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SNES Star Fox music is too rad

Z

Ziffles

Member
Yep, SNES Star Fox had the best soundtrack out of all of them IMO. It's too bad the original composer, Hajime Hirasawa, left soon after writing it.
 
V

Valjean Lafitte

Banned
CO_Andy said:
Fuck Star Fox 64! I hate that every new SF is using that game as the basis.

The original was sooooooo much more epic. The John Williams esque soundtrack was godly.
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Funny, I always thought that Star Fox 64 had the more John Williams-esque soundtrack. I agree that the original was more epic, though.
 
M

Mael

Member
B_Bech said:
It's a shame the quality of music in the series took a nose dive after the unreleased SNES sequel. I mean, N64 had some sweet tunes--I'm looking at you Starwolf's theme-- but nothing that got your adrenaline pumping the way Cornaria or Venom did in the original. They put so much emphasis on the music to build the atmosphere in the original, as the graphics were too bare bones to convey a grand space adventure on their own. The end result is a truly impacful soundtrack.


I'm sure atmosphere building lead to the addition of dialogue as well. If you look at the game without all that, it's difficult to make out what's going on. Take Andross for example. Without an epic score and some cool dialogue that fight would be incredibly lame. It's a bad polygonal face shooting tiles at you. It's not that modern games don't need such components, but Starfox had a lot to compensate for. Starfox 64 lacked this issue, and more of the budget likely went toward building the atmosphere with new technology: voice acting and graphics. If you had really awesome tracks in 64 they'd be completing with the dialogue, so I'm not sure if they felt the need to emphasize on it.

Now, that I think about it, the N64 sequel makes great use of silence to build tension... But I'm digressing at this point. Chiptune music, to me, always feels grander and more meritorious due to the limitations. To get around those limitations you're tasked with coming up with something really catchy-- especially since it's going to be repeated a TON. That's why we got such classics like the Great Fairy's Theme and Moon from Ducktales on the NES, or any of Super Metroid's incredibly atmospheric tunes. The music had a much greater responsiblity in the 2-D era. In a flat world, it's the best way to add depth. Starfox was one of the few games that had depth so the music took on a greater role: it added detail.

Just my take.
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BocoDragon said:
Totally agree.

Also, the animal pilots in StarFox were like this bizarre Japanese choice at the time. The action was strictly realistic space shooter, but it starred animals (much like ancient Japanese wall scrolls depicting animals in realistic samurai battles). I never took their inclusion as being loveable and kid-pandering. It always seemed like a bizarre inclusion... and I liked it.

But as the technology improved, and voiced cutscenes came along, it kind of just devolved into "this is a kids cartoon game starring furries" like any random Disney thing. I think the odd juxtaposition of animals and realistic sci-fi is completely lost... now it just looks like another cartoon universe.
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Norante said:
StarFox is the best game in the series, and it never recovered.

One of the reasons is the masterful soundtrack. It's brilliant, it's ambitious. It's coherent from beginning to end. Even the credits, the boss display sequence and then the actual credit roll. It still sounds like something you'd hear out of John Williams. In fact, the entire game is ambitious, and that's what made it great. Nintendo/Argonaut exploited every limitation in hardware and software to their advantage. The graphics were rudimentary, but the visual solution wasn't – the design of the Arwings is beautiful simple, the enemies are great, the bosses are outstanding. Each world and stage felt unique in it's atmosphere. The sound design is delightful and satisfying. The lack of voice overs and the use of gibberish is not distracting. I much prefer it, it makes the characters seem all the more alien. Remember the first time Andross comes on the comm? It sounded like THE ENEMY. Not like a space monkey from a saturday morning show.

What really works for StarFox is that it paints just enough of a picture and suggestion of for you to complete it in your head. That's the touch of a master artist. And that was all lost with the higher fidelity and other design choices from the latter games, in my opinion. To me they never recaptured the magic.

I'm glad to see you and others enjoying it, OP.
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VARIA said:
OP, I love you. Most gamers don't understand how integral the music is to the gaming experience. Starfox music has never recovered from the amazathon (stupid adjective I know) that the first soundtrack made. Everything that has come after has made a sad attempt to duplicate SNES starfox soundtrack but failed, yes, even SF64.
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I can't add anything except to say that you all put in words what I always want to say about Starfox/StarWing.


Krejlooc said:
SNES Star Fox still rules in every way. What a terrific game.

Star Fox was the very first game I got for my Super NES the summer I bought it. I didn't get Mario World until a long while later. I actually bought my SNES for Star Fox.
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That's a choice you can't regret.

Seriously the very 1rst Starfox tried to do so much more and be something so great beyond what the sequels ever even glimpsed.
It's a real tragedy that it's still stuck to the actual cart instead of being on VC (even freaking Command got the VC treatment!).
It's still stuck to actual hardware like Yoshi Island...
Every other Starfox after the 1rst one have redeeming qualities but never get to the height this one reached.
SF64 is good but shouldn't be a retelling of the 1rst one! and the music isn't as great as the 1rst one.
Dinosaur Planet is awesome for what it is but it has its own slew of problems that makes it a really weird game.
Assault is the biggest missed opportunity ever, it really needed online and ditch the storyline as well as the onrail segments (and refine the controls)
Command is great if a bit repetitive if you totally ignore the story.
Starfox is pretty much the formula perfected with the best soundtrack ever.
 
MiguelItUp

MiguelItUp

Member
Man, the Corneria theme used to ALWAYS get stuck in my head. It still comes up from time to time. I still remember hearing that song the first time I played the game at a Toys R Us.
 
V

valkillmore

Member
Agree that SNES Starfox is the GOAT and it's not even close. The music, awesome flat shaded polygon graphics and gameplay shit on everything that came after.

'But what about Starfox 64?'

'What ABOUT Starfox 64?'

I really wish Nintendo went the route of a Starfox sequel that started out with modern Starfox Zero type graphics but then the crew gets sent to a parallel universe or something and you get these amazing flat shaded aesthetic again. That would be wonderful.
 
Pimpbaa

Pimpbaa

Member
VARIA said:
The limitations of midi forced musicians/composers of the 16bit era to make great catchy music (due to the memory limitations of the cartridge).
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What limitations of midi? Do you even know what midi is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI
A midi file for example is basically just electronic sheet music and the quality of the output can vary depending on what device plays them. A device with professional quality sound sample will output CD quality sound that is many times better than the chip music (NOT MIDI) from a 16-bit console. The only games that used the midi standard were PC games before they started using streamed music. And the quality of the music varied greatly depending on how good you sound card was. For most it was FM synthesis based Sound Blaster cards which meant it sounded like shit (you got what you paid for).
 
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