1991 Archives - The Greatest Game Music

Battletoads Soundtrack (NES)

Battletoads Soundtrack (NES), David Wise, 1991

The Battletoads soundtrack might be David Wise’s best and most creative NES score. That’s certainly no small feat – after all, Wise scored a whopping 46 NES games during his prolific career. Of course, a soundtrack release was all but impossible in 1991. It took until 2015 – when enterprising game music label iam8bit released a raft of Rare scores on vinyl – that the Battletoads soundtrack received its belated, but very much deserved album release.

Mind you, it wasn’t quite the deluxe product you would hope to see from a commemorative release like this. iam8bit’s album was missing the DMC samples Wise used, for example the drums on “Title Theme”. It does make you wonder what materials the album producers were working with. Thankfully, this can’t distract from the eccentric brilliance of Wise’s work. A comparison with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES games and their music is not only apt, but also proves insightful. The Konami titles took the new jack swing genre popular around the late 1980s and early 1990s and harnessed its fusion of hip-hop, dance pop and R&B to generate the kind of hard-swinging urban cool that would fire up gamers. Battletoads, on the other hand, has something very different in mind.

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Dick Tracy Soundtrack (Game Boy)

Dick Tracy Soundtrack (Game Boy), George Sanger, 1991

The success of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman kicked off the first wave of comic-book movies to hit cinemas. Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy – released the following year – might have looked like it was riding on the caped crusader’s coattails, but in fact the project had been in development since the early 1980s. It turned out to be one of the decade’s more artistically and financially successful comic book movies, with its extravagant visual design drenched in primary colours still impressive decades later. Unfortunately, none of the film’s many video game adaptations – mostly for 8-bit platforms – could hope to match that kind of visual splendour.

Prolific developer Realtime Associates handled Dick Tracy’s NES and Game Boy versions – which meant gamers had another soundtrack from in-house composer George Sanger to look forward to. Interestingly enough, the NES and Game Boy ports turned out to be sufficiently different from one another to warrant one score for the NES game and another one for the Game Boy title. Of course, Sanger wrote both soundtracks, with the Game Boy one coming out on top. The NES version is jazzier, but in its adherence to that genre’s stereotypes, it’s also less interesting than the ambitious Game Boy equivalent. What also helps is that the compositions on the Game Boy score are significantly longer and more substantial than on the NES.

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Hero Quest Soundtrack (NES)

Hero Quest Soundtrack (NES), Neil Baldwin, 1991

Even at the height of the NES’ popularity, there were no official album releases of Western NES game music. That makes a website like Neil Baldwin‘s Duty Cycle Generator a very important contribution towards closing this gap. On his site, game music veteran Baldwin, whose career began on the C64, released all of his NES soundtracks. Baldwin pointed out that part of the reason his website exists was the praise one of his works had generated within online chiptunes communities. That score was Hero Quest, the video game version of the popular fantasy-themed board game. The score’s popularity was all the more surprising considering that the game was cancelled. However, its developer Chris Shrigley released it years later into the NES community, and its reputation built over time. Baldwin’s surprised discovery of the Hero Quest soundtrack’s popularity also kickstarted his involvement with the online game music community.

On Duty Cycle Generator, Baldwin shares his view that the Hero Quest soundtrack “is probably some of the best NES music” he did. It’s safe to say he’s correct in that assessment. Prior works by Baldwin (and his later Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge) can feel like exercises in arpeggio-based NES compositions. Those arpeggios were a relatively easy way to generate a lush sound with the NES’ limited hardware. There’s no doubt that Baldwin handled the arpeggio sounds driving his compositions with virtuoso technical skills matched by few other composers. Still, particularly a fantasy-themed work like Magician feels deficient in other regards, for example engaging melodies and moods.

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Hero Quest Soundtrack (ZX Spectrum)

Hero Quest Soundtrack (ZX Spectrum), Barry Leitch, 1991

Disclaimer: An earlier version of this review stated that the Atari ST port suffered from technical problems. This turned out to be an emulator issue and the ‘Conversion Notes’ section of the review has been updated accordingly.

Board games are arguably a lot easier to turn into video games than say movies. They already function as games, have a set of clearly defined rules and often enough feature just enough backstory to efficiently set up the game’s world. The sheer number of Dungeons & Dragons video games is testament to the close connection between both worlds. The success of the Dungeons & Dragons table top games of course inspired others to follow in their footsteps. In 1989, US board game manufacturer Milton Bradley tried their hand at a fantasy-themed title called Hero Quest. Despite its generic presentation, the game was fairly successful around the globe, with a number of expansions, new editions and even novels published.

The inevitable video game ports of Hero Quest arrived in 1991 on several home computer systems and the NES. Developers 221B Software Development looked after the computer ports, while Eurocom handled the NES game. Unfortunately, that title was ultimately cancelled and never officially released. As for the various computer ports, they were reasonably well received by video game journalists, although reviews ranged from very strong to merely middling. While some scribes welcomed the game’s accessibility, others bemoaned its low difficulty level and that Hero Quest stuck too close to its original board game mechanics.

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Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 – Martian Dreams Soundtrack

Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 – Martian Dreams Soundtrack, Dana Glover / Tom Hollingshead / George Sanger, 1991

Back in 1991, dedicated soundtrack releases for Western game soundtracks were pretty much unheard of. One of the pioneers was Origin Soundtrack, a compilation of music from some of Origin‘s high-profile games of 1990/91. Exactly how Origin Soundtrack came about still remains a bit of a mystery. What seems to be confirmed is that the album is an unauthorised collection of music. Its producer and engineer was veteran composer Martin Galway, who had just finished work on Wing Commander II. His aim was probably to showcase his work and that of other composers at Origin on a stand-alone basis.

Probably inevitably, the album was a mixed bag of offerings. Music from high-profile titles like Ultima VI: The False Prophet and Wing Commander II turned out to be surprisingly bland. On the other hand, Wing Commander’s pioneering, film music-inspired score made its album debut (if only with a six-minute medley). Nestled between these well-known games was a score that deserves much greater attention: Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 – Martian Dreams. Martian Dreams was part of the Ultima: Worlds of Adventure series that allowed Origin to get a bit playful with the venerable RPG franchise. Just look at Martian Dreams’ storyline, set in the Victorian era. Things kick off at the 1893 World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago with a steampunk-inspired rocket trip to Mars. Here, players meet Vladimir Lenin, Mark Twain, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Rasputin and other prominent figures of the era.

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