Favorite Genesis music

[electricmastro]

A thread about music favorited from the Genesis. For me, I tend to favor the bouncier, energetic melody-driven songs, especially if they also have a slower tone that manages to give it a sort of elegant grace to it. My favorites include:

 

Battletoads - Surf City:

 

 

Mega Turrican - Stage 1-1 (Bionic Action):

 

 

Shining Force II - Lively Town:

 

 

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Marble Garden Zone Act 1:

 

 

Streets of Rage II - Stage 5 (Slow Moon):

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by electricmastro

[Chilly Willy]

I've got a TON of Genesis game music on SD card in VGM format that I play using the VGM player in the NeoMyth menu. Lots of good Sonic music, music from Y's, Earthworm Jim, etc. I really like the music from Echo - Tides of Time. VGM players on the PC have gotten better, but there's just something about playing it on real hardware. ?

[Tanooki]

Most seemed to take the dim view of cheap tools and stuff, but I did notice trying a fair many of them from Konami that they had a solid grasp of making really quality audio from the sound chip in the Genesis.  Turtles, Castlevania, Rocket Knight 1 and 2, they stand out.  Some of the PCE conversions like Mega Bomberman(BM94) and Dragon's Fury(Devils Crash) do as well.  Various games out of Renovation that have used the Cube sound tools which were brought to my attention during the week, such as Ys III, Gleylancer, and Zero Wing are really nice on the ears as well.

[+GoldLeader]

Strangely,  my Favorite Genesis game Ultimate Qix has no music (during gameplay)...

 

 

Let's see...Lots of interesting stuff was there.  I always thought Genesis games sounded weirder than most...I guess I'm terrible at thinking off the cuff today (long day,...call me tired).  OK, Columns III was repetitive,  but had a part I really liked...

 

(It kinda goes  nuuu na nuu na nuu na nuu nan nuu nanana nawwa nawww nawww nuh!  ) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steven Pendleton]

This is a reminder that Sonic 3D Blast has one of the best soundtracks on the system. Also obligatory mentions of

13 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Gleylancer and Zero Wing

and also Xeno Crisis, Kuuga/Vapor Trail, every Thunder Force game (especially III. Yes, that's right, III's soundtrack is better than IV's is. The extremely underrated Thunder Force V soundtrack on the Saturn is by far the best of all of them, though), Slap Fight MD's special mode (the actual Slap Fight MD, not the arcade port of Slap Fight), and every Sonic game aside from Spinball and Sonic Eraser. You remember Sonic Eraser, right? Well, if you don't, you might not want to remember its music.

 

The music in Slap Fight MD, Zero Wing, Thunder Force, and Xeno Crisis is so awesome that those games will SET YOU ON FIRE!!!! Be sure to practice your stop drop and roll thingy before you play those games.

[electricmastro]

16 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Castlevania

Oh right, Michiru Yamane did really standout composition on that one too, showing that the Genesis could convincingly do classical-esque music:

 

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by electricmastro

[+Cafeman]

 

 

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

 

 

 

 

 

I also agree with @Steven Pendleton that the Sonic 3D Blast OST on Genesis is really good and I've always like the original ToeJam & Earl soundtrack. Lots of the other greats have been mentioned pretty much.

 

Oh...while the style isn't quite what I prefer to listen to... this is also quite impressive:

 

 

[electricmastro]

16 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I also agree with @Steven Pendleton that the Sonic 3D Blast OST on Genesis is really good and I've always like the original ToeJam & Earl soundtrack. Lots of the other greats have been mentioned pretty much.

 

 

I generally like the Saturn version more, for as nice as the Genesis one is. Richard Jacques just brings a whimsical, yet also surprisingly atmospheric vibe to it:

 

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

2 minutes ago, electricmastro said:

I generally like the Saturn version more, for as nice as the Genesis one is. Richard Jacques just brings a whimsical, yet also surprisingly atmospheric vibe to it:

I thought the thread title was Favorite Genesis music though? I do agree there is some great stuff on the Saturn OST for that game, especially Panic Puppet Zone.

 

[electricmastro]

1 minute ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I thought the thread title was Favorite Genesis music though? I do agree there is some great stuff on the Saturn OST for that game, especially Panic Puppet Zone.

 

Oh sure, it is, was just talking about my opinion there. Despite my preference, the Genesis track I prob like the most from that game might be the staff roll:

 

 

 

[Tanooki]

On 4/24/2022 at 11:27 PM, Steven Pendleton said:

This is a reminder that Sonic 3D Blast has one of the best soundtracks on the system. Also obligatory mentions of

and also Xeno Crisis, Kuuga/Vapor Trail, every Thunder Force game (especially III. Yes, that's right, III's soundtrack is better than IV's is. The extremely underrated Thunder Force V soundtrack on the Saturn is by far the best of all of them, though), Slap Fight MD's special mode (the actual Slap Fight MD, not the arcade port of Slap Fight), and every Sonic game aside from Spinball and Sonic Eraser. You remember Sonic Eraser, right? Well, if you don't, you might not want to remember its music.

 

The music in Slap Fight MD, Zero Wing, Thunder Force, and Xeno Crisis is so awesome that those games will SET YOU ON FIRE!!!! Be sure to practice your stop drop and roll thingy before you play those games.

Oh I know I get it, I had that Sonic game years ago.  When I find it locally again I'll probably grab it, it's just not a priority for me as I was more of a Sonic realist/apathetic type because they all largely blended together and peaked early on with largely Sonic2.  Blast though stood out, it had a nice design to it that wasn't more of the same, it bordered more into having to actually explore and enjoy, not damn near mindlessly speed through every section which I appreciated and the music really sucked you in to wrap up a nice package deal.  Gleylancer I have on a multicart so I'm familiar it's amazing.  I never heard of Sonic Eraser, but Spinball while not great I've heard far worse on the system and I do have a weird interest in the game (I do have a cart I found for $5) as I like the odd pinball mechanic but it's so janky I do it for fun, not to get to the end as it's a disaster.  It's a fun $5 time pisser but had I paid full in the day I'd have been annoyed.

On 4/25/2022 at 2:06 AM, electricmastro said:

Oh right, Michiru Yamane did really standout composition on that one too, showing that the Genesis could convincingly do classical-esque music:

 

Yes that's what I remember of it.  The system pulled off this style of music you said there very well which the system isn't known for, largely the SNES was, then PS1 after that having the clarity of the samples and composition to pull of stunning work of the sort, yet somehow she did it and quite well.  That's why that stood out to me, Turtles the audio was done quite well too because it captured the style of the arcade/snes games and old goofy cartoon too and didn't go down the GEMS tinny road from hell in the process.

[DeathAdderSF]

The soundtrack to Time Trax, which is circulating round in the form of an unpublished prototype, is excellent. I'm not keen on embedding PooTube vids in my posts, but y'all can download the VGM set here. And you should!

[+GoldLeader]

Oh,   I thought of one!

 

Chakan The Forever Man.   IMO,  A bit too sluggish to be a (real) fun game, but I dug that some of the music was very atmospheric and set a mood...And some sounded like it would make a great thrash riff...

 

 

 

[roots.genoa]

Obviously Streets of Rage, but also:

 

 

 

 

[Lostdragon]

 

 

 

 

[roots.genoa]

Oh I just remembered this, too (yes, the stage select screen, that reminds me of Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors for some reason):

 

[electricmastro]

Interesting music contrasting A Link to the Past, which the game is apparently inspired from:

 

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

On 4/24/2022 at 10:27 PM, Steven Pendleton said:

This is a reminder that Sonic 3D Blast has one of the best soundtracks on the system. Also obligatory mentions of

and also Xeno Crisis, Kuuga/Vapor Trail, every Thunder Force game (especially III. Yes, that's right, III's soundtrack is better than IV's is. The extremely underrated Thunder Force V soundtrack on the Saturn is by far the best of all of them, though), Slap Fight MD's special mode (the actual Slap Fight MD, not the arcade port of Slap Fight), and every Sonic game aside from Spinball and Sonic Eraser. You remember Sonic Eraser, right? Well, if you don't, you might not want to remember its music.

 

The music in Slap Fight MD, Zero Wing, Thunder Force, and Xeno Crisis is so awesome that those games will SET YOU ON FIRE!!!! Be sure to practice your stop drop and roll thingy before you play those games.

I will give you that Thunder Force III has better music overall compared to IV... but IV has Metal Squad which is better than anything on III.

 

[Steven Pendleton]

2 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

I will give you that Thunder Force III has better music overall compared to IV... but IV has Metal Squad which is better than anything on III.

Sometimes I feel weird for thinking that Hunger Made Them Desperate > Metal Squad.

[DragonGrafx-16]

8 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Sometimes I feel weird for thinking that Hunger Made Them Desperate > Metal Squad.

Both are good... but Hunger Made Them Desperate seems like it could have used some more variation in the arrangement... after a few loops it starts to get old on me... yet I could listen to Metal Squad on repeat. Though I mostly just like listening to all of the covers people have done of Metal Squad.

[DeathAdderSF]

On 4/24/2022 at 8:27 PM, Steven Pendleton said:

You remember Sonic Eraser, right? Well, if you don't, you might not want to remember its music.

 

Wait, so you don't enjoy hearing a frying pan slamming into your ears every two seconds? Huh. Weird. I keep Tylenol on hand every time I play, just for the occasion!

Edited April 30, 2022 by DeathAdderSF

[Lostdragon]

If we  are  allowing Sega CD:

 

 

 

Cart version for comparison :

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Lostdragon

[electricmastro]

30 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

If we  are  allowing Sega CD:

 

 

 

Ah yeah, that has good tunes too, Vay being one of them:

 

 

[Tanooki]

Vay has some nice music, did you know it got cheap and dirty ported to iOS some time back (not too long ago) and it's a 99 cent download on that store?  I found it last year on accident and grabbed it, same maker only has just one other game the original SCD Lunar Silver Star but it's $6.  Great way I guess to experience them with the smallest barrier in the way since you always have that phone on you.