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SNES vs Genesis Sound

Gamegeneral

Member
I don't have any samples to post, but my two cents is that both chips produced amazing results when used to their fullest, and I have just as much nostalgia for the Genesis sound as I do the Snes.
 

@MUWANdo

Banned
Okay, so, this is a personal and somewhat complex web of nonsense involving a highly unstable individual I was friends and briefly FWBs with, but I can only assume there will be a never-ending clusterfuck on gaf now until the end of time, which inevitably involves you guys and gals on the mod team in some way, so I'm an open book here. The woman in question ended up being completely psychotic and held a grudge against me after a bizarre love triangle situation developed a few years ago between me, her, and another girl (the other girl I ended up in a long-term relationship with shortly thereafter). This NOLA story she apparently just put up on social media is a delusion of a deeply disturbed person who had a total psychological breakdown as a result of me and the other girl getting together, because she (phew, yeah...) became obsessively infatuated with the other girl (she's bi) on sight when the three of us met up. I wanted to just stay friends with the girl making the accusation and made it super super clear ahead of time that me and the other girl were interested in each other romantically and that could play out as such when we met up. Supposedly this was not a problem for her from accusation, but in reality she uhhh wanted me to die painfully after seeing me and the other girl interact. Plus she became infatuated with the other girl simultaneously to this (she's bi), which created the aforementioned bizarre love triangle that ended up causing her to implode and have an apparently very intense and long-lasting grudge. The whole story about how that love triangle thing played out is, frankly, nuts and scary, and involves this girl bringing us to a compound of dangerous scientology spinoff cultists on that same trip, who roofied us, attempted to recruit/scam me and attempted to abduct/rape the girl I ended up dating, in what was a fucking scary situation that resulted in me and the other girl and the rest of my friend circle never speaking to this girl from the accusation again.
 
I don't know if I'm weird because I've always been obsessed with music but even as a kid I recognized and loved the musical aspect of games. I wanted a drum set because of Shining Force, I banged on our cheap keyboard to try to mimic Zero's theme, I'd "play Castlevania" on the playground with friends and shit would go down when I started to "sing" Bloody Tears, and I'd go on and on about Sonic the Hedgehog's music to my mom.

I'd say that music was probably a large factor in whether or not I liked a game back then. I wasn't always good at games -- in fact, Shining Force took me months to beat because I didn't understand how RPGs worked -- but it didn't matter if the art style, theme, and music sucked me in.
 

EdgeXL

Member
The SNES had better sound capabilities than the Genesis though a talented developer could make some amazing work on Genesis.

The Genesis sound is more distinctive though. You can hear that Genesis twang and know it is a Genesis game without looking at the screen.

Game Boy also has very distinctive sounds.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
I had no idea the Bloodlines soundtrack had any "issues" like that, kinda weird considering it may be my favorite Genesis soundtrack.

Also I feel like we need a Genesis music appreciation thread. It's what this has turned into basically but it clashes with the actual thread relevant discussion IMO.


Superb rearrangement. It's one of my favorite CV tunes so I was ecstatic to see it pop up on my YT feed. Loved the info bits on the video as well.
 
I had no idea the Bloodlines soundtrack had any "issues" like that, kinda weird considering it may be my favorite Genesis soundtrack.

Also I feel like we need a Genesis music appreciation thread. It's what this has turned into basically but it clashes with the actual thread relevant discussion IMO.



Superb rearrangement. It's one of my favorite CV tunes so I was ecstatic to see it pop up on my YT feed. Loved the info bits on the video as well.

That's because FM synth is the best: true fact.

If we were to do a separate Genesis thread, I'd prefer it to be FM synth in general. Then I could post my favorite X68k soundtracks.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Oh, an FM synth in games thread would be fantastic for sure. My recent discovery of Genesis sound goodness has made me appreciate FM a lot and now I'm in love, but I'm still very ignorant in the matter, so seeing more examples from a larger pool of games would be awesome.
 
Oh, an FM synth in games thread would be fantastic for sure. My recent discovery of Genesis sound goodness has made me appreciate FM a lot and now I'm in love, but I'm still very ignorant in the matter, so seeing more examples from a larger pool of games would be awesome.

My problem with FM Synth is that all the games sound like they come from a single instrument...because they do.

SNES is more flexible in that regard.
 

Soodanim

Member
Even though I've been playing the SNES Mini and Super Mario World has some of the most memorable music ever, I still prefer the Mega Drive sound.
 

AlteredBeast

Fork 'em, Sparky!
I love how this thread evolved from the SNES vs Genny aspect of the topic to just posting sweet 16-bit tracks. :)

I mean, the debate was over with Midnight Resistance - Flood of Power on the Genesis bettering anything the SNES ever touched, but it is great to discover and rediscover some classics of the era!
 

Timu

Member
I love how this thread evolved from the SNES vs Genny aspect of the topic to just posting sweet 16-bit tracks. :)

I mean, the debate was over with Midnight Resistance - Flood of Power on the Genesis bettering anything the SNES ever touched, but it is great to discover and rediscover some classics of the era!
Yeah, such amazing music that might had sounded better than the arcade version even!
 

AlteredBeast

Fork 'em, Sparky!
I would take one of those links, too if it is out there.

I don't typically just listen to video game music unless I am in the mood for some nostalgia, but Flood of Power is one I make an exception for. Hot damn is that a good track.
 
So my 13yr old has been playing through Chrono Trigger and I'm getting major nostalgia from it. It reminded me of how much a sound chip mattered in the 16bit days. I have been listening to You Tube videos of SNES and Genesis music and to me the SNES is far superior, but I am willing to be proven wrong. So in this thread post links to 16bit music samples from SNES and Genesis that represent the best of what 16bit sound has to offer.


SNES had far superior sound and color, while Genesis had far superior speed. Genesis MHz were double that of SNES, so sports games played MUCH better, as in Hockey or football. More characters on screen SNES had issue's with, eapecially at high speeds, games would slow down to a snails pace at times as in sports, while sports games for genesis ran like a charm! I was a geek (my bro even more so) back in the early 90's and me and my older bro would buy the same game for both systems at times just to compare.


Games like MK 2 were far superior on SNES due to sound and color advantages.
 

lucius

Member
Sound effects were more distinct usually on SNES but if you listen to something like streets of rage 2 it seems unmatched in sound in that generation.
 

StarErik

Neo Member
Both are great in their own way. The Mega Drive sound is really great, when music is composed with the FM chip in mind, as in exclusive games. But when it comes to games that were on both consoles, SNES is the winner.
 

Futaleufu

Member

The Genesis had better audio hardware than the arcade original. The Genesis audio hardware was on par with many of the arcade games of the late 80s.
 
I don't have any nostalgia for either console as I was an Amiga kid, but I prefer the best of the Genesis' music to the best of the SNES.

One of the latest videos on the Coding Secrets YT series shows how one of the Toy Story developers got around some of the limitations of the Genesis audio chip:

https://youtu.be/x3m3JrVImmU

It's impressive stuff and worth a watch if you have a few minutes to spare.
 

Sleepydays

Banned
I grew up with the SNES, and at the time it sounded so much better than the Genesis to my ears. There are a fair amount of Gen games that have that abrasive farty/raspy sound to them, and I seem to have heard more of them than not back then.

I've been listening to the wonderful Legacy Music Hour podcasts a lot recently, it's given me a new appreciation for the Genesis. There's really nothing on the SNES that holds a candle to something like Lightening Force, or SOR. It's just got to be in the hands of someone who understands what FM synth is all about.
 
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