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[EphemeralDream]

Like many of you, I am an avid video game music listener and am always looking for major efforts in sound on platforms. While the GBA and DS are based on older Nintendo hardware (the SNES and Nintendo 64 respectively), when it comes to sound capabilities, they oppose the hardware they were based on. SNES had a now legendary sound chip that produced some of the greatest and most timeless works in vgm ever, whereas the GBA had rather horrible sound capabilities and as a result few developers pushed the sound quality coming out of the portable. However the N64 was a bit of a step back in sound after the SNES and while some good works came out of it, it is not known for its audio prowess. The 64 on the other hand did have a number of games with a decent amount of voice acting however (Perfect Dark comes to mind). And then there's the DS. I'm not much of a specs person but it seems like there have been few efforts to push its sound hardware and while there is a significant jump in the quality over GBA games and even SNES, it still seems capable of more.

While my DS library is relatively small, I think my judgement about most games not pushing the hardware is sound. In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, there is a significant jump in audio quality from the GBA games but it still failed to impress me, especially since the song in the opening movie is noticeably better. And moments ago I was listening to a few tracks from the unreleased Gyakuten Saiban 4 (the tracks are from the TGS demo) which has songs that seem to range from low quality to rather high.

I made this thread in the hopes of hearing of games that pushed the sound hardware as well as space in the DS whether it be in large amounts of voice acting, licensed songs, sound effects, or straight up vgm compositions. I hear Castlevania: PoR was of higher quality music but I have yet to hear it.

My Nods:

Brain Age - Composition - an odd choice but the game had such a distinctive musical direction that really added to the experience
Dawn of Sorrow - Composition - I wasn't that impressed with the quality but the compositions did show effort (ex. Subterranean Hell, Condemned Tower)
Tony Hawk's American Sk8land - Full length songs - This game had about 13 full-length songs which weren't cut like the ones on 64 Tony Hawks.

 

[Wario64]

Elite Beat Agents.

 

[Great Rumbler]

Elite Beat Agents.

Definitely.

 

[GotchaForce]

Electroplankton.

 

[soul creator]

electroplankton?

 

[tanasten]

Electroplankton!

 

[Great Rumbler]

electroplankton?

ELECTROPLANKTON.

 

[DeathbyVolcano]

Elite Beat Agents, Electroplankton, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrows and Portrait of Ruin (less so), Feel the Magic, Final Fantasy III, Meteos...uhhh, there's some more probably.

 

[mollipen]

M-06

 

[Zerodoppler]

How big are the carts now anyway? If they make another Castlevania, I hope they can go with pre-recorded music if it's not too expensive.

 

[EphemeralDream]

How big are the carts now anyway? If they make another Castlevania, I hope they can go with pre-recorded music if it's not too expensive.

Up to 128 Megabytes right now (1 Gbit) but they could probably go higher if necessary.

 

[Souldriver]

M-06

That's pretty cool actually.

 

[Zerodoppler]

Up to 128 Megabytes right now (1 Gbit) but they could probably go higher if necessary.

Still at 128... that's a shame. Maybe if a big game like DQIX uses a bigger cart, other developers will follow.

 

[Ranger X]

Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin are my fav DS games in matter of sound.

Just you wait when you plug your DS in your sound system.

 

[Community Forum]

Sonic Rush.

Hideki Naganuma goodness.

 

[DarknessTear]

Deep Labyrinth

 

[The Mighty Schwein]

All my picks for actual sound content have been said.

But I thought this was going to be about the speakers on the DS and the 'surround' option found in many games. That option makes certain sound effects sound great. Like the race win sound in Mario Kart comes to mind.

Normally I'd turn off any phony surround option, but not on the DS.

 

[bard]

Deep Labyrinth

Boss battle theme ftw!

I didn't think the sound on Elite Beat Agents was very good quality. Tinny, even with good earphones on. The Castlevania games do a great job as always.

And yes, Electroplankton. Duh.

 

[EphemeralDream]

Deep Labyrinth

I've been wondering about this game. Yasunori Mitsuda did the whole soundtrack?

All my picks for actual sound content have been said.

But I thought this was going to be about the speakers on the DS and the 'surround' option found in many games. That option makes certain sound effects sound great. Like the race win sound in Mario Kart comes to mind.

Normally I'd turn off any phony surround option, but not on the DS.

Can you elaborate on this? Does it actually take advantage of surround sound systems if you plug the DS into one? I usually just use in-earbuds.

Oh and here's some games I'm curious about in sound:
Mega Man ZX
Square-Enix titles (I remember reading that Final Fantasy III showed little signs of constraints. True?)
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time - Did Yoko Shimomura also do this game (she did the first M&L although it wasn't one of her best works IMO)

 

[My Arms Your Hearse]

Is this where we trot out the "this is like winning first in the Special Olympics" line?

 

[Tornado Condor]

Elite Beat Agents.

/thread

 

[Tarazet]

Metroid Prime Pinball tops everything else in the thread.

 

[cvxfreak]

I think Resident Evil DS had excellent sound quality. Certainly not too far off from the old PSone version. All the voice acting and original soundtrack intact.

 

[unifin]

OOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN

 

[Mejilan]

I've been wondering about this game. Yasunori Mitsuda did the whole soundtrack?

Yeah, all 15 songs of it. I liked it, but it wasn't up to his usual standards, save for perhaps 1 or 2 songs.

 

[dark10x]

M-06

OK, now that is cool. As she says, that really COULD be useful while travelling about. Throw on some headphones and try out some new stuff. Really slick.

 

[Sho Nuff]

Elite Beat Agents.

I guess we're talking sound, and not sound quality

DS sound makes me want to punch a baby

 

[The Mighty Schwein]

Can you elaborate on this? Does it actually take advantage of surround sound systems if you plug the DS into one? I usually just use in-earbuds.

Well like I said it is a phony surround, not the real deal by any means. I don't typically use headphones on my DS so I can't say how it sounds on headphones. But through the DS speakers it really does seem to make a difference. A nice one too.

If you have Mario Kart just win a race with the sound set to stereo, and then win one with it set to surround. You'll hear the difference, it's very pronounced.

 

[seat]

Agree with everything here so far, though I think Contact deserves a mention. Whoever composed that soundtrack is quite amazing.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

The surround effect on the DS is like Q-Sound but less tinny.

 

[ssoass]

I don't have anything to go by, but I think ASH will sound amazing for the DS.
Sakimoto always does a great job with music/synthesizer quality. (FFT from 1997 still has better sounding instruments than a lot of today's games)

 

[Jenga]

Portrait of ruin.

 

[HAL_Laboratory]

I happen to think the sound/music for Prime Hunters was really good.

 

[thestopsign]

Meteos has awesome music. I bought all the songs before the planets.

 

[fernie417]

There is a disappointing lack of Sonic Rush in here.

 

[trancejeremy]

I was really impressed at the sound effects for the spells and attacks in Magical Starsign. They made really good use of stereo.

 

[cae]

Electro-fucking-plankton. And i must add, Rhythm Tengoku has better sound than most DS games.

 

[Mak]

I think I heard Portrait of Ruin had higher quality music that was downconverted to the DS. You can hear some of the soundtrack on this page
http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/dracula_ds2/galleryof/sound.html

It seems like Nintendo has gone cheap on the sound quality in their systems since the SNES, after GBA, even the DS isn't clear as the SNES was.

Super Mario 64 DS sounded very faithful to the N64 version.

 

[FauX]

Portrait of ruin.

Totally agree!

This game sounds outstanding with stereo headphones... WOW! .... the OST... the best!

 

[underfooter]

Most people here have covered them.....




I'd even say Mario Kart DS. The music was quite good, they remade all of the classic songs from their GBA, SNES, or N64 counterpart.

 

[Error]

Rockman ZX - Voice Acting, not just a couple of cutscenes every cutscene is fully voice acted in the game. at least the JP version.

Castlevania PoR - composition and quality imo. the songs are great and the quality is pretty good.

I havent played EBA or Elektroplankton tho.

 

[commissar]

How can someone not mention Gunpey DS?

The sheer music creation options in that game is amazing.

 

[jman2050]

There is a disappointing lack of Sonic Rush in here.

Agreed

 

[fernoca]

Resident Evil: Deadly Silence

Voice acting..orchestrated soundtrack...guns..foot steps... etc...etc..(aside for the movies both CG and.well..not CG)

 

[EphemeralDream]

I think I heard Portrait of Ruin had higher quality music that was downconverted to the DS. You can hear some of the soundtrack on this page
http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/dracula_ds2/galleryof/sound.html

It seems like Nintendo has gone cheap on the sound quality in their systems since the SNES, after GBA, even the DS isn't clear as the SNES was.

Super Mario 64 DS sounded very faithful to the N64 version.

Sad but true. Even though I don't have a surround sound system (I would like to build one within this year though), I was pretty disappointed that the Wii was only going to support Pro Logic II and didn't include optical out ports. In many cases I'd take greater effort into audio over effort into graphics.

Appreciate the notes Error2k4. I'd like to see what was good about the audio in a certain game (as you did) rather than "____ had awesome music". Phoenix Wright has awesome music but the quality wasn't stellar for even a GBA game.

I actually own RES (never owned an RE prior to 4) but I didn't get very far in it before backlogging it. I do remember the VA sounding very clear as has been mentioned but of course the dialogue is camp heaven.

 

[MegaTen]

If Sound Voyager had come out for DS instead of GBA, I'd say that. Otherwise, M-06 and Electroplankton.

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

EBA and PoR by a good mile.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Band Brothers should definitely win the LEAST impressive achievement for sound.

The game was cool, but the awful sound quality really turned me off from it.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

Mario 64 DS: it showed that the DS was capable of both emulating N64 music and GCN music through it's midi sound hardware alone.

 

[edbrat]

Meteos! Meteos! Meteos! (with headphones)

oh ok I should list Electroplankton and EBA too.