1994 Archives - The Greatest Game Music

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs Soundtrack (Sega Master System)

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs Soundtrack (Sega Master System), Matt Furniss / David Wise, 1994

There aren’t a lot of Sega Master System ports of SNES games. There are even fewer ports where the Master System soundtrack improves on the SNES original. And if that score emerges from what was an unfinished release, we might be dealing with a minor miracle. Or maybe such a lucky outcome wasn’t entirely unpredictable. After all, it was Matt Furniss (working with Shaun Hollingworth under the Krisalis moniker) who ported the Battletoads in Battlemaniacs SNES score.

The Master System port of Battletoads in Battlemaniacs has a chequered history. The game – ported by Syrox Developments – was scheduled for a European release in 1994 through Virgin Interactive. The game had progressed far enough that at least two reviews of it were published in UK gaming magazines. However, Virgin Interactive cancelled the release for unknown reasons. At a later stage, the game saw the light of day in Master System-loving Brazil through Tec Toy. However, it’s not clear whether that release took place in 1994 or 1996.

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Battletoads Soundtrack (Arcade)

Battletoads Soundtrack (Arcade), David Wise, 1994

The final entry in the Battletoads franchise also happens to be one of its less well-known ones. Electronic Arts made a rare attempt at releasing an arcade game, publishing Battletoads as a coin-op, three-player beat’em up. It’s hard to say how successful or not the game was, but no console ports ever saw the light of day. And so, three years after the release of the original NES Battletoads game, the franchise was laid to rest – at least until E3 2018.

The fact that the arcade Battletoads didn’t seem to have made any waves is a bit of a shame. According to both reviewers of the arcade title and the 2015 Rare Replay re-release, this Battletoads game might well have been the strongest entry in the franchise. In a departure from previous Battletoads titles, this game skipped any genre-hopping (no more platforming and speed biking) and only focused on the brawling elements. This made for a less adventurous, but more focused game. Battletoads was also enhanced by great graphics that ramped up the cartoonish violence that had always been part of the franchise – but usually in fairly tame fashion. This time however, Rare was clearly happy to work outside of the limits set by Nintendo’s content policy. The result played like a test run for Conker’s Bad Fur Day, with plenty of blood, swearing and crude jokes.

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Donkey Kong Country Soundtrack (SNES)

Donkey Kong Country Soundtrack (SNES), Robin Beanland / Eveline Fischer / David Wise, 1994

It’s probably safe to say that Donkey Kong Country was always destined to be a blockbuster. What set the game on course for domination of the 1994 Christmas season were its ground-breaking graphics. More than nine million sold copies later, Donkey Kong Country had become a milestone in gaming history.

While it was the game’s quasi-3D graphics that made waves back in 1994, what has arguably aged better is the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack. For the first time in Rare’s history, David Wise was joined by co-composers: Eveline Fischer (now Novakovic) and Robin Beanland. The latter’s contribution only extended to one track (“Funky’s Fugue”) that Wise converted to run on the SNES. Fischer – recently graduated from college – on the other hand contributed seven compositions. The soundtrack was one of the very first Western game scores to receive a commercial release – on both sides of the Pacific.

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Hero Quest II: Legacy of Sorasil Soundtrack (Amiga CD32)

Hero Quest II: Legacy of Sorasil Soundtrack (Amiga CD32), Patrick Phelan, 1994

While it was based on a popular fantasy board game license, Hero Quest didn’t exactly set the video game world on fire upon release in 1991. Ultimately, it didn’t leave much more than a reasonably positive impression with reviewers and gamers. Still, developer Gremlin Interactive must have felt that there was enough life left in the license to squeeze out another Hero Quest game. Hero Quest II: Legacy of Sorasil was released in 1994, reusing its predecessor’s engine and isometric view. The game didn’t deliver much in terms of new ideas or innovations and consequently reaped the same muted response as the first Hero Quest. The fact that Legacy of Sorasil hit store shelves towards the end of the Amiga’s lifespan didn’t help – and its showing on the Amiga CD32 was doomed by the console’s quick demise.

Hero Quest’s biggest achievement might have been its music. Neil Baldwin (on the NES) and Barry Leitch (ZX Spectrum) delivered a couple of classic fantasy scores that both made full use of the limited sound capacities of their respective platforms. For the Hero Quest II: Legacy of Sorasil soundtrack, scoring duties went to Patrick Phelan. Phelan had only entered the game industry in 1992, but quickly established himself as one of Gremlin Interactive’s go-to composers, working on its Zool, Lotus and Top Gear games. Interestingly enough, on the Lotus and Top Gear series, Phelan took over from Leitch, who had scored earlier franchise iterations – and this trend would continue with Legacy of Sorasil.

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Little Big Adventure Soundtrack

Little Big Adventure Soundtrack, Philippe Vachey, 1994

Little Big Adventure is probably one of the most fondly-remembered PC games of the 1990s. A resounding commercial success, Little Big Adventure maintains a steadfastly loyal fan base decades after its release. That has a lot to do with the sheer amount of charm and personality that developer Adeline Software managed to fill Little Big Adventure with. Other innovations like the game’s open-ended world and novel 3d perspective helped turn this action adventure into a genre classic.

Just as fondly remembered as the game is the Little Big Adventure soundtrack, and for good reason. In short, after Wing Commander and Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 – Martian Dreams, Little Big Adventure was the next big step forward for Western orchestral game music. It came from a somewhat unexpected source. Self-taught composer Philippe Vachey had only worked on a few French computer game scores before Little Big Adventure. His most notable score was Alone in the Dark, even if the music was less effective outside of the game.

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Monster Max Soundtrack

Monster Max Soundtrack, David Wise, 1994

Sometimes the universe (or at least video game publishers) work in mysterious ways. On paper, Monster Max should have been a success – not a million-seller (few isometric action adventures on the Game Boy were), but still a game that would deliver respectable sales figures. Its pedigree was impeccable – a collaboration between Rare and the duo of Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond. Both parties had created genre classics in the 1980s – Rare with Knight Lore, Alien 8 and Nightshade, while Ritman and Drummond (inspired by Knight Lore) were the men behind Batman and Head Over Heels. Ritman had just finished work on a development system that Rare used for many of their games and he decided to start work on a Game Boy title.

Upon “release” in late 1994, Monster Max then went on to garner outstanding reviews from critics, setting itself up for success as the Christmas season was approaching (Rare’s other contender for that period was of course Donkey Kong Country). However, there’s a reason for the quotation marks around ‘release’. While publisher Titus officially released the game in 1994, it only produced copies that would hit store shelves a full ten months later, effectively burying the game it was distributing for no discernible reason. By mid-1995, everybody’s attention had of course moved on to the new 32-bit platforms and Monster Max was largely forgotten – although its quality ensured it retained a dedicated, if small following.

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Nobunaga’s Ambition: Tenshouki Soundtrack (PC-98)

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Tenshouki Soundtrack (PC-98), Yoko Kanno, 1994

Tenshouki, the sixth instalment of KOEI’s long-running Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise, heralded the end of an era in several ways (despite its strategy gameplay that focused on medieval Japanese warlords not changing much). It was the last Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be released on the PC-98 series of Japanese personal computers and the last franchise title to see the light of day on 16-bit platforms. Most importantly for our purpose, it was the final Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be scored by franchise mainstay Yoko Kanno.

Kanno’s star had been steadily rising throughout the early 1990s and by 1994, she was ready to focus on anime and film scoring – an area she had dabbled in as an arranger in recent years, with her breakthroughs Macross Plus and The Vision of Escaflowne just around the corner. For her farewell to the Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise, KOEI once more increased the budget allocation – and considerably so.

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Shien’s Revenge Soundtrack

Shien’s Revenge Soundtrack, Akihiko Mori, 1994

In retrospect, the Super Scope seems like one of the more bizarre peripherals designed for the SNES – particularly considering how hard Nintendo tried to cultivate a family-friendly image during the era of the 16-bit console wars. Exactly how many parents would have been pleased to see their offspring in front of the TV with a bazooka-like contraption is anyone’s guess. Arguably though, if there was a genre that benefited from the Super Scope’s controls, it was rail shooters, with their static field of view and necessity to quickly and precisely move the cursor around the screen.

One of the better received rail shooters on the SNES was Shien’s Revenge (despite what must rank as possibly the most boring cover art in the console’s history). Sending players through various locations and time zones, Shien’s Revenge’s colourful visuals managed to stave off some the monotony caused by the repetitive gameplay. For the game’s score, developer Almanic approached game sound company MINT. And this is where things become a bit confusing when we try to identify who composed the music for Shien’s Revenge.

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Top Gear 2 Soundtrack (Amiga)

Top Gear 2 Soundtrack (Amiga), Patrick Phelan, 1994

At least in its SNES incarnation, the Top Gear franchise remains quite fondly remembered to this day. However, looking at contemporary reviews, it’s obvious that the series has always proved somewhat divisive. More than a few critics pointed out that the Top Gear games presented a no-frills, arcade-style approach to racing that produced solid, but not necessarily spectacular results. The fact that developer Gremlin Graphics (later Gremlin Interactive) used the Top Gear games to effectively regurgitate its own Lotus titles only amplified the feeling of ‘been there, done that’. That being said, Top Gear 2 remains the franchise’s best-regarded entry – while it played like a mere expansion pack of its predecessor, it made enough tweaks to improve upon Top Gear.

That was on the SNES though. Once Top Gear 2 reached the Amiga in 1994, reviewers were decidedly less pleased with the game, highlighting its lack of innovation and the fact that it didn’t meet the standards set by the Lotus games a few years earlier. The one area in which the Amiga port ultimately did excel was its soundtrack, matched within the Top Gear franchise only by Barry Leitch’s Top Gear Rally. Leitch had set the musical foundations for the Top Gear and Lotus franchises, Patrick Phelan had taken over composing duties on both series, further developing their electronica-heavy scores and mixing in contemporary mid-90s influences.

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Total Eclipse Soundtrack

Total Eclipse Soundtrack, Burke Trieschmann, 1994

The 3DO wasn’t around for long enough to produce many classic, outstanding soundtracks that were exclusive to the system, or at least germinated there first. However, do some digging and you’ll come across a few hidden 3DO music gems. One of those pleasant surprises is Total Eclipse. While not a system exclusive like Zhadnost: The People’s Party, Total Eclipse first saw the light of day on the 3DO, before being ported to the PlayStation a year later – with markedly less full sound, making the 3DO soundtrack far superior. The game itself wasn’t much to write home about, seemingly only turning heads in 1994 because of its (back then) spectacular 3D graphics. The dull, repetitive space shooter gameplay found few fans, and by the time the largely unchanged PlayStation port appeared in 1995, the once shiny coat of painting had definitely faded.

Not just Total Eclipse’s graphics are a relic of their time – the same goes for the game’s soundtrack. However, its music ultimately feels far less dated than Total Eclipse’s other design aspects. The mid-1990s saw industrial metal peaking in popular success and entering the mainstream, thanks to bands like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry putting out career best-sellers. For the Total Eclipse soundtrack, composer Burke Trieschmann dipped into the genre’s blistering intensity that lent itself well to the game’s action-heavy gameplay. For Trieschmann, Total Eclipse and the same year’s The Horde (which won Best Musical Score from Computer Gaming World) marked a strong start to his career in game music. Having worked in the music industry since 1986 and running his own music production company, Trieschmann was to become a mainstay on games by developer Crystal Dynamics in the years to come.

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