You know what had an awesome soundtrack? Sonic Adventure. Even if you hate the cheesy rock tunes of Crush40, it is hard to deny that Adventure’s soundtrack was by and large pretty awesome. Some of the game’s best tracks were those that went well with the blistering pace of Sonic’s levels. Case in point, “Run Through the Speed Highway”, the first theme of Speed Highway. Enjoy!
You know what’s more awesome then classic SEGA arcade music? Obscure SEGA arcade music! I’ve never played Power Drift, but its soundtrack is still pretty damn awesome. This is just the sort of incredibly catchy, upbeat tune that I would expect from a classic SEGA title. Hope you enjoy it!
Power Drift’s soundtrack was composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi. He is one of the oldest SEGA composers still active and working within the company. You can find his website here.
“Hello SEGABits readers! I’m Kori-Maru, admin of The Website of the Dead. Some call me one of the more “hardcore” Sega fans out there for my extensive knowledge of Sega’s games and my love for HotD. I would like to share some of my favorite SEGA tunes with you guys and my experiences with them. Let’s start out with…
This week we’re bringing you a special Tuesday Tunes, as we’re featuring the music of a SEGAbits community member! Ungibbed, aka Brian Corey, put together this cover of the NiGHTS into Dreams tune Splash Garden from memory. Pretty impressive if you ask us! Of course, we don’t blame him for getting the tune stuck in his head, as Splash Garden is a stage that Saturn fans have surely played again and again.
Great job, Brian, on this awesome cover! We look forward to hearing more tunes from you in the future. Share your comments for Brian below, or in our dedicated topic in the SEGAbits forums.
And so, on a quiet night, the streetlamps frosty amidst the falling snow, the locals warm and cozy inside their apartments up above the city streets, the town of Dobuita continues to sleep….
Shenmue has been lying dormant for an unspeakably long time, with not even a hint of a resolution in sight. Money, enough to have gone a long way towards funding a 3rd installment, was instead carelessly tossed off to to a Texas-based developer named Gearbox Software rather than into the hands of Yu Suzuki. After all these years, is it finally time to accept that SEGA will never allow their fanbase to continue the series that holds so much of their nostalgic gaming memories?
I’d given up hope long ago that Shenmue III would be released. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still appreciate all the great memories it offered, memories which, even over a decade later, still linger. This week’s Tuesday Tunes will highlight a couple of my favorite songs from the Shenmue games’ legendary soundtracks, so sit back and take a listen.
For SEGAbits’ 3rd anniversary I thought I’d devote this month’s Tuesday Tunes to choices from other staff members! This week we’ll be highlighting the host for the SEGAbits video series “My Life With SEGA” A.J. Rosa. His selection? Two songs from The Terminator for the SEGA CD, a game that he covered in My Life With SEGA as part of his Schwarzenegger double feature. Enjoy!
The Terminator for SEGA CD didn’t have any fancy scaling and rotation effects; it’s true. However, it did have a kickass soundtrack! That’s saying a lot, because I generally criticize movie-licensed games when they fail to include score from the actual film. While it does feature Brad Fiedel’s iconic theme, the score was written and performed by Tommy Tallarico. The man is a legend in his field, having scored hundreds of games, such as Earthworm Jim, Unreal, Robocop vs. The Terminator and Cool Spot. Rather than aping Fiedel’s destinctive style, Tallarico went his own way and wrote something more akin to rock opera. It’s bursting with wicked electronic guitars that kick-start your adrenaline, melodies that inspire feelings of foreboding and desperation….
That’s certainly appropriate.
This score is so fucking awesome that I made a copy for the car. I’ll listen to “Future Shock” on my way to work, “Destinations Unknown” on my way home. That CD didn’t leave my player for a month. So what you’re about to listen to is – essentially – my Going to work/Going home ritual. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Check out the songs below the break!
A few months ago, someone suggested to me that I use Tuesday Tunes to introduce people to the more obscure works of SEGA’s music library. I was told that my choices were often too predictable, and that I was focusing on works people were already familiar with. That person was right. Since it started in its new form a year ago, Tuesday Tunes has spent much of its time focusing on newer games and games that SEGA fans are more familiar with. Though many of the games that person suggest I feature were games I had either already featured or were games I am currently saving for future themed months I’d like to do, the criticism had convinced me to two things: feature more obscure tracks from a wider variety of games and other SEGA related media, and to also think about just what Tuesday Tunes was supposed to be about. You saw the results of the former last week. As for the latter, well, I came to that decision this week as I was reflecting on a year of Tuesday Tunes for the purpose of this article.
The Sonic series has played host to a wide variety of musical styles over the years, ranging from the old school chiptunes of the Genesis era to today’s modern cheese rock from bands like Crush 40. Never, however, have I ever thought to associate Sonic the Hedgehog with swing music. That is, until Sonic Generations was released.
Anyone who’s been paying close attention to Tuesday Tunes may know I have an affection for old school American genres like jazz and swing. So, when I first heard this track play in Sonic Generations 3DS, I was blown away. This is a really great piece of swing, serving as the perfect backdrop for the remake of Sonic’s first casino stage. Easily my favorite remix to come out of the Sonic Generations games.
Of course, it helps that the original track from Sonic 2 was also pretty kick ass. Nice example of what the Genesis could do musically in the right hands. Go ahead and see for yourself below the fold!
http://youtu.be/TuU_6NpHPkY
This track acts as the perfect book end for a near perfect SEGA tribute. Much like After Burner, Space Harrier is an arcade classic with an awesome soundtrack. Are you feeling down today? Do you need a little pick me up? No worries, because I’ve brought an extended version of this song today. If you’re feeling blue, just sit back for 15 minutes and let this little tune wisk you away to a far off place with dragons and giant floating heads and some blonde dude inexplicably floating in mid-air with a giant laser gun.
So as to not get the hopes of anyone who hasn’t beaten the game yet up, Space Harrier is not in this game. Just the soundtrack, which plays on a track I don’t intend to spoil.
Speaking of spoilers, though, you’d best have beaten the game by next Tuesday. For the last three weeks I’ve been sitting on music for a course that Sumo kept under wraps so as to not spoil the surprise. Next week I’m spilling the beans. So you’d best have beaten Career Mode by then!
Still want more music from the fantasy zone? Check below the fold for a remixed vocal version of the Fantasy Zone theme from the 1996 SEGA AGES release! Its pretty sick.
I think there are two things any group of SEGA fans can agree on: After Burner is pretty awesome, and the After Burner easter egg in Bayonetta is one of the coolest moments in the last decade of gaming. After years of dormancy, the After Burner franchise has seen a resurgence of sorts over the last several years, including the XBLA/PSN release of the latest superb entry in the franchise After Burner Climax, as well as cameos in four games including SEGA Superstars Tennis, Shinobi 3DS, the aforementioned Bayonetta easter egg, and of course Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed.
This track is easily my favorite rendition of the Afterburner theme. It’s a shame they didn’t use this version in All Stars Racing Transformed. Check out the original theme after the break.
With All Stars just a week away, now seems like the perfect time to start posting Tuesday Tunes again, focusing tunes for the characters and tracks featured in the game.
Skies of Arcadia is an upbeat game that eschews the usual heavy drama common in Japanese RPGs for optimism and a thrill for adventure. Embodying this is Vyse, a young idealistic air pirate who wants explore the world and do things no one else has ever done before. The above track is the perfect theme for the character, embodying Vyse’s energy and optimism.
I’ve got Fina’s character theme below the fold for another dose of Skies of Arcadia auditory glory!
In this month’s Tuesday Tune, we’re going to upload some familiar Sega racing tunes to our readers as Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed will be hitting our local game stores in two weeks. To fill your racing mood for November, the first Sega tune will be the remix “Let’s Go Away -H. version” sung by none other than Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, composer for Sega Corporation who is known for his awesome musical scores on several Sega titles since 1990 such as Virtua Fighter & Shenmue. Mitsuyoshi-san uploaded this video to promote the rerelease of Daytona USA for digital platforms. One thing that has been bugging me for a while, why hasn’t Sumo have this awesome man to sing a theme song for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed? That would fill the mood for me to race players online. How about you guys?
Halloween is kickin’ tomorrow with a bang. Just for this special occasion for this eerie holiday, The SEGABits staff and I decided to give you to classic tunes from our beloved Sega franchises. A Ghost’s Pumpkin Soup from Sonic Adventure 2 composed by Tomoya Ohtani and lyrics sung by Hunnid-P. I’m not a huge fan of rap but with Knuckles stages in Sonic Adventure 2, I can groove to. The song describes Knuckles going through the haunted hills fighting off Boos (ugly looking creeps that really like to scare the **** out of you). The song gives out that eerie feeling to it mixed with rap and I believe it gave out a memorable feel to Sonic fans during the time. I still remember playing this stage on the Sega Dreamcast for the first time. The first time I heard this song, I nod my head going through the Church only to be chased away by a ghost. After the break, we go within the hallways of The House of the Dead.
Melody of Hope is a very dynamic, beautful track. Despite it’s name, it does not start out as an optimistic song. Indeed, from the offset it’s quite foreboding. Then, about midway, it begins to change it’s tone. There is some genuine conflict in the song as it evolves into something truly optimistic and uplifting. This is the kind of track that can really be appreciated on it’s own, even without a game, and highlights just how spectacular the Rhythm Thief soundtrack can be. It also goes very well with its plays in the game’s storyline, which I won’t elaborate upon so as to avoid spoilers.
Below is Moon Princess, Marie’s first song in the game and alongside Melody of Hope, also one of the its best tracks.
The Marie focused edition of Rhythm Thief Month has been postponed until I get further into the game.
Until then, I thought I’d post up one of the other things that makes Rhythm Thief cool: homages to other SEGA rhythm games. Rhythm Thief is a game with some interesting SEGA pedigree. Not only is its director, Shun Nakamura, responsible for also directing Samba de Amigo, but the game’s list of contributing composers include Tomoya Ohtani and Naofumi Hataya, whom have worked on the soundtrack for Space Channel 5 Part 2, Samba de Amigo, Feel the Magic as well as a variety of Sonic and Sonic Team games.
Above is Vamos a Carnival, from Samba de Amigo. The actual mini game is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of Samba de Amigo’s game play onto the 3DS, using both face buttons and tilt functions to replicate the Dreamcast classic’s game play. It’s one of my favorite games in RT, and this style of mini game is also one of the most difficult I’ve yet encountered in the game.
The other SEGA rhythm game Rhythm Thief pays homage to is Space Channel 5. Much like the Samba de Amigo mini game, it also adapts the Space Channel 5 formula into the game, complete with a track from the game, which I have posted below after the break.