Also I'm thinking of working on 20 more episodes, since I had my playlist up to 60 entries, but got distracted by changing my workplace.
11 Mega Man X 6
Now, where to start with Capsule Computers... ah, I got it! Take the first 3 letters, and you'll never look at the company name the same way again :3
The presented maverick theme here comes from Naoto Tanaka AKA Akemi Kimura - he is responsible for most of the Mega Man X soundtrack since 5, and parts of Phoenix Wright.
And yeah, I struggled to pick the X entry to showcase here, with X and X2 being close runner-ups. One last funfact: Ekkusu's name isn't Megaman or Megaman X, but just X, as Dr. Light intended him to be a variable with unlimited potential.
Now here's a gem all you anglos might not get behind - well, you could, as the franchise has been translated to "Realms of Arkania". You had your D&D, us Germans had our 'Black eye' (named after an elven artifact of power) - it was clunky, it was full of min-maxing, it was glorious. The PC game, by the short-lived Attic but developed under direct supervision from the pen&paper studio FanPro, could be compared to the Might & Magic franchise, but with the micromanaging level cranked up to 11- if you play on professional mode, that is, and who DOESNT? Who DOESNT want to spec each of the FIFTY stat rolls for each of dozens of skills every time one of the six party members levels up? Or who DOESNT want to spare some of his precious weightload for an extra pair of shoes, because your equipped shoes BREAK OVER TIME, causing your character to take damage each step? Or who DOESNT want to get ambushed at camp because in your duty of managing the camp orders you only selected the characters to hunt for provisions/water/herbs, but forgot to set up guard duty? NOONE, that's who! We're MANLY MEN! If it's cold, we rub our beards together like STEEL WOOL!
Anyway, just listen to the lovely DOS-soundtrack of the skilled troubadour Rudolf Stember (also a parting note: Drakensang does a really good job to capture the essence of the old games in a 3D environment, complete with punishing combat if you expect mindless hack&slash, and the very likely possibility to ruin your skilltree if you level up without thinking - just stay clear of the remake of the original Nordlandtrilogie, they are a dumpster fire)
Thought of the day - Merles Kopf ist wie in Watte gepackt. Wollt ihr wirklich ohne Hosen die Stadt betreten?*
13 Star Fox
Funfact: us Germans received the games branded as Star Wing / Lylat Wars for copyright reasons until the N64. The rudimentary polygon graphics may have aged poorly, but the bombastic synthscapes of Hajime Hirasawa have not.
Directly after the games release in '93 Hirasawa left Nintendo to form his own company where he offers soundtracks as a freelancer.
Thought of the day - Do an aileron roll
1994 was a phenomenal debut year for Shiny Entertainment (reformed to Double Helix Games in 2007). Series composer Tommy Tallarico is also known as co-initiator of "Videogames Live". Though something about this guy rubs me the wrong way, because I searched far and wide for his vita, and several pages credit him for work he clearly did not do, while at the same time not providing any sources (including wikipedia itself). I have a really strong gut feeling that he is the games music equivalent of Todd Rodgers.
Thought of the day - groovy!
One of my Top10 games of all time, the staged tabletop battle against Napoleon is not only my favorite game episode, but pays a wonderful musical hommage to Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski's 1812 Ouvertüre. Peter McConnell can be heard in old Lucasfilm Games like Monkey Island 2 + Day of the Tentacle and more recently in Hearthstone.
Thought of the day - who told you about the milkman?
Today the Western publishing arm of Squeenix, Eidos in the 90s dominated with franchises like Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Hitman and Commandos (and to complete your nerd-lore, one of its core founders was Ian Livingstone - yes, of Games Workshop fame). Though the franchise surrounding Lara Croft wasn't originally Eidos' work, but that of the '96 aquired company Core Design. Before the aquisition, Core was mainly involved in Atari-, Amiga-, and DOS-Computer games or the odd SEGA Genesis title (Impossamole, Heimdall, Chuck Rock, various Asterix-entries).
Series composer Nathan McCree was also responsible for Tomb Raider II & III afterwards, whereafter he founded his own companies to offer sound design, most recently active for Silent Hill: Downpour.
Thought of the day - trap that stupid butler!
Since 2007 Middle-Earth can be conquered online, since 2010 as a F2P model (though with noticable incentives to purchase extra content, and once you reach the level 30 regions, it is de facto required to spend cash to be even allowed to do quests). In todays streamlined MMORPG experience (especially if you come from action oriented games like Neverwinter or Elder Scrolls) the gameplay is antique, but with good friends the game can be enjoyable for its atmosphere. The games music was written by multiple talents, but my absolute favorite is from Chance Thomas, who also worked on Unreal 2, Police Quest and the Quest for Glory series.
Thought of the day - Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
In the year of our lord 1998, we have witnessed the most succesful German gaming franchise of all time, under the banner of Sunflowers, up until 2007, where the series got capsized by Ubisoft, but even their woke team of various faiths and gender identities could not ruin it.
Funfact: The year used in the title always has to have a checksum of 9.
For me personally the music by the great Markus Pitzner is to a large extent responsible for the games phenomenon of "Just one more hour - oops, its morning already". Pitzner can be found on his own YouTube channel and his homepage Dreamweaver.at, where he campaigns for license-free music.
Thought of the day - euer Volk wächst und gedeiht*
19 TMNT (NES)
Nintendo came out the glistening new champion from the burning remains of the game crash of '83, and with their new device to captivate children they ruled with an iron fist their monopoly of who got to release how many games on their console (Pro-tip: it was 5 games per year).
To push this limit, Konami forged several faux-companies to effectively double their output (Ultra Games for the US of A, Palcom for Europe).
After 1992 Nintendo (rightfully) feared antitrust- and monopoly-lawsuits and lowered their entry-bar for releases, so Konami in turn buried their Ultra Games & Palcom businesses and released their whole catalogue under the Konami-name (their name being the first syllable of the companys' founders).
Anyway, Turtles. Composer Jun Funahashi did mostly collaborative or small work, other than the totally radical TMNT soundtrack you should check out Castlevania 3.
Thought of the day - COWABUNGA DUDE!
Yo, this is the only part after 7 and before 15 not to be shit. objective fact
Normally I only pick out the original arrangement, but this remix is done really well, and it fits the style of Nobuo Uematsu (with his 2+ rock bands)
Thought of the day - kupo!
21 Lotus Turbo Challenge 2
As promised in ep. 2 we get treated to more Barry Leitch from his time with Gremlin 1981. His most recent contributions are prominent in Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Drakensang, though you can follow him in person on soundcloud for instance *wink wink nudge nudge*
We stay at Gremlin Graphics, but fast-forward to 1992, following the adventures of a ninja from the nth dimension throughout candyland (sponsored by Chupa Chups no less). And yes, he was set up to be the mascot for Amiga to, in theory, rival Sonic. Scored with a straightforward title track to make you ready for action by Patrick Phelan. Turns out the action you should be made ready for consists of blind jumps into spikes, unfair enemy placements, and a camera that can't keep up with the movement, yay. Another connection to the last ep. about Lotus Turbo Challenge is that Phelan got in charge to manufacture the soundtrack to Lotus 3. With several other remaining victims of the Infogrames/Atari fuck-ups, Phelan joined Sumo Digital in 2005.
Now what became of the ant? (Black, segmented body, fuck the "gremlin" excuse of a story. It's an ant)
After a commercial disaster which was Zool 2, where ZOOL GOT A GIRLFRIEND SO PROGRESSIVE!, the game license holders pitched a 3D Zool game to Data Design Interactive. After seeing how Bubsy 3D-bad the game looked, they pulled the license. DDI, wanting to release something, repurposed everything to make Ninjabread Man. Methink it funny that this is defacto Zool 3. Sure this info can be googled in 5 minutes, but with a business aquisition history as convoluted as anything touched by Infogrames its difficult to follow, and it's not like this is common nerd-lore like DiD YoU KnOw SuPeR MaRiO 2 iS AcShUaLlY DoKi dOkI PaNiC?
I really dig this game, not because of muh grfx (though they are pretty to look at, I actually like if I see what is happening on screen, vibrant colors help there. I also didn't understand the bitching & moaning about the Diablo 3 artstyle like BAAAAW muh grimdark!), nor because the soundtrack is especially epic (even Gothic 3 has that job covered better, if nothing else), but because it is fun to play and it is even more fun with friends, especially when the game bugs out, and oh will it glitch the fuck out (save often). It seems hackneyed, but grab a couple of beers, watch the game glitch as your character rides on thin air instead of his horse, and have a good time.
Noteworthy is its development history, which began with Ikarion Software (nerds with similar age might know them from the PC port of Demonworld). Ikarion worked on a PC port of the ill-fated tabletop spin-off "Armalion" of the pen&paper system "Das schwarze Auge", up until their own bankruptcy 2001.
The game, which was around 70% complete was picked up by Ascaron and reworked to Sacred.
The search for the composer is adventurous as well. Ascaron never named any, and soundtrack databases list a couple of websites, where the names Dag Winderlich and Matthias Steinwachs are listed. Problem is, those web pages are in part written by themselves, so take from that what you will. Both are known composers though, Winderlich worked on Port Royale 3 & Patrician 4, while Steinwachs did the music to Blue Byte's classic DOS RPG Albion.
Thought of the day - Schniepel!*
24 Breath of Fire II
1994 was especially good year being a Capcom-stan: Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Demon's Crest, Mega Man X 2, Mickey Mania, Mega Man V for GameBoy and the first entry in the Darkstalkers-franchise.
But now is the time for the best part of this underrated RPG-franchise (closely followed by BoF 4). Composer Yuko Takehara (sometimes listed under her maiden name Kadota) did the music alone, which is fairly rare at Capcom.
A summary of her most prominent work are the theme for Boomer Kuwanger and Charlie's and Rose's theme from Street Fighter, she also worked fulltime on Mega Man 6 and 7. 2010 she quit right after working on Mega Man 10.
Now, I did struggle with my favorite from this game, and it's certainly not as often-cited as the overworld or Fight music, but I still remember having a spare save slot in Windia just to listen to this relaxing tune.
Thought of the day ~ Nap time, Yua!
Now, I should not have to tell you about Koji Kondo or his importance in video game music, should I? But, I simply must share the talented OG neckbeard that is Tom Brier, ragtime & sightreading genius, may he recover someday.
Funfact: The game was at first supposed to receive a pre-rendered look, like the beginning cutscene.
Up until 1996, Square & Nintendo were still BFFs, then the split over the ULTRA64 betting on catridge-based games happened, and my take on that is that the break-up was so bad, that Square only came crawling back after overlord Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down in May of 2002.
The game was Yoko Shinomura's breakthrough as accepted composer and she should become a main staple for the series Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts, Mario+Luigi, and lastly Final Fantasy XV.
Probe was a subsidiary studio of Acclaim, mostly known for Forsaken, Re-Volt, the GameBoy ports of Mortal Kombat, and this... let's call it "motorcycle racing game", shall we?
Coming out 1 year before F-Zero X & wipEout 64, it blew the childish Mario Kart 64 away, its electro trance soundtrack conveying a sense of dread and speed, done by Stephen Root & Simon Robertson.
It's hard to say who exactly initiated the indie game boom of the Noughties, a contributing factor at least was this clever game by 2D Boy. Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel split from EA / Maxis, and its a good thing they did.
https://kylegabler.com/WorldOfGooSoundtrack
29 Overlord 2
Those silly dutch guys from Triumph Studios with their world domination schemes, be it Age of Wonders or this "Sauron-Simulator using a Pikmin engine".
The fact that composer Michiel van den Bos (aka Mike Boss) was also responsible for the Unreal soundtrack can be heard throughout this theme, if you phase out the minions mucking about.
British company Software Creations (later a part of Acclaim until their demise) was the domicile of 2 highly gifted pair of brothers, the brothers Pickford (who will be in a later featurette subtitled "The exploding man") and the Follin Bros. Tim Follin (with help from Geoff) was tasked to write a little intro tune to this 1990 NES title. What happended instead is better summarized using my favourite YouTube quote: "Christ Tim you just needed a title theme, not a damn 8 Bit movie soundtrack for a Lord of the Rings movie". What is squeezed from the measly NES-soundchip is 'fantastic' in every sense of the word.
Thought of the day ~ MUSCLE WIZARD CAST FIST!