Pictionary title screen = Absolute banger

November 29, 2018 1:26 PM

@TristanACooper: "There's an unused music track hidden on the cart of The Flintstones SNES game and it's INCREDIBLE..."
Guy tweets out a handful of links to hidden musical gems from old video games and a bunch of people reply with their own recommendations of long-forgotten 16-bit soundtrack favorites.
posted by Atom Eyes (28 comments total)

There's gold in the comments: "Why is this track about to help me install a cracked copy of photoshop?"
posted by higginba at 1:31 PM on November 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

i'm a bit surprised that Solstice's title theme never got a mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_gObHt1uZA

it's really tough to admit sometimes that we hit peak gaming music in the 8 bit era.
posted by subversiveasset at 1:56 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've long believed that great art comes from artists working within a limited medium.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:04 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

SANXION LOADER OR GTFO

seriously, I didn't even have a C64 as a kid, but it didn't matter because demo crews would cheerfully rip/port Rub Hubbard tracks over to whatever platform anyway
posted by doop at 2:07 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

These are great :)

I was always partial to the Gauntlet NES theme, myself. (In metal, if you prefer.)
posted by ragtag at 2:16 PM on November 29, 2018

My favorite is the name selection music from NES Wheel of Fortune.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:21 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I roll ten minutes deep with Parallax by Martin Galway.
posted by schoolgirl report at 2:45 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

far from forgotten, but aquatic ambiance 10 hours
posted by scose at 3:04 PM on November 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

It seems to be semi-defunct, but Liz Ryerson's blog Sounds from the Abyss curates similar stuff: largely forgotten or completely undiscovered game music gems.
posted by codacorolla at 3:06 PM on November 29, 2018

Holy crap seeing a rubbery little cartoon man with John Goodman’s digitized head passed onto it running around to that dreamy tune is quite an experience.
posted by egypturnash at 3:35 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Skate or Die 2 for NES is my go-to jam from this era. Surprised to not see it pop up in that thread.

For bonus fun, sub in "Blades.. of... Steel" for the "lyrics".
posted by tonycpsu at 3:45 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Donkey Kong has two unused voice samples.

(wait, what did I just link to? there's a wiki for this? see you later...)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:05 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

oh man i remember that robocop song from another link somewhere a while ago, i'm so glad to rediscover it. it's great for focusing on work.

and if you need a remix with more traditional instruments, try this one
posted by numaner at 4:22 PM on November 29, 2018

I'm partial to The M*U*L*E theme, myself.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:25 PM on November 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

far from forgotten, but aquatic ambiance 10 hours

omg I used to replay that level over and over just for the music, and for the fish.
posted by numaner at 4:39 PM on November 29, 2018

The theme from the C64 game Skyfox is an entire symphony packed into a three-voice two-minute chiptune.
posted by straight at 5:00 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

The theme to the Adventure Construction Set on the Commodore 64 (a program that let you make your own RPG/adventure games) was an entire overture, designed because of memory/disk capacity constraints to be chopped up and used as a variety of incidental music that you could use for various events like battle, finding a thing, something sad, traveling to a new area, etc.
posted by straight at 5:03 PM on November 29, 2018

I roll ten minutes deep with Parallax by Martin Galway.
posted by schoolgirl report at 5:45 PM on November 29

A fine enough track but a mere B-side compared to his magnum opus, Comic Bakery.
posted by ZaphodB at 7:45 PM on November 29, 2018

Man, they spent a lot of time making Fred look like John Goodman in that, didn't they?
posted by mikelieman at 8:01 PM on November 29, 2018

Skate or Die 2 for NES is my go-to jam from this era.

Hard to beat the original on C64. How did they jam an electric guitar into a SID chip?
posted by CaseyB at 8:41 PM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

For me, it's Batman.
posted by crosley at 9:13 PM on November 29, 2018

For me, it's Batman.

"This is as real as video gaming gets."
posted by straight at 9:21 PM on November 29, 2018

Wow, that Solstice Theme is like some medieval dude is playing a little tune on his flute when suddenly a spaceship from the cover of a YES album appears over his head, beams him aboard, and races off to another galaxy to have groovy adventures.
posted by straight at 10:24 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Part of what makes that Silver Surfer music great is how well it fits with the constant PEW PEW PEW sounds of playing the game.
posted by straight at 10:35 PM on November 29, 2018

Wait a minute. The music to Solstice, Silver Surfer, and NES Pictionary are all by the same dude?!? We should just be linking to some best of Tim Follin playlists.

I mean how are these guitar and harmonica sounds from Plok! coming from an SNES cartridge? AND this is the guy who wrote this wonderful C64 tune for Ghouls and Ghosts and ALSO these fantastic tunes for the Amiga version?!?
posted by straight at 11:26 PM on November 29, 2018

Streets of Rage opening theme (NES)
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:46 PM on November 29, 2018

As we're repping "chiptunes of our youth", I must commend the title theme on Kwik Snax - I'm certain the hyperactive cheerful jauntiness of this tune in particular made me grow up to adore Happy Hardcore and such.
posted by BuxtonTheRed at 7:07 AM on November 30, 2018

I claim that Dark Ages had one of the largest "best sound track" to "worst gameplay" ratios of yore
posted by sandking at 8:16 AM on December 12, 2018