1993 Archives - The Greatest Game Music

Battletoads & Double Dragon Soundtrack (SNES) – Review

Battletoads & Double Dragon Soundtrack (SNES), David Wise, 1993

In 1993, the Battletoads franchise was in a slightly curious spot. The 1991 NES original had been successful enough to spawn several ports. There was also Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, a SNES (and later Sega Master System) game that ultimately felt like a remix of the 1991 NES title. So where to next for the burgeoning, but not quite yet established franchise? Publisher Tradewest had released Battletoads on several platforms and held the home license for the venerable Double Dragon franchise. Why not combine two forces of nature in one amazing game? The match seemed to be an entirely natural one, given that Kevin Bayliss, co-designer of Battletoads, was a big Double Dragon fan.

However, things didn’t quite pan out as expected. For starters, with Rare developing the game, Battletoads & Double Dragon felt like it was shoehorning the world of Billy and Jimmy Lee into the more comic-like antics of a Battletoads game. It didn’t help that Double Dragon characters made appearances under the wrong names. Ultimately, Battletoads & Double Dragon garnered respectable but rarely enthusiastic reviews at the time of its release. That impression seems to continue with more recent assessments of the game: a decent enough brawler that doesn’t live up to the potential of the franchise crossover.

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Battletoads Soundtrack (Sega Genesis) – Review

Battletoads Soundtrack (Sega Genesis), David Wise, 1993

Yes, it might have been a blatant attempt to ride the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ coattails. Still, Rare’s 1991 NES Battletoads game was successful enough to see it ported to a plethora of other platforms. Probably the highest-profile port was the Battletoads version released for the Sega Genesis in 1993. Reviews of the game were somewhat divided. More than a few critics pointed out that the developers could have done more to improve the game in the two years that had passed since the NES release, instead of releasing what was mostly a simple conversion that arguably didn’t push the Genesis graphics chip much.

In fact, where the Genesis port of Battletoads probably shines the brightest is with its score. Before delving deeper into this version of the Battletoads soundtrack, a few disclaimers are necessary. Available information on who developed the Genesis port is conflicting. Some sources point to Rare, others list Japanese studio Arc System Works. Keep in mind: Arc System Works developed the Battletoads Game Gear port. That game’s soundtrack was ported by Hikoshi Hashimoto, not original composer David Wise himself. So while Wise is commonly listed as the composer of the Battletoads soundtrack for the Genesis, there is a chance that the music was actually ported by someone else (assuming Arc System Works was involved). The fact that there is no credits roll at the end of the game doesn’t help matters. In the absence of definitive information, we need to assume Wise ported his own NES soundtrack to the Genesis.

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Lock On Soundtrack – Review

Lock On Soundtrack, Akihiko Mori, 1993

Using the SNES’s famed 3D capabilities for a combat flight simulator seems like an obvious choice. However, despite the popularity of After Burner-style games in the late 80s and early 90s, not many titles of this kind were released on the SNES. One of the few SNES flight simulators was the blandly-titled Lock On (not that the Japanese release name Super Air Diver made any sense, but it sure sounds more fun). For post SNES-era gamers, the best way to view developer Copya System‘s Lock On is probably as a kind of simplified Ace Combat. Some of that simplification was inevitable, given that the SNES’ famous Mode 7 could only generate 3D graphics of limited complexity. However, in the eyes of many reviewers, the bigger issue was the monotonous mission and gameplay structure that distracted from the game’s fluid, fast graphics.

Where Lock On easily shines brightest is in the music department, thanks to some outstanding work by young composer Akihiko Mori. Mori had been working as a game composer since 1990, but mostly on smaller and less thankful projects. His biggest assignment so far had been to generate the sound effects for Copya System’s Paladin’s Quest (scored by none other than Kohei Tanaka). Lock On was easily the most high-profile project that Mori had been assigned to yet as a composer. And indeed, throughout the Lock On soundtrack, Mori displays the enthusiasm of a talented composer who senses that this project could be his big break – and that turned out to be the case indeed.

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Secret of Mana Soundtrack – Review

Secret of Mana Soundtrack, Hiroki Kikuta, 1993

It’s no understatement to say that for many gamers, Secret of Mana remains one of the most fondly remembered experiences of the 16-bit era. Of course, a lot of that has to do with the innate quality of the product. Square’s experiment merging action adventure and RPG elements was a resounding success, charming millions of players with its vibrant fantasy world and accessible, yet deep gameplay. But timing played an important role as well. Remember that back in 1993, US releases of SNES RPGs were the exception, not the rule (and for the German market, Secret of Mana might well have been the first localised SNES RPG). As a result, many gamers encountered the engrossing storytelling and vivid worlds that the best RPGs deliver for the first time with Secret of Mana.

An even rarer sight were actual album releases of game music outside of Japan. Secret of Mana was one of the very, very few SNES game scores to see a US release (preceding Donkey Kong Country by a year). Again, for many this would have been the first time they encountered game music outside of a game.

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The 7th Saga Soundtrack – Review

The 7th Saga Soundtrack, Norihiko Yamanuki, 1993

It’s probably no surprise that sometimes, games are remembered not for the whole of their various strengths and shortcomings, but rather simply for their most outstanding and pronounced feature. And so when seasoned gamers think back to developer Produce’s The 7^th Saga, what’s brought up first isn’t so much the game’s peculiarly sombre atmosphere, or the variety of characters to control. Instead, what dominates retrospective conversations about The 7^th Saga is its absolutely unforgiving difficulty level (dialed up for the US release), which required hours and hours of grinding right from the very start. It’s a shame then that its reputation as the SNES’ most difficult RPG often overshadows The 7^th Saga’s several accomplishments.

One of these is a surprisingly understated, at times haunting score by Norihiko Yamanuki that plays counter to almost all JRPG clichés and norms. It’s difficult to contextualise the stylistic surprise that is the The 7^th Saga soundtrack within Yamanuki’s body of work – mainly because his discography is so small. Outside of The 7^th Saga, the only game music credit for Yamanuki identifiable on English-language websites is Madou Ou Granzort, a solid if not outstanding PC Engine score.

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