I mean 16 bit era and before music should really be a separate category. I know, personally, that aside from a few specific exceptions (Mostly Metroid, Zelda, Mario, and Final Fantasy) there is nothing from that era I would vote for over anything more modern. Hell, even my nominations pulled from newer entries of those series.
I’d love to see battles of Sonic vs Super Metroid vs Mega Man vs whatever weird Amoga song you pull.
But as great as Brinstar Depths may be, it isn’t better, musically, than most newer stuff.
For my money, the best chiptunes hold up compositionally next to anything I’ve heard in later eras, and are better than most of it. It comes down to a difference between one’s preference in arrangement style. Some people just find the sound of a primitive synthesizer annoying. I think it’s quite beautiful. It’s like the difference between a harpsichord and a symphony orchestra. Yes, the orchestra has vastly greater coloristic potential, but some music just sounds ‘right’ on a harpsichord, and sometimes that’s what I choose to listen to. (As a side note, my current candidate for Best Piece Of Music Ever is J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which were written for solo keyboard.)
That’s the word. My girlfriend isn’t a huge gamer but she loves that electronic chip tune bleep-bloop sound so can appreciate the compositions too. Our friend, however, can’t stand it so she’s convinced it’s just bad music rather than a sonic barrier of sorts. There’s not a doubt in my mind that she’d enjoy some of these tunes more if they were performed on piano or guitar or by an orchestra or whatever, even if I often find them lacking somewhat in comparison to the originals! I’d like to test her some day…
That’s why the remix scene exists, of course. On the other hand, I love the devices composers used to overcome the limitations of the original chips and add coloristic shadings and even a kind of ‘orchestration’ – the flanging, arpeggiation, and whatnot. I view this as analogous to devices piano composers used to attain a ‘big’ sound on a small instrument. (Liszt, in particular, came up with some astonishing effects.)
I just don’t think chiptunes need to be ghettoized or made to sit at the little kids’ table. Let them enter the Thunderdome and let the chips (ahem) fall where they may!
Yeah, my brain has no problem parsing chiptunes as their own unique “instrument” with a qualitatively different sound that certain compositions just sound right on. But there’s a sort of musical uncanny valley with the SNES/N64 era and a lot of early MIDI that I have a hard time going back to, where they obviously really want to sound like physical instruments but don’t quite get there. For those compositions, I’d usually rather enjoy them in arranged form.
And I’m glad people are enjoying this, and looking forward to doing more with different themes. On the other forum where I shamelessly stole the idea from, they’re a regular institution, and there have been themes based around systems/eras, remixes and arrangements, specific moments like boss battle themes, and more.
This is actually kind of a tough round. Chrono Trigger and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. They both have strong melodies, which I like in my vidya music.
Treasure of the Rudras is great, but I’m just not feeling the fast, pulse-pounding videogame music these days. Before the Storm is also good, but it’s just a bit too ambient/atmospheric for my tastes.
Yeah, I didn’t dislike any of the choices in this round. While I prefer the daytime XC2 themes to the nighttime versions across the board, Alba Cavanish is pretty good in either form. Treasure of the Rudras gave me Golden Sun vibes that managed to bump it just above Chrono Trigger. Getting to hear the track from Life is Strange finally taught me where said track was actually from, but it wasn’t on the same level as the other entrants.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Treasure of the Rudras.
