My Gaming Audio History: Super Spike V'Ball (1989)

One of a few sports games I played on the NES, Super Spike V'Ball was a staple of my NES years.  I remember the music distinctly!  Giving this music a listen through was really interesting.  The music is by Kazunaka Yamane, who also did the Double Dragon series music.  The style here though is very different from that music.  It's almost hard for me to believe it's the same composer!  That just shows the variety that these composers are capable of when faced with different gaming genres!

I definitely hear some of what I would call (for lack of a better term) mis-matched music with the event.  For instance, the New York match music is really interesting, jazzy, up tempo-- but would you believe it was underscoring a volleyball game?  That seems kind of crazy to me!  Also, the match start music-- I'm willing to bet no one has heard more than a few obligatory seconds of that, but it's actually half a minute long!  I wonder what the thinking with that planning was?  The Las Vegas track could have been the length of the match start section and it would have been a better balance considering what the player actually heard.

I think in giving these cities distinctive feels with the music is a really interesting idea.  Basically, there's music for the title screen and menu, music at the start of the match and end of the match (critical points, win/lose music), ending music for the game, and otherwise, the music is to reflect the different moods and atmospheres of the places where you're playing (or in the case of the world cup, the teams that you're playing.)  Those tracks yield an interesting take on feeling those different cities and creating the atmosphere of being in different places.  

Although there are repeating sections, musically speaking, this game has just under 11 minutes of music, which is a lot for any NES game that I've encountered.

Here's a link to the soundtrack I studied and my notes on each track:

-Title Screen: G major.  62 sec.  Intro A Intro(4) A B Intro(4).  First intro is 8 bars and afterward, it's only 4 bars.
-Menu: C major.  37 sec.  Intro(4) A B Blues form.  I-IV-I-V-IV-I.
-Match start: A major.  37 sec.  A(12) B(13).  Has anyone ever heard more than a few seconds of this track?  I had no idea it was so long!  What a mismatch of music to utility!
-Exercise Match: E major.  39 sec.  Love the 7th and 9th chords-- extended harmonies!  Drums(1) A A' B.  1 bar drum intro doesn't repeat.
-Critical score: Bb major.  34 sec.  Intro(4) A B.  The last two bars of B are the same as the vamp, but end with a drum fill.
-Game over: F# minor.  10.5 sec.
-Lost match: Diminished arpeggiation.  3 sec.
-Victory: F# major. 4.5 sec
-Brazilian: G major.  75 sec.  Intro A Intro A B.  Love the arpeggiating second voice in the A sections. 
-Chicago: Eb major.  38 sec.  A A B.  I debated whether I heard this in C minor or Eb major, but settled on the later.  Interesting piece!
 -Daytona: E major.  38 sec.  One of my favorite tracks in the game.  A B C.
 -Las Vegas: D major.  16 sec.  Simple short loop!  Again, 7ths, beautiful, lush thirds!
-Los Angeles: G minor.  30 sec.  A B.  Alternates between G minor and F major.
-New York: F minor.  42 sec.  5.5 sec intro doesn't repeat.  36.5 sec loop.  Intro A A B C.  Very interesting up tempo jazz combo with walking bass line.  Unique piece among those I've heard for NES and for this game as well.  Wouldn't think of this as volleyball music!
-US Navy: C major.  75.5 sec.  Intro A B(4) C C D(10).  Very interesting compositional style.   Arpeggiation in intro reminds me of the Chopin Ocean Etude.
-USSR: E minor.  38 sec.  A A B.
-Ending: A major.  73.5 sec.  A B C A B C'


 

My Gaming Audio History: Double Dragon II (1990)

There seems to be quite a discrepancy between the keys heard in playthroughs and the keys heard in the soundtracks I can find.  Neither is in a good 440 pitch.  While that's to be expected with the medium, this game really seems to be worse than most games I've looked at so far.  It's hard for me to know which keys are right, although I'm inclined to believe the playthrough keys are probably more true.  Nevertheless, my point in examining these keys at this time is to search for key relationships through the games as a whole.  While I may eventually find that the NES had a "key" or certain keys that it sounded better in and were more commonly used (this is definitely true of instruments), at this time, it doesn't so much matter that I decide a definitive key for the game.  I think at this point, it's best to make a note of the differences in pitch and decide how to handle it for this game when/if I ask questions about the best keys for the NES at a later time.  

I'm not sure if I ever played the arcade version of this game.  Maybe.  I definitely played the crap out of the home version.  This was another one of those games where it worked really well considering that my brother and I liked to play video games together.  We almost always had to use the setting where you didn't hurt each other or we'd end up beating each other up while trying to play the game.  In any case, I gave the DDII arcade version playthrough a listen to see what sort of similarity there was between this game and the NES version.  Almost all the arcade tunes are used in the NES version.  I also listened to a bit of the Double Dragon soundtrack to see if there were similarities there.  The original theme song definitely shares similarities with the DDII theme song.  Otherwise, I didn't hear an explicit relationships.  

The music for DDII is by Kazunaka Yamane.  I don't find a great website or links to any interviews he's done other than vgmpf's list of games he was involved with.  It would definitely be great to compile more information about him and his work.  A composer for the Double Dragon series, this is one of two games where I heard Yamane's music.  The other I played was Super Spike V'Ball, which is coming up quickly in the cue on this series as well, so I'll get to think about his composing style for a non-beat-em-up game very soon as well.  

As a side note, Yamane's most interesting tracks for me are the atmospheric tracks.  They remind me a bit of some of Jeremy Soule's work in Secret of Evermore.  There are a few in the NES game, but even better is the Illusion fight music for the arcade game, which has a completely different feel from anything I've heard yet in my game music studies.  Incredible!  

Thus, here are my regular notes on the music, plus a link to the soundtrack at the pitch considered below:

-Title screen: B minor.  58 sec.  A(9) B B C.  I probably never heard all of this theme-- too eager to get to the game!  Up a third from the arcade (G minor)

-Intermission: A minor.  3 sec.  Short vamp in the same key as the arcade.  

-Mission 1: B major.  63 sec.  Up a whole step from the arcade (A major), and also the tune to the 2nd level of the arcade.  Intro(4) A B(4) Intro(8) A B(4) C

-Boss: A minor.  41 sec.  A A' B(4).  Lots of diminished sounds.  Love the busy voice!  

-Mission clear: A major.  5 sec.  bVII-I.  Same as the arcade version, but transposed by 5th.  

-Game over: a?  4 sec.  This ends diminished, but I hear homebase as A.    

-Misson 2 (Heliport): G minor.  49 sec.  Lots of bVI-bVII-i motion.  A A'(10) B(12) This is the same music as the Heliport for the arcade version, but that's the first mission in that game and it's transposed up a fourth here!  

-Mission 3 (in Chopper): Bb minor.  27 sec.  A simple, short vamp.  

-Mission 4 (Undersea Base): A minor (Picardy third) 14 sec.  Starts with drum pick up that doesn't repeat.  

-Misson 5 (Forest): A minor.  36 sec.  A B(4) C  This is the same music as the Wheat Field music in the arcade game, transposed.  This is the only reused NES track that preserves the key of the arcade!  

-Bulldozer: B minor.  22 sec.  A A' (4 bars up a whole step, 4 bars up another half step)  Transposed, this is boss music fight near the end of the arcade game.  

-Mission 6 (Mansion): F.  16 sec.  Very chromatic.  Ends with open fifth.  Interesting, intense, atmospheric music.  Unlike most other tracks I've heard so far for the NES.  

-Mission 7 (Trap room): C# minor.  20 sec.  Short, 12 bar vamp.  i-iv.

-Mission 8 (Double illusion): A minor.  37 sec.  Intro(4) A B.  End of the B section holds over the vamp of the intro, which does repeat with the loop.  Only track that sustains from the end of one loop through the beginning of the next. 

-Boss Illusion Fight: Eb minor.  18 sec.  Very dissonant and interesting atmospheric music!  

-Mission 9: E minor.  6.5 sec.  Short loop, incorporates sustained white noise as well!  

-Final Fight: Eb minor.  54 sec.  A B B C D.  Much longer than many tracks leading to this point.  Also, much more harmonically "normal" than the preceding atmospheric music and regular in form.  

-Epilogue:  Ab minor.  38 sec.  Through composed.  Feels unresolved at the end. 

-Credits: Ab major.  58 sec.  Through composed.  Love the uses of so many 7th chords and the suspension right at the end!