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Post by anayo on Sept 26, 2023 18:06:29 GMT -5
I recently beat Robo Aleste for the Sega CD. Compile, the developers of Robo Aleste, were also responsible for M.U.S.H.A., a Sega Genesis game that I absolutely adore.
M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack goes hard. It gets my blood pumping, putting me in the mood to destroy the forces of evil. The game's aesthetics and soundscape take me back to playing Genesis games in my bedroom at age 7.
The amount of on-screen action is crazy, with enemies swarming around and exploding in a fireworks show of mid-air carnage. I don't know how they got so much stuff on screen without any slowdown. The chaotic opening stage reminds me of Gunstar Heroes. It would not surprise me at all if M.U.S.H.A. was actually made by Treasure. I know it really wasn't, but it feels like it could have been.
I never actually played M.U.S.H.A. until age 14 when I emulated it on my PC, but the whole time I was thinking how awesome it would have been for to borrow it from Blockbuster as a kid in the 90s. I finally beat it at on my Genesis at age 28, but I had to use a repro cart, since just the cartridge all by itself costs $300 on eBay. For the box and manual and everything you can expect to pay about a grand. M.U.S.H.A. sure isn't an affordable game anymore.
Since Robo Aleste was made years later by the same people responsible for M.U.S.H.A., I expected to love it. To my disappointment, I didn't like it at all. I spent a long time trying to figure out why I felt this way. I kept writing and deleting drafts about how the graphics weren't as good, or it didn't feel as kinesthetically nice to play. But I knew none of this added up, since Robo Aleste literally does all the same things as M.U.S.H.A. Yet for some mysterious reason it just falls flat for me.
Finally, I realized the reason must be so petty that I didn't even want to admit it to myself. It's really superficial, but it comes down to the soundtrack. I dislike Robo Aleste's music so strongly that I can't even enjoy the game.
M.U.S.H.A's soundtrack is rock. It's made up of repetitive, aggressive drum samples; a bass guitar as backing; and a lead guitar taking center stage with more complex melodies. I know the Genesis's FM synth can't really reproduce those instruments, but that's still what they're all supposed to represent. The fan-made instrumental covers on YouTube all show a guy righteously shredding his electric guitar.
I don't know how else to describe Robo Aleste's soundtrack except as tepid Eurodance in MIDI format sprinkled with traditional Japanese influences. Nothing about it excites me, and I can't remember any of it after hearing it.
For me, rock music is a part of M.U.S.H.A.'s identity. It isn't the same game anymore without it. To illustrate my point, I came up with an experiment. The control group for this experiment will be a short video clip of Robo Aleste with its default soundtrack:
Now this is Robo Aleste with M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack instead:
Since the Sega CD wasn't limited to FM synthesis like the Sega Genesis, and could stream high quality audio, I've taken things a step further by making another video of Robo Aleste gameplay combined with a fan-made rock cover of M.U.S.H.A's soundtrack. It's worth emphasizing that it would have been technically feasible for Robo Aleste to include this exact song on Sega CD:
Now here is M.U.S.H.A. with Robo Aleste's soundtrack:
My takeaway from all this is that M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack makes things average things sound cool, while Robo Aleste's soundtrack makes cool things sound lame. Music is important in video games. It matters a lot. This isn't even some new, unprecedented concept for Sega fans. Some of the most devoted Sega lovers outright reject Streets of Rage III just because its soundtrack differs too much from Streets of Rage I and II. It's not even a bad soundtrack per se, it's just too off-brand for Streets of Rage. Personally I refuse to play the 90s PC ports of Sonic 3 and Knuckles because the music is too different from the Genesis versions.
I know I keep circling back to this with the Sega CD, but it really irritates me that even though better audio is one of the Sega CD's only advantages over the standard issue Sega Genesis, time and time again game developers wouldn't use it in any meaningful way. If they were just going to squander it, what was the point?
There is literally room on the disc for a rock cover of M.U.S.H.A's soundtrack, or at least power metal similar to that. Fans have covered M.U.S.H.A.'s soundtrack on their electric guitars and amps and uploaded it for fun. They weren't even getting paid to do it. But this commercial product that ended up on store shelves phones it in with such an essential part of what made me love its predecessor in the first place. It's profoundly disappointing to me.
I know that Robo Aleste has its fans, so if this is too controversial of a take, I welcome any input or discussion to help me understand. Maybe someone else can help me see it from an angle I hadn't considered before. But as of right now, Robo Aleste goes in my growing pile of underwhelming Sega CD games that make me want to go back to the plain old Genesis.
Next, I beat Soul Star for the Sega CD. Soul Star isn't a sequel to anything I've played before, but it had been on my “play this” list for years. Sega CD fans online all praise it to high heaven, so I knew I had to experience it.
Having finally beaten Soul Star, I'm proud to say it lives up to all the hype. This is an incredible Sega CD game. It's challenging, looks and sounds great, and harnesses the power of the Sega CD hardware to do things the ordinary Genesis simply couldn't.
Soul Star is kind of like Star Fox with sprites and mode-7 effects instead of polygons. You fly around in space and on the surface of planets, shooting formations of enemy ships coming at you in a 3D perspective. These parts reminded me of Space Harrier (arcade, 1985), except with better graphics and less weird art direction. Overall the whole experience comes across like a Sega super scaler arcade made for the home.
After the on rails flying parts, you go to a free-roaming stage where you must destroy enemy infrastructure while fighters and anti-aircraft guns shoot at you. I found these somewhat hard to figure out at first, since it wasn't entirely clear what I was supposed to do. But once I got my bearings, I really enjoyed them.
When Soul Star came out, 3D gaming was rare and inaccessible to most people. Back then, I only got to play 3D games on my Dad's PC (which I couldn't play whenever I wanted), or in the arcade (which required a grownup not only willing to drive me there, but also to provide me with quarters to play.) Virtually all of the games I could play at home on Sega Genesis or Gameboy were two-dimensional sprite-based titles with flat gameplay. So, while Soul Star's 3D design is nothing special now, it would have been jaw-dropping back then.
The 3D gameplay does come at a cost, since it's clear that Soul Star doesn't perform at 60 frames per second. It feels like 20 to me. To make up for this, it seems the developers gave all the enemies reasonably large hit boxes and made sure they didn't zip around too quickly. The game feels kinesthetically nice to play even though it shouldn't.
I liked Soul Star's weapons and power ups, even though the game incentivized always using the game's one overpowered weapon and never picking up something else or dying. This made it feel as though death had consequences and I needed to be careful, though. Judicious use of bombs and missiles were also key to clearing the free-roaming stages. I had to carefully budget them to destroy all my targets and get out in one piece.
There's a lot of pointless software on Sega CD which isn't any better than a standard Genesis cartridge, but Soul Star stands proud against this stereotype. If you are interested in the Sega CD, I consider this to be a “must play.” Even the music is pretty cool. I wasn't humming any of it after turning the game off, but I do remember remember that it sounded like a copycat John Williams orchestral score from a wannabe Star Wars clone. It sounded rousing and cinematic. I beat Soul Star on the easiest difficulty, but I could see going back later and trying my luck at a tougher setting. It's that good.
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Post by toei on Sept 26, 2023 18:16:40 GMT -5
The dance track from Robo Aleste (which is literally Streets of Rage-ish, so weird example) sounds great. Seriously excellent stuff.
Robo Aleste has two problems for me: One, weak weaponry. You need to grab a ton of power-ups and get your weapon at maximum strength to feel like you just have standard power, and then it doesn't go beyond that. Die and you come back disgustingly weak. Two, it's got nearly twice as many levels as it needs. It's really, really long for a shmup you're supposed to beat in one sitting.
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Post by anayo on Sept 26, 2023 18:29:29 GMT -5
The dance track from Robo Aleste (which is literally Streets of Rage-ish, so weird example) sounds great. Seriously excellent stuff. Whether Robo Aleste has good dance music or not is up for debate, but Streets of Rage III catches flack for having music that's too dissonant and experimental. It's a departure from what the series was known for. My experience with Compile's Aleste games doesn't go any farther back than M.U.S.H.A., so maybe it's unfair of me to associate Compile shmups with rock. Maybe the series isn't tied to that genre of music. But the rock music was still a huge part of why I loved M.U.S.H.A. I'm not sure it appeals to me the same way when the soundtrack is a totally different genre. Thanks for weighing in with that. I could have sworn something was off in Robo Aleste's "gamefeel", but I couldn't identify what. It was almost like the game was gaslighting me.
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Post by toei on Sept 26, 2023 18:58:44 GMT -5
I see your point with the music being different... I'll say though, with Streets of Rage 3, it's hard to say if people dislike the soundtrack because it's different or because it's just no good. I don't hate it myself (though it's definitely not great), but I don't know if it would have been considered a good fit for any game by players at large. If you want to play more Aleste, I'll recommend the GG Aleste games on the Game Gear. I know Sarge and Ex are fans too. Don't be put off by the fact they're 8-bit or portable, they're both legitimately very good. Going back to the music, I really don't know if there's one particular genre of music Compile is associated with. In my experience, I'd say they do vary it. Sylphia on the PCE-CD has an angel-like protagonist and a fantasy setting, but I remember the music as being similar to Robo Aleste's. It's a very common genre for early '90s cd-based games, I find.
The other Compile shooters I beat, I honestly don't remember the music offhand.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 26, 2023 19:27:36 GMT -5
I swear, SoR3's music being "bad" is like a new discovery on the internet over the last 5-10 years. Never heard such thoughts throwing around up till lately. I get that it's extremely different and experimental, it's got some stinky tracks I'd even point to. But man does it rock overall and goes so hard. You don't get other music like that on much else back then. SoR1-2's style is groovy and more consistent. But I like how SoR3's is a bit darker and more serious, feels like it's truly the final fight taking down Mr X once and for all.
This may shock you anayo :
Very dance heavy OST here in the Aleste series.
MUSHA is one of the best in the series to me, by far and yeah, someone went nuclear on the Genesis sound chip. It's glorious and it's one of the Aleste games where the levels don't feel overly long. I like a lot of these games but they all kind of have that problem sometimes.
For me I think this is just a simpler case of a good game vs bad in general. I also played Robo Aleste a few years ago and it didn't stick with me much at all. MUSHA 2, it definitely is not sadly...
Not sure how I'd take to stuff like Soul Star, but it definitely looks neat.
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Post by toei on Sept 26, 2023 20:21:33 GMT -5
SOR3's music sounds like what angry robots would party to. It has its charms. It's very loud and aggressive. It'd probably work well with a mecha game, now that I think about it. People have been saying SOR3's music sucks for at least 20 years, though. I remember it being a talking point in those early '00s days already.
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Post by anayo on Sept 27, 2023 9:55:12 GMT -5
I’m personally okay with SoR III’s OST because I like dissonant music. I’m not above enjoying some really “out there” tracks by Squarepusher or Aphex Twin.
Joe from Game Sack and Dave from videogamecritic.net don’t like SoR III’s music, though. It led me to believe that retro gamers disliking SoR III for its music was a “thing.” I don’t personally feel that way, but other Sega fans do, so I was bringing it up to show that my disappointment with Robo Aleste’s soundtrack wasn’t unprecedented.
Lords of Thunder for TG16-CD has a rock soundtrack, too. And it isn’t just FM synth, it’s an actual band. It’s an awesome use of the CD-ROM technology and I felt it thematically matches and even enhances the contents of the game.
This just occurred to me now, but Lightening Force has “FM synth rock” in it kind of like M.U.S.H.A, and I’ve always loved Lightening Force’s OST. Rock just goes really well with shmups I guess.
I think that sounds cute. It’s like the Super Nintendo is trying to pay homage to 2 Unlimited.
Yeah maybe it’s just a case of Robo Aleste being a victim of M.U.S.H.A.’s success.
Thanks, that’s reassuring. I wasn’t sure what the community consensus was when it came to Robo Aleste. I felt a strange sense of guilt for not liking it because I knew in my head it should be good. But it just wasn’t clicking with me.
I’m not sure if Soul Star is a “drop what you’re doing and play it right now” kind of title, but definitely make time for it if you’re interested in the Sega CD, or if you like sprite superscaler arcade games like Power Drift or Night Striker S.
P.S. I meant to say this stuff in my original post, but forgot to, so I'll just add it here. Robo Aleste underwhelmed me so much that it made me wish I was playing Keio's Flying Squadron instead. And Keio wasn't even great.
Also, I wish Soul Star would display your score somewhere. The gameplay is kind of like Panzer Dragoon in that you can challenge yourself by trying to kill all the enemies in a stage. But it doesn't show your score during gameplay, it only does that when you game over. It might also display your score when you pause the game, but I don't remember that 100%.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 27, 2023 13:34:39 GMT -5
Good writeup! I agree that Robo Aleste was pretty disappointing. I don't love M.U.S.H.A. either, but I feel it's still a good game, and better than Robo. I dig Seirei Senshi Spriggan on PC Engine CD more than either of those, so if you haven't tried it, give it a look!
Also, SoR3's soundtrack has been ripped since the day it released. Two of EGM's reviewers even called out the soundtrack as subpar. Lots of wonky, experimental stuff in there. It has a few nice tracks, but a lot of it I've hated from the very beginning as well. For the folks that say the Genesis sounded like a bunch of robot farts, a lot of SoR3's music proves them right.
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Post by Ex on Sept 27, 2023 13:58:33 GMT -5
Indeed music goes a long way to sell a game's experience, just as it does for films. MUSHA's OST creator did in fact go for a metal experience, "Edo Metal", according to Wikipedia: "For MUSHA's soundtrack, Nakashima originally presented an idea for what he called "Edo Metal" music to composer Toshiaki Sakoda. They eventually agreed on creating a speed metal soundtrack which would match the fast scrolling action of the game. At the time MUSHA was developed, Sakoda felt most shooting game soundtracks were primarily fusion and mechanically sounding games that lacked a cohesive theme. He wanted this soundtrack to be the first heavy metal game soundtrack, or how he called it, a "heady metal suite" or "heavy metal rhapsody".[5]
To compose the music, Sakoda used real instruments, then notated the music on an MSX computer and converted it onto a PC-9800. Since he did not like mechanical sounds, he programmed the virtual instruments to sound like they were played by humans. Sakoda worked closely with sound effects programmer Masanobu Tsukamoto. Since the game had limited sound channels, or tracks, he exercised caution not to create too many simultaneous sounds so the sound effects would not cut out the music. Sakoda only had four channels to use in any given song, one of which was always fixed on drums. After the soundtrack was nearly finished, Compile leadership told Sakoda to change the music to something which fit the Japanese aesthetic. After hearing a new soundtrack with plucky Japanese instruments, leadership told Sakoda to revert to his original music.[5]"
However Toshiaki Sakoda did not compose Robo Aleste's OST. Rather it was composed by Katsumi Tanaka and Satoshi Shimazaki. I assume different composers had different aural ambitions.
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Post by anayo on Sept 27, 2023 15:46:55 GMT -5
Indeed music goes a long way to sell a game's experience, just as it does for films. MUSHA's OST creator did in fact go for a metal experience, "Edo Metal", according to Wikipedia:
To compose the music, Sakoda used real instruments, then notated the music on an MSX computer and converted it onto a PC-9800. Since he did not like mechanical sounds, he programmed the virtual instruments to sound like they were played by humans. Sakoda worked closely with sound effects programmer Masanobu Tsukamoto.
This sounds very close to the workflow used to create the soundtrack for Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2. Masato Nakamura came up with these using the tools of his trade: Then Sega assigned a sound engineer translate the composition into a format that would work on the Genesis's sound chip. I have tried creating music on the Genesis's sound chip before and it was an unapproachable beast. Nothing about the process made sense to me. The program I was using provided me with a bunch of knobs. Twisting the knobs would impose various effects on an oscillated sound wave. I guess the idea was to "sculpt" your instruments by adjusting the knobs and shaping the wave into the desired acoustic properties. But no matter what I did, it always sounded like bells and farts. I felt like I needed an introductory course to understand what I was doing instead of just blindly hacking away at it. But I could never seem to find any "intro to FM synth" videos online. All of them were just like, "Turn knobs until it sounds good." But I felt like I was in front of a canvas mixing paints that just turned to brown mush because I didn't understand color theory. I'm capable of composing my own amateur music when I have a pre-made library of instruments to choose from. If I had to construct the instruments themselves, though, I would need a lot of help. I think dreaming up compositions and actually engineering the instrumentation for those compositions are two separate skills. Some rare geniuses can do both, though, like Rob Hubbard. I will try Seirei Senshi Spriggan. I looked up a video of it and it looks cool. Very colorful and arcade-like. What do you think about Spriggan Sapphire? I'm talking about the one that has pre-rendered CGI sprites, anime girls, requires TG16-CD arcade card, and sells for the price of a pre-owned car on eBay.
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