Awesome Music / Third Generation or Earlier

This is the Awesome Music page for NES, SMS, MSX, GB etc.

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• Blaster Master for the NES was quite a popular game back then. It also had a very cool soundtrack. While it has been remixed before, there is only one that stands out from the rest. A Medley by Vomitron is the most epic, so much it will make you sad when the remixed credits music ends.
• Ah, Korobeiniki! This song has burnt its way into the minds of almost every single gamer that has ever grasped a GameBoy in their lives. It's old, but damn if it's not good.
  • Bradinsky from Atari/Tengen Tetris too!
  • Tetris: The Grand Master ACE has an epic trance remix of Katjusha. It plays during the latter 2/3 of Another Road, which makes it into a 20-minute Crowning Level Of Awesome.
  • The Tetris: The Grand Master series, while lacking Korobeiniki, has some awesome music in its own right: "Hardening Drops (Instant Death Mix)" from TGM1 (level 500-999), and the music from the first part of TGM3's Shirase mode.
  • It's even better with a Live Orchestra!
  • The B Theme on the Game Boy version also stands out to many players as the perfect music for going for a record high score. It's the bass line. This cover especially brings out its inner badass.
  • A Complete History of the Soviet Union Through The Eyes of A Humble Worker. It's still Korobeiniki, but the lyrics are sheer brilliance.
  • The NES version has "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" as its main song.
  • The EPIC C64 Tetris music is 25+ minutes of pure awesome. It's the only good thing about that version of the game, but man, it's awesome.
• Rob Hubbard was one of the masters of the SID (Sound Integration Device), the Commodore 64's sound chip. The list of truly awesome tracks he composed for C64 games is long and mind-boggling.
  • Monty On the Run was often described as "worth buying for the music alone". The music, the first half of which is a Suspiciously Similar Song to Charles Williams' "Devil's Galop" (the theme tune of late 1940s radio adventure Dick Barton - Special Agent) but the second half of which is Epic Rocking, Commodore 64 style (it takes nearly six minutes before the tune finally wraps around, an eternity by 1985 game music standards), regularly features near the top of lists of the greatest tracks from the C64 library. If that's not enough, here's an instrumental version.
  • The next game in the Monty Mole series, Auf Wiedersehen Monty, stands by its predecessor in the awesome music department. From the creepy opening, to the upbeat "main melody", to an extended jam on said melody, and finally to the eventual return to the key and atmosphere in which it began, it is six minutes of musical gold.
  • Thalamus' 1986 side-scrolling shooter Sanxion boasts a first-rate soundtrack to which Hubbard contributed the loading screen theme, "Thalamusik", a tribute to Jean-Michel Jarre's 1984 track "Zoolook" (which Hubbard also remixed using the SID chip for demo purposes) with a stunningly diverse array of timbres in its five-minute runtime. And as if that wasn't awesome enough, the title screen music is a transcription of "Dance of the Knights" from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet that retains all of the original's stunning counterpoint and harmonies and expertly shows off the capabilities of the SID chip.

• Action 52/Cheetahmen II was never considered a very good game, being so buggy it's almost unplayable... but what's this? The music is awesome? And it's spawned dozens of remixes on Nico Nico Douga? What's going on here?!
• Various themes from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. Yes, even the one now famous on the internet for "Nigga Stole My Bike". The Main Theme was also given a first-rate remix for the Wii version.
• The vintage economic-simulation game M.U.L.E. had possibly the catchiest theme tune ever.
• Behold, the Xenon 2 Megablast theme. It was a pretty good game too.
• Shell we start naming Sunsoft games of that era? Distinctive Sunsoft Bass.
  • Batman, Batman - Return of the Joker, Gimmick, Gremlins 2, Blaster Master, Journey To Silius and Super Spy Hunter are a few of them!
  • Ufouria, too. Now with a Lemmings rendition.
  • Also, Fester's Quest; as bad as it was, it gave an epic soundtrack to a game based on The Addams Family. The TV series— not The Movie, which came out after the game.
  • Then there's the music from Gimmick!
• DuckTales laughs in the face of The Problem with Licensed Games, regularly being cited as Exhibit A in licensed games' favour. And one reason for this is the outstanding music.
  • The Moon. One of the classics of the 8-bit era.
    • Oh, and there's an orchestrated remix on YouTube as well. It's every bit as awesome as the original.
    • As if the two aren't awesome enough, the Remastered version has this amazing remix.
    • It's so iconic that DuckTales (2017) turned it into a lullaby about going on adventures that Della Duck wrote for her sons.
  • Transylvania too. And the boss theme, and the Amazon... pretty much every track in the game.
  • African Mines.
• NES Double Dragon II: Shizukanaru Tsuiseki (A Quiet Pursuit), Asayake no Kaishingeki (A Pleasant Advance to the Morning Glow) and of course Souryuu no Otakebi (Roar of the Twin Dragons).
• Recca. Not only is it the only licensed NES game to get a trance soundtrack, it also fits the game like nothing else . Some music samples to make you get the full soundtrack somewhere. And also remixed. Officially.
• The Stuntman Seymour in-game theme isn't half bad for a C64 game. (The high-quality version feels a little more 8-bit.)
• The attract mode music for the 1982 arcade standup Reactor.
• Tecmo World Wrestling: Invincible Attack (theme of Akira Dragon), as well as this mildly Russian-flavoured tune.
• The C64 version of Skate or Die had a rocking theme. (The NES version wasn't bad either, but it's those guitar and synth samples that makes the C64 version even better.)
• Skate or Die 2 has one of the most metal soundtracks for the NES.
• The arcade versions of Gradius and Twinbee used a type of magnetic "bubble memory" that required the machine to literally warm up to a certain temperature, a process taking over a minute and a half. That's a long time for an arcade operator to wait, so thus, while the machines booted, they played a catchy little baroque tune known as "Morning Music".
• Turbo Outrun and Hot Rod, by Jeroen Tel. Keep in mind that those sounds are coming from a Commodore 64. And as if that weren't impressive enough? Word of God (see the YouTube comments on that first link) says that Jeroen coded these tunes in assembly language as a teenager.
• The music of Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars! for NES. Most of the music from this game is really badass. We have the Green Planet level music, the Red Planet music, the Yellow Planet music, and if that isn't enough, there's two of the four melodies for the final levels: The Salvage Chute and Escape music themes.
  • The music for the final boss battles. It brings the feeling that you are fighting with the most terrible adversaries in the game, and you're going to listen this song constantly, especially in the fight with the second-to-last boss. It's terrible hard.
  • The Ending Credits music qualifies as Awesome Music, too.
• Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker was an obscure Game Boy Color game based on a German cartoon, released only in German-speaking countries not long before the GBA came out. The game itself was not all that interesting; indeed, it's a fine example of The Problem with Licensed Games. Its soundtrack, on the other hand, is ridiculously amazing; it was composed by demoscene veteran Stello Doussis, and it shows.
• Stello Doussis did another equally awesome soundtrack, too— this one for a licensed game based on a hippo-shaped chocolate candy. Behold Das Geheimnis der Happy Hippo-Insel.
• You wouldn't expect a McDonald's licensed game to have good music, but MC Kids pulls that feat off quite impressively. Again, no surprise that it's the work of a C64 demoscene vet, this time Charles Deenen from Maniacs of Noise. The stage 2 theme is particularly excellent.
• Thunder Landing from the arcade Super Contra.
• The entire soundtrack from Shadow of the Beast, by David Whittaker. One of the game's two big selling points, along with its art.
• Penguin Adventure for the MSX had some crazy good music. Listen!
• Robowarrior for the NES may have been a frustratingly difficult game, but it had some great music. However, this piano version is arguably better than the original.
• Despite the limits of 1984 technology, Below the Root's soundtrack made use of melody to invoke the chants and rituals that pervaded Green Sky life in the original book. Windham Classics also did a great job with classical music for The Wonderful Wizardof Oz text-adventure.
• Battletoads. No surprise, really; it's by David Wise, who'd go on three years later to compose some music for a little series involving a giant ape and his simian sidekick. Even the short loop that plays while the game is paused rocks.
• Crystalis has the overworld theme and Mt. Sabre's theme.
• One of the main selling points of the Dizzy games was their always top notch soundtracks.
  • On the ZX Spectrum, there's the in game music from Fantasy World Dizzy, Magic Land Dizzy, and Spellbound Dizzy.
  • The Commodore 64, meanwhile, has the in game music from Treasure Island Dizzy, which conveys a real sense of mystery and adventure perfect for exploring an exotic yet deserted island; Magicland Dizzy, an upbeat track well suited to the fairy tale/legend pastiche that forms the game's premise; Spellbound Dizzy, which runs the gamut from an upbeat section that practically shouts "Let's do this!" to an eerily atmospheric section that equally seems to say "What strange world is this?"; and Prince of the Yolkfolk, which may revolve around just two melodic phrases (apart from a haunting interlude about two-thirds of the way through) but varies the instrumentation to keep them sounding fresh.
  • The Amiga versions mostly used the same music as the Spectrum and/or C64 versions, benefitting from the Amiga's sound chips (examples include Treasure Island Dizzy, Magicland Dizzy, and Spellbound Dizzy), but used a newly composed track for Prince of the Yolkfolk which starts out as a synthesised trumpet-heavy processional march before segueing via a hard-rocking section into a sinister minor mode passage, changing tempo in the process. After an even heavier guitar section, the music backtracks to the hard-rocking section that preceded it, just in time to wrap around with the march.
  • The NES versions of the Dizzy games were no slouch either. Fantastic Dizzy, in particular— composed by Matt Gray, of Commodore 64 Last Ninja 2 fame.
• On the ZX Spectrum, the technical achievement involved in mixing the in-game music together with the sound effects on a system with only one sound channel in Manic Miner and its sequels.
• Contra! The first stage deserves merit.
  • The Snowfield theme is among the best themes in the game.
  • This jam by Chris Kline is absolutely dazzling.
  • The Stage Clear theme. So much than an absolutely epic Triumphant Reprise of the series' Stage Clear theme plays when you defeat Black Viper in Contra 4 for the Nintendo DS.
• Even at the classic ages, Ninja Gaiden gives out nifty music.
  • The first game has this piece from the Stage 4-2, which doubles as the credits song.
  • The sequel opens up with an awesome first stage track.
• Neil Baldwin, the same guy who did the James Bond Jr. soundtrack, had several other impressive soundtracks. Magician was his first NES work— and he cobbled this together with no prior knowledge of the system, and with manuals only in Japanese. No, really, Word Of God. Also, Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge has some great tunes, even if the credits theme is reused from James Bond Jr.
• The Game Boy version of NBA Jam has a nice title theme.
• Mission 2 - Kendhull Badlands from Project S-11 is very catchy.
• A somewhat obscure pinball game, Rollerball, had only one table, and one background song. But it was awesome.
• Sweet Home (1989). AKA the Famicom game that was the precursor to today's survival horror games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Here is the entire soundtrack.
• From Dragon Spirit: The New Legend, the music for stage 3.
• The Famicom tie-in to Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix has some excellent music. Stage 1 and Stage 3 stand out.
• The Ending Credits of the GB Version of Tetris Attack is one of the most Heartwarming songs ever written. The part from about 2:00 onwards is notably heartwarming. It's also the same song as the Yoshi's Island theme.
• As bad as the NES Rambo game was, it had some awesome music, such as the Title Theme and the Jungle Theme.
• Late in the Famicom's life, Konami came up with a mapper called the VRC7 which among other things packs a derivative of the YM2413 sound chip, in essence combining the sound capabilities of the Famicom and the Sega Master System. Sadly, it was only ever used in one game which was released in 1991 in Japan, but it didn't go to waste. It should therefore come as no surprise that those who have played Lagrange Point all claim it has the most technically sophisticated music of any game on the system.
• The BBC Micro isn't the first platform that comes to mind in terms of awesome music, but Galaforce is one that Beeb fans don't forget easily.
• The in-game music for Bubble Bobble (NES version) may be too catchy for its own good.
• ZX Spectrum's Havoc theme. Some of the most intense bleeps and boops you'd hear on that machine.
• Power Blade, a relatively obscure game featuring a boomerang-throwing Arnold-esque main character from Taito features some pretty kickass music. Here's Sector 1 and Sector 5.
• The Space Harrier theme:
  • The original arcade version.
  • The Sega Master System version.
  • The Sega Classics version.
  • Finally, Marc Gordon's Sonic Retro arrangement.
  • And while it may have come later, there's the utterly glorious Climax Mix from Bayonetta.
• Namco's Rolling Thunder, released in 1986, had some of the best music of any arcade game in its day, especially the first stage theme.
• Pitfall 2: The Lost Caves was one of the first games to have music play during gameplay on an Atari 2600. And most of it is awesome.
• Global Commander, also known as Armageddon Man, has one hell of a great theme tune by David Whittaker. Want something even more epic? Here's the orchestral remix.
• Treasure Master's soundtrack is so awesome it sacrificed all other game audio for it.
• Maniac Mansion's soundtrack rocks out loud. There are different cool themes for each character, and if you picked Razor or Syd, the tune they play on the piano could land them a music contract.
• As bad as the game is, Toxic Crusader's Stage 1 theme is surprisingly good.
• Top Gun: The Second Mission has an awesome soundtrack to make up for the near-complete lack of music in its prequel, and someone made an even better remix of the first level music.
• Marble Madness was one of the first games to even have a proper soundtrack (as well as the first game to use FM synthesizers for audio), and it still sounds awesome to this day.
• Pro Wrestling: GO FIGHT!
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero for the NES by Taxan was surprisingly good, both for being a Licensed Game and being done by a company with only a small library of largely obscure games. Examples include:
  • Infiltration, the music that plays in all second-act base stages.
  • War Machine, the theme for all first-act vehicle bosses.
  • Henchman, which backs all second-act base bosses.
  • Villain, the music for all third-act major bosses.
  • Vehicle Ride, which plays when a Joe captures a Cobra vehicle for their own use.
• Metal Storm may be as Nintendo Hard as Irem games nearly always were, but it makes up for it with a killer soundtrack.
  • The easy-going Stage 1 track helps to create a sense of fun as the player is introduced to the gravity-switching mechanics of the game.
  • The Stage 2 track may be short, but its atonal melody helps to ratchet up the tension in parallel with the game ratcheting up the difficulty.
  • Stages 3 and 5 share background music, and the urgent-sounding bassline provides just the right atmosphere for the ever increasing stakes.
  • The edgy Stage 4 track helps to take the sting out of the game's autoscroller level, and its harsh melody and use of parallel fifths complements the frantic scramble around the box in which the player rides through the stage very well.
  • Stages 6 and 7 share a music track that, while one of the shortest in the game, gives a real sense that the player is closing in on the final boss, and there's no turning back now.
  • The boss battle theme pulls no punches, and is sure to get your adrenaline pumping if the mad dash to get out of the way of the attacks of the various bosses isn't doing this already. The haunting boss rush version slows things down and scales back the instrumentation to enhance the sense that the game is reaching its peak. And while the final boss fight is an Anti-Climax, the music helps to make up for it as the tempo builds and builds and builds.
• The NES tie-in to RoboCop 3 has the amazing title screen theme, which is very complex for an NES game, as well as catchy and generally great, starting calm and picking up the pace shortly later.
• In Iron Tank for the NES, the Final Area theme is perhaps the game's most epic music piece. Consider it a reward for having progressed that far.
• Ocean's 1986 Miami Vice game falls headfirst into The Problem with Licensed Games thanks to its unresponsive driving controls and inscrutable gameplay, but the soundtrack by Martin Galway, especially for the Commodore 64 version, is by far the best thing about it.
  • The title screen and "raid" sequences get a glorious minimalist piece that does an incredible amount with a very simple idea (especially with constant shifts in timbre), and may make you walk around the buildings aimlessly (well, more so than usual) just to listen to it for longer.
  • The frustration of the driving sequences is offset by a killer rendition of the theme from the television series, which sounds absolutely first rate played by the SID chip's instrument bank.
• The music in Tetra Star: The Fighter consists of a Public Domain Soundtrack, but it sounds really impressive even by Famicom standards. It even features actual samples of timpani!
• Ocean's 1989 Batman tie-in game sees No Problem with Licensed Games, and Matthew Cannon's soundtrack provides an outstanding accompaniment to the Gameplay Roulette that unfolds on screen. Whether it's the pulse-pounding tension of the title screen music (which is so catchy you may find yourself waiting to actually pick up the joystick), the high drama and the ebb and flow of the Axis Chemical Plant theme, the sheer adrenaline rush of the Batmobile Chase theme (distilling the excitement of barrelling down Gotham's streets into musical form), the furious urgency of the Chemical Analysis theme (especially as the key climbs up the chromatic scale in the second half), the equal parts jaunty and sinister Carnival theme (just the thing for zooming around in the Batwing cutting toxic gas-filled parade balloons loose), and the ominous grandeur of the Cathedral theme as Batman closes in on the Joker, every track does the adventures of the Caped Crusader proud.
• Although Ocean's 1987 tie-in game for Platoon is frustratingly difficult from the word "go", Jonathan Dunn's soundtrack takes some of the sting out of it. Highlights include the sombre, haunting title screen music that creates an appropriately grim atmosphere for a game set amid the horrors of The Vietnam War, and the resolute, marchlike Stage 1 theme, its synthesised snare drums and guitars conveying a real sense of purpose as you trek through the jungle on a mission to blow up a bridge and infiltrate a Viet Cong settlement.^note  The first stage was so large and labyrinthine that for many gamers, this was the only stage music they ever heard.

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