The Greatest Game Music

Reviews of truly outstanding game music

  • Soundtracks
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Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest Soundtrack (SNES)

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest Soundtrack

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest Soundtrack (SNES), David Wise, 1995

While Donkey Kong Country remains the most historically important (and best-selling) entry in the franchise, it is Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest that is usually most fondly remembered among gamers. Polished and bursting at the seams with ideas, Diddy’s Kong Quest remains one of the best 2d platformers ever created.

The one component of Donkey Kong Country that has arguably aged best is its soundtrack. Collaborating with Eveline Fischer, David Wise created a haunting, minimalist opus that underscored the lavish graphics with understated grace. For the Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest soundtrack, Wise returned and wrote the entire score on his own. In short, this might well be his career-defining masterpiece. It’s a stunning example of musical world building that pushes the ageing SNES sound hardware to its very limits.

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Tagged With: 1995, David Wise, Donkey Kong Country (Franchise), Mixed Music Genres, Platformer, Rare, SNES

Donkey Kong Country Soundtrack (SNES)

Donkey Kong Country Soundtrack

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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Tagged With: 1994, David Wise, Donkey Kong Country (Franchise), Eveline Fischer, Mixed Music Genres, Platformer, Rare, Robin Beanland, SNES

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1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999 2000 2008 2012 Action Adventure Adventure Akihiko Mori Battletoads (Franchise) Chiptune Chunsoft David Wise Electronic Electronic Arts Fighting First-Person Shooter KOEI Michael Giacchino Might and Magic (Franchise) Mixed Music Genres Mobile N64 NES Orchestral PC Platformer PlayStation PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 Racing Rare Rock/Metal RPG Sega Genesis Shoot'em Up Simulation/Strategy SNES XBox 360 Yoko Kanno