/vr/ - Retro Games

because the limitations of the hardware made it necessary to work with very basic sounds. Uniqueness and memorability were side effects of this.

>>5692579
This. More emphasis in lead melodies, hectic percussion, and experimentation with the limitations that the soundchip offered resulted in actually creative stuff.
Since you can just put CD music in games, composers have the option to do literally anything, so most modern composers think that video game soundtracks should be similar to movie, "background noise" soundtracks.

>>5692594
Which is actually a pity. Earthworm Jim and Donkey Kong sounded like 'real music', but were still great though. The latter is a nice sounding restored version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI4NQtwXQzk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIk6YFTzckc

One game that comes to mind that had a nice orchestral/acoustic soundtrack was Mafia. Everything else is just bland movie soundtrack like trash

>>5692546
Because you played them during the developmental years of your life.

>>5692546
Because people put time and effort into it instead of shitting out canned shit

>>5692579
Also a big factor

>>5692651
>stickerbrush
just occurred to me that this is probably some weird british term for "bush with thorns in it"

>>5692546
Music in older games was tied to atmosphere. Each song tried to immerse you in the level. This was because limitations made everything more simplistic.

I just started playing Symphony of the Night. Amazing music.

>>5692672
it's actually a typo that stuck

>>5692546
Because the modern games you're playing are junk.

>>5692546
Because they were imitating yellow magic orchestra and/or jazz fusion which are absolutely patrician standards in music.

>>5692959
It's not just that. Doom has amazing soundtrach that is atmosphetic and you can even listen to it without the game and get into it. But 2016 - eh, it's better than silence I guess.

>>5692662
Room temperature IQ

>>5692579
>>5692594

A good example of this is Castlevania 4 vs the NES ones.

4 has way more complex music, some would say objectively better, but no one really remembers most of it whereas the NES Castlevania tunes are legendary.

>>5693146
Not an argument.

>>5692696
This.

all the music in modern games sounds like generic capeshit orchestra.

>>5692579
>>5693154
Bullshit

you guys have no idea how pissed off about this i've been lately. see, when I was younger I loved to play gaunlet dark legacy on xbox. not a huge hit but i loved it and the game had great music, i can still remember the tune to many of the levels (each level had a different song) well just the other week i got in the mood to playing gauntlet so i searched up on the ps store to see if there was any new generation gauntlet that I never heard about on account of I no longer keep up with any type of video game news besides the release of psychonauts 2. well there was a new one, simply called gauntlet. downloaded it for like 8 bucks and it actually plays great. its pretty much like good old gauntlet except for one thing, the music is fucking garbage! it's just bland ambient noise, it sucks! if each level had great tunes like dark legacy, it would be so much better. instead the music is hardly there, i play with headphones on and you mostly just hear the gameplay. fuck this

>>5692546
SOUL
everything was better 20 years ago when people still had souls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKgHrz_Wv6o

Extra Credits did an episode on this.

TLDR - Basically since they had less to work with, they were forced to use the limitations to their advantage.

Watch the whole episode though it's really informative and a good watch.

back then you had to make sure your melodies were memorable because you couldn't just hide behind "epic" orchestral sounds
a good melody can be played on anything and it will still sound great while most modern OSTs would lose all of their power if you turned them into 8 bit music
it's hilarious seeing some "sad chant no. 420" from dork soles praised as amazing music

>>5694131
This right here

>>5694129
>Extra Credits

>>5694131
That thing about melodies makes a lot of sense, cuz modern remixes of old songs sound a million times better than modern songs as well. Whereas demakes of songs only happen to the very few games that follow classic sensibilities

Music that focuses on being catchy is harder to take seriously, which is a problem when modern vidya is all striving to be The Proof That Video Games Can Really Be Art.

It also wears out its welcome more easily. Even the greatest 8 bit soundtracks are not going to hold up if you heard it for 40 hours straight.

Because games werent super serious cinematic masterpieces and as a result japs ripped off good western metal, prog rock and fusion bands they liked instead of making hollywood movie stock music

There's a few recent games that did have really amazing music. One such example I would name would be Nier Automata. The Carnival music and the base camp music are easily the most memorable recent music I've experienced in games. But yeah most of the time it's just music for the sake of not being silent.

There's a few recent games that did have really amazing music. One such example I would name would be Nier Automata. The Carnival music and the base camp music are easily the most memorable recent pieces I've experienced in games. But yeah most games now just have music for the sake of not being silent.

>>5692662
This is the correct answer

>>5694394
Counter point- I think the remixes that smash games uses sound too grandiose and fake, like they're trying really hard to make it sound like "normal people music".

>>5692546
restriction of hardware led to more effort into making a distinctive sound (specificaly, the limited amount of channels forced to writing notes in an interlaced manner by quickly jumping from track to track to create illusion of complexity and/or smooth flow)
https://youtu.be/d1lhB8ojVPI
https://youtu.be/Knik6QqDJJ0

>>5694129
>Extra Credits

>>5694131
There's something to this. Actraiser or most of Hitoshi Sakimoto's soundtracks managed to be inspired by orchestral music and still be memorable.

I'm under the impression composers are getting uninspired by being wannabe Horner or Zimmer.

>>5693154
Castlevania 4 tracks pop in to my head a lot, probably more than any other game. It has a lot of memorable music.

Because tracking software > modern DAW

almost everything is orchestral and just blends together