but past that, it just became monotonous and musically uninspired. No matter what level you start with, the music is amazing. I’d have to say Flash Man and Quick Man’s levels have some of the best tunes. I’ve heard from many that Dr Wily Stage 1 music is THE best 8-bit song ever.
The songs definitely have a rock music influence to them. I get the feeling these guys were listening to 80’s hair metal guitar solos and trying to convert them into 8-bit blips. The end result doesn’t sound like your average video game track or a heavy rock song but something completely new. It’s hard to believe there’s only four sounds playing at any one time when you listen to these complex and well-composed tunes. I’m always trying to capture those melodic components in my own music.
Megaman II spawned an entire series of successful games, but I don’t think any of them was ever quite as perfect as Megaman II. I strongly suggest you play this excellent game today.
Here’s an awesome song done Coheed and Cambria style based on the Dr Wily Stage 1 Theme music.
Beatscribe is a full time indie composer, musician and writer. By day he creates soundtracks for various mobile gaming companies, by night creates megaman-inspired chiptunes, in the afternoons he drinks tea. Check out his latest releases, tutorials and retro ruminations at www.beatscribe.com.
Overclocked Remix, the world’s largest video game remix community has just released an awesome 24 track tribute to Kirby’s Super Star for SNES! Directed by
