After Burner (Franchise) Archives - The Greatest Game Music

After Burner Soundtrack (C64 – Europe), Adam Gilmore / Hiroshi Kawaguchi, 1988

The immersive 3d-action and visual fireworks of 1985’s Space Harrier were unparalleled for its era. Sega quickly realised they were on to a winning formula and began to churn out several games that made more and more advanced use of the company’s Super Scaler technology. After motorbikes (Hang-On) and racing cars (OutRun), Sega chose fighter jets for 1987’s action extravaganza After Burner. In many ways, After Burner is the perfect summation of the arcade game experience: blinding speeds, non-stop action – and a difficulty level that focuses more on parting gamers with their quarters rather than providing a fair challenge. The latter point was less of an issue for the many, many console and home computer ports that this genre classic and franchise starter saw in subsequent years. Some platforms even received two After Burner ports – for example, C64 users got to choose between a European and a US version.

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After Burner Soundtrack (FM Towns), Norio Hanzawa / Hiroshi Kawaguchi, 1989

Sega’s After Burner was such a smash hit in arcades that the game was ported to an astonishing number of console and home computer platforms. Of course, thanks to the power of After Burner’s X-Board arcade technology, none of the contemporary ports matched the original game’s sense of speed and visual fireworks. In some cases – such as the European C64 release – one might argue that developers should never have attempted a port in the first place. Out of all the many adaptations of After Burner, the FM Towns version came closest to matching the arcade original – not a surprise, given the platform’s powerful hardware that bested contemporaries like the Sega Genesis or the PC Engine.