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.

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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.

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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.

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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 on 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 many new ideas or innovations, reaping 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.

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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.

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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 Rare used for many of their games, and he decided to start work on a Game Boy title.

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

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). The last Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be released on the PC-98 series of Japanese personal computers, it was also the final franchise title to see the light of day on 16-bit platforms. Most importantly for our purpose, it was the last Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be scored by franchise mainstay Yoko Kanno.

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Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV Soundtrack (PC-98 – Soundware Version)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV Soundtrack (PC-98), Jun Nagao, 1994

As with Nobunaga’s Ambition, developer Koei tended to make only incremental changes to the gameplay formula of its other flagship series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Heavy on strategising, resource management and processing stats while set in feudal China, Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire differed little from its franchise predecessors of historical turn-based strategy titles. Still, reviewers agreed that as long as you were tuned into this particular kind of games that favoured depth over action and fancy visuals, Wall of Fire provided addictive entertainment. As was common during the early 1990s, the game was ported to several computer and console platforms (even the 32X!) – not that there was much perceivable difference between the ports, with the 32-bit versions of the game looking virtually identical to their 16-bit brethren.

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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.

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Streets of Rage 3 Soundtrack

Streets of Rage 3 Soundtrack, Motohiro Kawashima / Yuzo Koshiro, 1994

By the time Sega got around to developing Streets of Rage 3, the company faced a bit of a conundrum. Streets of Rage 2 had left its mark on one of the most popular video game genres of the early 90s. It emerged as a true genre classic by making smart, incremental changes to the formula introduced by Streets of Rage. There was precious little left to improve, so where could the developers take the franchise with Streets of Rage 3? The answer: add a few new gameplay mechanics, change the game’s visual style somewhat, but otherwise leave well enough alone. Well, that last point applied to the Japanese version of the game. When ported to the West, the game’s difficulty was significantly cranked up, to the point of unfairness and frustration. Sadly, to this day, Streets of Rage 3 serves as a reminder of how not to localise a game.

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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 evident 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 Lotus titles only amplified the feeling of ‘been there, done that’. Still, 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.

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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 soundtracks exclusive to the system, or which 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 essentially unchanged PlayStation port appeared in 1995, the once shiny coat of paint had definitely faded.

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Ultima VIII: Pagan Soundtrack

Ultima VIII: Pagan Soundtrack, Nenad Vugrinec, 1994

In case the cover art – with its flame-engulfed pentagram – didn’t make it clear enough, Ultima VIII: Pagan was a far darker game than any of its predecessors. From Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar onward, series creator Richard Garriott had turned the Ultima games into explorations of morality. These pioneering titles didn’t reward gamers for the usual monster killing and treasure hunting that governs RPGs. Instead, Garriott asked players to act virtuously while pondering ethical dilemmas that had no easy answer. Pagan followed the same design philosophy but added a grim twist. The game’s antagonist – the Guardian – transports the Avatar to his own realm Pagan – a blasted wasteland beyond redemption and hope.

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Wonder Project J Soundtrack

Wonder Project J Soundtrack, Akihiko Mori, 1994

The SNES isn’t necessarily known for its abundance of adventure games – a genre that flourished far more on PCs than on consoles during the mid-1990s. However, there are some adventure gems to be unearthed in the SNES’ library of games and the Japan-only Wonder Project J is undoubtedly one of them. Not only that, but it might well be one of the most unique and creative SNES games (and has rightfully amassed somewhat of a cult following since its release). Taking inspiration from Adventures of Pinoccio, Astro Boy and some of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, Wonder Project J sees the player indirectly controlling a young android boy, Pino. While there is a storyline to complete, the player’s main task is to teach and train the naive boy, praising and scolding him for his actions (his default reaction to seeing any new object is to eat it).

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