Sound Reviews
Every day, one piece of game music examined closely: the composer's choices, the hardware constraints, the moment the melody became memory.
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Iron Blue Intention
by Michiru Yamane — Castlevania: Bloodlines
What does it mean that one of Castlevania's most urgent tracks — a piece that sounds like a clock running out — was composed by a woman whose university thesis centered on Bach, and who had to program every note herself into the Genesis hardware?
Michiru Yamane composed 'Iron Blue Intention' for Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994) on the Mega Drive — her first major breakthrough soundtrack. The piece is lean ...
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Pollyanna (I Believe in You)
by Keiichi Suzuki — Mother
How do you write hope inside a box that plays only three notes at once?
"Pollyanna (I Believe in You)" is the opening theme of Mother (1989), composed by Keiichi Suzuki. Written for the Famicom's three-voice sound chip, it accompani...
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Green Greens (Kirby's Dream Land)
by Jun Ishikawa — Kirby's Dream Land
Why does a melody written for the Game Boy's four tiny channels still sound like joy itself?
Jun Ishikawa wrote Green Greens in 1992 for the opening stage of Kirby's Dream Land on the Game Boy. He deliberately kept the melody simple, knowing it would be...
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Vampire Killer (Stage 1 Theme)
by Satoe Terashima & Kinuyo Yamashita (credited as James Banana) — Castlevania (Akumajō Dracula)
What does a 16-bar loop reveal about working within constraint?
Vampire Killer is the 16-bar D minor loop that plays in the first stage of Castlevania (1986). Composed by Satoe Terashima and Kinuyo Yamashita under the pseudo...
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Overture (Dragon Quest)
by Koichi Sugiyama — Dragon Quest
Why does a five-minute composition still open the door to adventure, forty years later?
Koichi Sugiyama's Overture from Dragon Quest (1986) is the piece that brought orchestral music to video games. Composed in five minutes but drawing on a lifetim...
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Into the Thick of It (Secret of Mana)
by Hiroki Kikuta — Secret of Mana
Why does the first music you hear in the forest never tell you what to feel?
Hiroki Kikuta composed Into the Thick of It for Secret of Mana in 1993, after being given nearly two years to finish the soundtrack. He spent twenty-four hours ...
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Challenger 1985
by Miki Higashino — Gradius
Why does a piece written for the first stage of a 1985 arcade shooter still feel like lifting off into something infinite?
Miki Higashino composed the music for Gradius in 1985, fresh out of college and working with Konami's arcade hardware powered by the Yamaha YM2151 FM synthesize...
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Jungle Theme (Contra Stage 1)
by Hidenori Maezawa — Contra
Why does a thirty-second loop written for five primitive sound channels still feel like stepping into a warzone?
Hidenori Maezawa composed the music for Contra's NES version in 1988, working within the tight constraints of the 2A03 sound chip — five channels, no reverb, no...
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Corridors of Time
by Yasunori Mitsuda — Chrono Trigger
Why does the music of a floating kingdom condemned to fall — written from a hospital bed by a composer who'd lost two hundred songs and nearly destroyed his health — sound not like ruin, but like the most beautiful thing you can never quite reach?
Yasunori Mitsuda composed 'Corridors of Time' for Chrono Trigger in 1995, his debut as a lead composer after telling his boss he would quit unless he was allowe...
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Haohmaru's Theme
by SNK Sound Team (Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan) — Samurai Shodown II
Some of the proudest, most unforgettable arcade music ever written carries no composer's name at all — only the stage name of a troupe. What does it mean to make something this good and choose not to sign it?
The music of Samurai Shodown II (Neo Geo, 1994) was credited not to any individual but to 'Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan' — the New World Music Performance Trou...
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Brinstar (Metroid)
by Hirokazu Tanaka — Metroid
Why does the first music you hear in Metroid refuse to comfort you?
Hirokazu Tanaka composed the Brinstar theme for Metroid in 1986, designing it with one radical constraint: no melody. He wanted players to feel the same isolati...
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Fear of the Heavens
by Hiroki Kikuta — Secret of Mana
Why does the opening music of a game built for a disc that never shipped — crushed from hundreds of megabytes down to two — begin not with a fanfare, but with the call of a whale, the loneliest voice in the ocean?
Hiroki Kikuta composed 'Fear of the Heavens' for Seiken Densetsu 2 / Secret of Mana in 1993 — his first video game score. A former manga artist who had studied ...
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Main Theme (The Legend of Zelda)
by Koji Kondo — The Legend of Zelda
Why does a theme written in one night under deadline pressure still sound like adventure itself?
Koji Kondo wrote the title theme for The Legend of Zelda in 1986, under deadline pressure and with one constraint: he could not use Maurice Ravel's "Boléro" as ...
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Prelude (Final Fantasy)
by Nobuo Uematsu — Final Fantasy
Why does a piece written in ten minutes — with a wrong note left in — still sound like the beginning of every journey?
Nobuo Uematsu wrote the "Prelude" for Final Fantasy in 1987, given thirty minutes to compose something for the opening screen. The piece, a simple rising arpegg...
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Aerith's Theme
by Nobuo Uematsu — Final Fantasy VII
What does it tell us that the most famous piece of grief in video game music was, by its own composer's account, never written to make anyone cry — and never written with her death in mind at all?
Nobuo Uematsu composed 'Aerith's Theme' for Final Fantasy VII in 1997, and for millions it is inseparable from the character's famous death. Yet Uematsu has sai...
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Dreams Dreams
by Tomoko Sasaki — NiGHTS into Dreams
What does it mean that a 1996 Saturn soundtrack was quietly keeping score — remixing its own music depending on how kindly, or how carelessly, you treated the small creatures who lived in each level?
Tomoko Sasaki led the music for NiGHTS into Dreams on the Sega Saturn in 1996, with Naofumi Hataya and Fumie Kumatani, and wrote both the melody and lyrics of i...
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Ground Theme (Super Mario Bros.)
by Koji Kondo — Super Mario Bros.
Why does a tune written in five days still sound like the beginning of everything?
Koji Kondo wrote the Super Mario Bros. Ground Theme in 1985, working within the five-channel limits of the Famicom's Ricoh 2A03 chip. He had five days. The resu...