My Gaming Audio History: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (1987)

Punch-Out is a game I played SO much as a kid.  I could get to Mike Tyson, but I couldn't beat him-- although I had a friend who was able to.  I don't know if I ever really thought much about the music; the gameplay drew me in so intensely I was really focused on that instead of the music.  I doubt I got all the musical references as a kid: the Wagner, Bizet, and even if I replayed it today, I certainly still don't know the Russian song for Soda Pop-insky.

Of course, Punch-Out was first an arcade game before it was redesigned as a NES game.  Here's a video showing gameplay from the original '84 arcade game.  As you can hear, the theme from the beginning of the match is roughly the same as the NES version, as is the crowd cheering sound.  In fact, the arcade sound effects of the punches are pretty close to the NES version.  The NES version uses music in the background during the match, a common changeover between arcade games to NES games.  However, the NES version added the classical music references in to the intro music for some of the characters.  And, of course, the NES game doesn't have the spoken audio samples.  They would've simply taken too much memory.

One thing I'm really having trouble understanding is that Koji Kondo says in interviews that his first project with Nintendo was working on the music to the arcade version of Punch-Out.  However, he's not listed in the credits to the NES version.  If you give a listen to the arcade theme when the fights begin and compare it with the NES version, it's clearly the same with the only difference being perhaps one or two notes.  I don't understand how he's not credited at the end of the game or online as it's pretty clear that this is his music.  Also, the title music at the beginning of the game is by Mahlon Merrick, and was originally composed for the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports.  That said, I'm kind of glad to learn this because one thing I'm wanting to do is learn the truth behind the history of game music, and sort that out from internet belief.  This is hard to do since most of the info on game music is online-- but, for this project, at least, the wiki Videogame Music Preservation site has been pretty helpful (although, they don't mention Kondo as a composer for the NES game).  Thus, let it be known: the Punch Out title track is an arrangement of Merrick and the beginning of the round music for the fights is Koji Kondo.

I'm struck by how many of these early games us a I-bVI-bVII motion-- Castlevania used it.

Who created the audio experience?  According to the credits: Yukio Kaneoka-- who's already appeared on My Gaming Audio History for creating the Mario Bros audio, and Akito Nakatuka and Kenji Yamamoto.  Also, they've borrowed Merrick, Wagner, Bizet, de Lisle, Kondo, and traditional Russian as well.

What is the audio experience?  Numerous boxing match sound effects, from the comic like actual punches effects, to the crowd cheering at the beginning and in between rounds, and special effects gaining/using a star punch, etc.  Musically, each opponent is introduced with a theme-- some Kondo's normal theme-- and others, a fitting theme given their nationality.   I'd say that the homebase of this game is either C major/ A minor, which makes sense, since they're related keys.

How does the audio experience draw the player more deeply into the game?  The classic title screen boxing music gives an awesome historic feeling for anyone old enough to recognize it.  Otherwise, it's just a great game start.  Each opponent's theme gives a feeling of individuality and nationalism to their introduction.  The music during cutscenes is harmonically similar to the music during each fight.  While the player might not immediately identify this, it does bring a unity to the game audio.

Here's a link to the soundtrack (the uploader added a ridiculous amount of reverb for some reason, sorry!)

-Title screen: 22 sec.  C major.
-Glass Joe: 6.5 sec.  G major  La Marseillaise-- French National Anthem, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
-Start Round: 3 sec.  F major
-Background fighting: 32 sec.  A minor
-Win round: 5 sec.  C major
-Von Kaiser: 4 sec.  A minor  Ride of the Valkyries Richard Wagner
-Down for the count: 5 sec.  C major
-Title Bout: 5 sec.  A minor (major? w Picardy third at end)
-Piston Honda: 6 sec.  A minor
-Circuit champion: 6.5 sec.  C major
-Don Flamenco: 6 sec.  Ab major Carmen Overture  Georges Bizet
-King Hippo: 4.5 sec.  Bb major
-Soda Popinksi: 6 sec.  E minor  Song of the Volga Boatmen, read about it on wikipedia
-New Champion: 4.5 sec.  C major
-The Dream Fight: 4.5 sec.  G major
-Get Up Little Mac!: 5 sec.  A minor
-End game: 10 sec.  C major
-You Lose: 5 sec.  C minor
-Cut scenes/Training: 26 sec.  A minor (same progression as fighting)
-Game Over: 11 sec.  C minor (major w Picardy third at end)