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Which games have better music: Mario, or Sonic?

Falk said:
MGS theme actually had similarities, in that if you put them on top of one another, a significant amount of it lined up. (Which still honestly says nothing conclusive about plagiarism to be quite honest - finite number of possible permutations and such) and has less to do with what you're suggesting, which is an ethnic styling.

Beyond the chord scales, none of the examples you floated line up in the least. Believe me, I spent time checking.

p.s. the "Asian riff" you're referring to is basically pentatonic scale. Whip out a keyboard and randomly hit black keys. That's exactly what you get.
Click to expand...

Sanity check here, are you denying that the first 5 seconds of this -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA06B3icQQY
Is an imitation of the first 5 seconds of this (or any other playing of a 400 year old tune, nothing exact)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2V8GEiVeak

Are you also saying that the "Asian Riff" (just a quote of the wikipedia article), is not commonly used as a stereotyped "Oriental" sound, and that Mario Land's wasn't a variation of that?

ps I should mention I look at Chai Kingdom's as just a "cute" opening that doesn't really permeate the rest of the song like I view the other one in my examples.
 
flak57 said:
Sanity check here, are you denying that the first 5 seconds of this -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA06B3icQQY
Is an imitation of the first 5 seconds of this (or any other playing of a 400 year old tune, nothing exact)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2V8GEiVeak
Click to expand...

Whoops, you're absolutely right there*. My bad! Was scrubbing way too far into each track in a hurry.

Are you also saying that the "Asian Riff" (just a quote of the wikipedia article), is not commonly used as a stereotyped "Oriental" sound, and that Mario Land's wasn't a variation of that?
Click to expand...

Pentatonic has been very closely associated with mainland Chinese music for a good long while, in large part thanks to the construction of several ethnic Chinese instruments.

It's come to the point where simply noodling on a pentatonic scale evokes that impression.

e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5XYq7T2uQY#t=30s
e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWcjmZfv3sM#t=15s

(from random googling, mind you, not stuff I had off top of head, heh)

Asian riff is one way to describe it, but pentatonic scales are used in many more things as well. In other words, drawing a Venn diagram in terms of use case, one is a subset of the other, but the reverse isn't true!

And we've officially derailed the thread even harder than Nintendo soundtracks vs SEGA soundtracks!

edit: *I think it bears specifically saying: your usage of the term 'remix' in that case is actually not wrong. I owe an apology.
 
Bakkus said:
I have listened to some Shenmue music before. I actually own Panzer Dragoon 1 and Zwei, but have only played the first chapters of 1 (damn it's hard), will probably listen to the soundtracks of the other ones in the near future!

Does other games in the series have a better soundtrack than the first one?
Click to expand...

The short answer is: "No. No it does not. The original is fucking flawless, wtf?" :P

The longer answer is that it depends really. I don't personally think any of the original compositions created for later games are on the same level as Magical Sound Shower, Passing Breeze and Splash Wave (though many are very, very good still)... but if you thought those were "meh", then our musical taste is far enough apart that I wouldn't be at all surprised if you preferred the music from later entries. The original three tracks are so deeply ingrained into the Outrun series, that they get the "Mario" treatment, in that they are constantly remixed and kept in pretty much every iteration of the game. You may find that Outrun 2 versions of the tracks specifically to be more to your liking.

This playlist contains basically everything Outrun there is. There's a good amount of redundancy in there (for example having the arcade, Genesis, etc version of the original game's tracks), but if you use this and follow the notes at the bottom, you should be able to easily sample a few tracks from carious games. Some of the spinoff games had much more uptempo tracks (such as Turbo Outrun and Outrunners), sometimes sounding more along the lines of a Ridge Racer game, so those may be to your preference.

Definitely give the Outrun 2 arrangements of the original tracks a listen though, because although I'm aware that tastes differ, hearing these tracks described as meh made me respond in a similar way to if someone had just told me they thought Stickerbrush Symphony was meh... these tracks are vgm royalty, lol.

Also, definitely give the Panzer Dragoon stuff a listen. Zwei in particular has my single favourite vgm track ever in The Unexpected Enemy.
 
jehuty said:
Although Sonic games have had great music, Mario wins.

The reason, Mario games always have music that fit their levels perfectly.
Click to expand...

It's kind of in the job description for a score to fit the image it's accompanying, so I'm not sure Mario wins this because it has a fairly generic sounding Egyptian track playing in a pyramid level. Both franchises usually don't have much of a problem with the appropriateness of the background music in my opinion, with a few exceptions on both sides.

Also, on a more subjective note, I really love Dire Dire Docks but I always pictured something darker and more foreboding playing in that level because of its gloomy colour palette and the scary looking eel down below. The water levels in Sonic like Hydrocity and Aquarium Park have super fitting music. DDD is still a great track though, especially the way it builds up depending on where you are in the stage.
 
MrBadger said:
It's kind of in the job description for a score to fit the image it's accompanying, so I'm not sure Mario wins this because it has a fairly generic sounding Egyptian track playing in a pyramid level. Both franchises usually don't have much of a problem with the appropriateness of the background music in my opinion, with a few exceptions on both sides.

Also, on a more subjective note, I really love Dire Dire Docks but I always pictured something darker and more foreboding playing in that level because of its gloomy colour palette and the scary looking eel down below. The water levels in Sonic like Hydrocity and Aquarium Park have super fitting music. DDD is still a great track though, especially the way it builds up depending on where you are in the stage.
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I think anyone claiming Sonic's music doesn't fit its levels, can pretty much be disregarded off-the-bat tbh. That's legitimately ridiculous.
 
Mario doesnt have Vector and large loudspeakers.
So Sonic it is

maxresdefault.jpg
 
Falk said:
Whoops, you're absolutely right there*. My bad! Was scrubbing way too far into each track in a hurry.



Pentatonic has been very closely associated with mainland Chinese music for a good long while, in large part thanks to the construction of several ethnic Chinese instruments.

It's come to the point where simply noodling on a pentatonic scale evokes that impression.

e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5XYq7T2uQY#t=30s
e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWcjmZfv3sM#t=15s

(from random googling, mind you, not stuff I had off top of head, heh)

Asian riff is one way to describe it, but pentatonic scales are used in many more things as well. In other words, drawing a Venn diagram in terms of use case, one is a subset of the other, but the reverse isn't true!

And we've officially derailed the thread even harder than Nintendo soundtracks vs SEGA soundtracks!

edit: *I think it bears specifically saying: your usage of the term 'remix' in that case is actually not wrong. I owe an apology.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the diplomatic response even though you disagree with my originals ;) Lemmings 2 had a similar spot at the 19 sec mark. Those two aren't like the others where I just feel they had that specific 5 sec bit in mind (The jingle was pretty implanted where I live in the us, everyone knew it but didn't know how they did).

Mostly, I had to give Oil Ocean a cool entrance against that Mario Land track.
 
Mario has great music but I don't like how in New Super Mario Bros. there is that low quality Yoshi-like sound that's all "blagh er blah" and pops up in most of the tracks that's super annoying
 
Both are great but I slightly prefer Mario. SMW, SMB3, SM64 and the Galaxy games are some of the greatest soundtracks in gaming. Sonic 1, 2, 3&K are up there as well.
 
I largely prefer Mario but Sonic has some fucking amazing tracks too. Love the Colors and Generations soundtracks. Oh and Sonic Rush as well. Mario wise I love Yoshi's Island's OST, Galaxy, 3D World. SMB3 and world as well have solid as well. If we expand past main series mario there are lots of other great tracks too.
 
Mario.

I can't even remember how any of the sonic music sounds. And mostly anyone (my age) I know can do the Super Mario Bros theme song without hearing it to get a hint.

Pretty sure sonic had cool music, but nothing memorable for me.
 
BGBW said:
Exactly. I wouldn't touch their music with a barge pole.
Click to expand...
Crush 40 is awesome. They've done a lot of great work with the Sonic franchise. I mean, you know the band is talented when they can create a new song which has lyrics that just reference their previous songs in Sonic games:

Crush 40 - Sonic Youth

Edit:

PreFire said:
Mario.

I can't even remember how any of the sonic music sounds. And mostly anyone (my age) I know can do the Super Mario Bros theme song without hearing it to get a hint.

Pretty sure sonic had cool music, but nothing memorable for me.
Click to expand...
That's because the Mario theme is bascially all Nintendo does, endless remixs of those tired notes. Which is why Sonic music, with it's ambition and creativity, will always be better then Mario music.
 
PreFire said:
Mario.

I can't even remember how any of the sonic music sounds. And mostly anyone (my age) I know can do the Super Mario Bros theme song without hearing it to get a hint.

Pretty sure sonic had cool music, but nothing memorable for me.
Click to expand...
Well yes, that's because you've listened to roughly five thousand remixes and renditions of the Super Mario Bros theme. Often with multiple versions in the same game.

Not because the Super Mario Bros theme is better than Green Hill Zone or the like.
 
BGBW said:
Decided to pick out some stand out examples for each:

Sonic:

Believe in Myself - Sonic Adventure 2
It Doesn't Matter - Sonic Adventure 2
Windy Hill - Zone 1 - Sonic Lost World
Sea Bottom Segue - Sonic Lost World
Dr. Eggman Showdown - Sonic Lost World
Staff Roll/Credits - Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Rooftop Run: Act 3 - Sonic Generations
Sping Emotions - Sonic Runners
Area - Planet Wisp - Sonic Colors (DS)
Ice Mountain Zone Act 2 - Sonic Advance

Mario:

Overworld - Super Mario Bros.
Slider - Super Mario 64
Ending Theme - Super Mario World
Fever - Dr. Mario
Flower Garden - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Athletic - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Rainbow Road - Mario Kart 8
Invincible - Super Mario Bros.

Overall, I think the Mario appeal goes my way a bit more. Sonic songs are cool though. The one thing halating its current dark existence.
Click to expand...

That "it doesn't matter" is a SilvaGunner upload, a high quality rip of sorts
(its a mix with snow halation from Love Live, LMAO)

Nevermind, lookig at the other links, you seem to be such a fan of SilviaGunner, right?
 
Kintor said:
Crush 40 is awesome. They've done a lot of great work with the Sonic franchise. I mean, you know the band is talented when they can create a new song which has lyrics that just reference their previous songs in Sonic games:

Crush 40 - Sonic Youth

Edit:


That's because the Mario theme is bascially all Nintendo does, endless remixs of those tired notes. Which is why Sonic music, with it's ambition and creativity, will always be better then Mario music.
Click to expand...

Not really. I find it insane that people think that mario simply reuses thr same music over and over. Its there most iconic theme so they use it more than other but its hardly an endless stream. How is Yoshi's Island at all similar to its predessors for example?f
 
Gotdatmoney said:
Not really. I find it insane that people think that mario simply reuses thr same music over and over. Its there most iconic theme so they use it more than other but its hardly an endless stream. How is Yoshi's Island at all similar to its predessors for example?f
Click to expand...

It's no lie that Mario music is reused more than Sonic music, though. The vast majority of cave levels will have some variation of that SMB1 bass line. And a lot of Mario games have, for example, an overworld theme that's played on multiple stages throughout one game, an athletic theme (often remixed from SMB3) that plays in multiple stages and a Bowser/castle theme that plays in the last stage of every world. Out of the mainline Mario games, only Galaxy doesn't completely fall into this formula.

Adding on to this, Super Mario World and NSMB have one central melody that is remixed multiple times. Every stage but the boss themes have that motif in SMW. And of course, three out of four NSMB games have the exact same musical arrangements throughout, with NSMBU having a few new tracks and NSMB2 adding more "bah" sounds and calling it a day. The only original piece of music in NSMB2 is a remix of Super Mario World's boss theme.

With Sonic, usually you get two arrangements of one track, which exclusively plays in that one world. And it's rare to hear a remixed stage theme unless you're literally revisiting this stage. For example, Green Hill, Emerald Hill, Seaside Hill, Splash Hill and Windy Hill all blatantly take after each other, but the only time you'll hear Green Hill's music is in the gens and mania versions of that stage. Off the top of my head, the only music you're guaranteed to hear in a Sonic game is this or this.
 
Gotdatmoney said:
Not really. I find it insane that people think that mario simply reuses thr same music over and over. Its there most iconic theme so they use it more than other but its hardly an endless stream. How is Yoshi's Island at all similar to its predessors for example?
Click to expand...

It's not really.... but...

It's also not "iconic". Nobody's talking about Above Ground or any other random Yoshi's Island track when they say that Mario's music is iconic and everyone could hum it. If you were to draw a venn diagram of Mario music that the average person can recall from the top of their heads, and Mario music that's seen approximately 100 remixes over the course of multiple decades, then it would basically just be a circle. Those handful of tracks will be more recognisable than the majority of Sonic's music, but then anything outside of them would sit far, far behind pretty much every zone's music for every Genesis Sonic up to 3&K.

Arguing purely about how "iconic" a music track is, is a poor argument in relation to its quality. Tearaway's soundtrack destroys a significant amount of VGM, but that's not going to matter if pretty much nobody's ever heard it, because few played the game itself (I haven't actually play it myself). This somewhat extends to many people saying that 2D Sonic's music was strong (because it's similarly recognisable).. but if they haven't heard tracks from say the Saturn version of Sonic 3D Blast, then they're unaware of how good some of the later tracks are.

MrBadger said:
It's no lie that Mario music is reused more than Sonic music, though. The vast majority of cave levels will have some variation of that SMB1 bass line. And a lot of Mario games have, for example, an overworld theme that's played on multiple stages throughout one game, an athletic theme (often remixed from SMB3) that plays in multiple stages and a Bowser/castle theme that plays in the last stage of every world. Out of the mainline Mario games, only Galaxy doesn't completely fall into this formula.

Adding on to this, Super Mario World and NSMB have one central melody that is remixed multiple times. Every stage but the boss themes have that motif in SMW. And of course, three out of four NSMB games have the exact same musical arrangements throughout, with NSMBU having a few new tracks and NSMB2 adding more "bah" sounds and calling it a day. The only original piece of music in NSMB2 is a remix of Super Mario World's boss theme.

With Sonic, usually you get two arrangements of one track, which exclusively plays in that one world. And it's rare to hear a remixed stage theme unless you're literally revisiting this stage. For example, Green Hill, Emerald Hill, Seaside Hill, Splash Hill and Windy Hill all blatantly take after each other, but the only time you'll hear Green Hill's music is in the gens and mania versions of that stage. Off the top of my head, the only music you're guaranteed to hear in a Sonic game is this or this.
Click to expand...

f7FdEdG.jpg
 
MrBadger said:
It's no lie that Mario music is reused more than Sonic music, though.
Click to expand...

Sure, but it's not an endless stream of remixes like he said. If we are comparing the 2 series as a whole their is so so so much new unique music produced in every Mario game. I certainly agree they have remixes in many games but it's vastly vastly outstripped by new music.

The vast majority of cave levels will have some variation of that SMB1 bass line. And a lot of Mario games have, for example, an overworld theme that's played on multiple stages throughout one game, an athletic theme (often remixed from SMB3) that plays in multiple stages and a Bowser/castle theme that plays in the last stage of every world. Out of the mainline Mario games, only Galaxy doesn't completely fall into this formula.
Click to expand...

Most of the 3D games have their own music played in a few stages. But Mario games contain many more levels than sonic games on average so I don't agree with the idea that the overall mix of music is significantly reused. When your game has 7 zones and 2 stages in each zone (or 6 and 3) why wouldn't you use more unique music? Yoshi's Island has 54 stages, Sonic 1, 2 and 3 put together have roughly the same amount :/ I don't really consider that an apt comparison. If you span 3 mario games you'll probably come across roughly the same amount of unique music as 3 sonic games, especially the newer Mario games which are way more remix heavy.

Adding on to this, Super Mario World and NSMB have one central melody that is remixed multiple times. Every stage but the boss themes have that motif in SMW.
Click to expand...
In SMW I would say the overworld and underwater themes are basically identical melodies but I don't feel athletic is the same melody, nor are the boo houses nor the other music in the game like bonus rooms, underground etc so naw I disgree with you here.

And of course, three out of four NSMB games have the exact same musical arrangements throughout, with NSMBU having a few new tracks and NSMB2 adding more "bah" sounds and calling it a day. The only original piece of music in NSMB2 is a remix of Super Mario World's boss theme.
Click to expand...
Won't argue the NSMB games, they reuse too much shit.

With Sonic, usually you get two arrangements of one track, which exclusively plays in that one world. And it's rare to hear a remixed stage theme unless you're literally revisiting this stage. For example, Green Hill, Emerald Hill, Seaside Hill, Splash Hill and Windy Hill all blatantly take after each other, but the only time you'll hear Green Hill's music is in the gens and mania versions of that stage. Off the top of my head, the only music you're guaranteed to hear in a Sonic game is this or this.
Click to expand...

I agree sonic is better with not reusing music but that wasn't my point, my point was the Mario series taken as a whole does produce tons of new music for their games, its not just all remixes. Especially for the 3D entries.

Synth said:
It's not really.... but...

It's also not "iconic".
Click to expand...

That really has nothing to do with my point though. Mario 1 through Sunshine really don't utilize much remixed music. That's much more a trend in the NSMB games and remixes in the 3D games which have ton of newly composed music. When we are talking about best Mario soundtrack's I'm totally talking about Yoshi's Island. It's not some obscure game, it sold 5 million copies lol.

Nobody's talking about Above Ground or any other random Yoshi's Island track when they say that Mario's music is iconic and everyone could hum it. If you were to draw a venn diagram of Mario music that the average person can recall from the top of their heads, and Mario music that's seen approximately 100 remixes over the course of multiple decades, then it would basically just be a circle. Those handful of tracks will be more recognisable than the majority of Sonic's music, but then anything outside of them would sit far, far behind pretty much every zone's music for every Genesis Sonic up to 3&K.
Click to expand...

We aren't talking about the average person, we are talking about gaf, a collection of people who have probably played every Mario and Sonic mainline game released :P I wasn't defending the talk about mario music being more memorable, I was saying that the series is hardly endless remixes. That's what I responded to, I don't see how anyone could actually believe that. This isn't even me taking shots against Sonic's soundtrack. Sonic Rush is one of my favourite soundtracks and the original genesis games, generations, colors and unleashed all have fantastic music (I personally find the dreamcast era stuff bad but that's just me)

3D Worlds soundtrack which was the last main line game is just tired remixes of old tunes? It has remixes but yall actually agree with "That's because the Mario theme is basically all Nintendo does, endless remixes of those tired notes."? Really?
 
Gotdatmoney said:
That really has nothing to do with my point though. Mario 1 through Sunshine really don't utilize much remixed music. That's much more a trend in the NSMB games and remixes in the 3D games which have ton of newly composed music. When we are talking about best Mario soundtrack's I'm totally talking about Yoshi's Island. It's not some obscure game, it sold 5 million copies lol.
Click to expand...

In that case, your point probably shouldn't come on the back of a reply chain beginning with...

PreFire said:
And mostly anyone (my age) I know can do the Super Mario Bros theme song without hearing it to get a hint.
Click to expand...

No, Mario music isn't comprised entirely of tracks that have been beaten into people since birth... but when someone uses it (or Zelda, or Tetris, or... etc) being iconic... these are the tracks they're talking about.

If you consider Yoshi's Island to be one of the stronger/strongest Mario soundtracks, then that's great. But you're not arguing that it's stronger because more people (your age, lol) could hum it back to you... that's the context of the post you're responding to.

Gotdatmoney said:
We aren't talking about the average person, we are talking about gaf, a collection of people who have probably played every Mario and Sonic mainline game released :P I wasn't defending the talk about mario music being more memorable, I was saying that the series is hardly endless remixes. That's what I responded to, I don't see how anyone could actually believe that. This isn't even me taking shots against Sonic's soundtrack. Sonic Rush is one of my favourite soundtracks and the original genesis games, generations, colors and unleashed all have fantastic music (I personally find the dreamcast era stuff bad but that's just me)
Click to expand...

I think you're giving GAF waaaaaaay too much credit here. Every mainline Mario? Sure. Every Genesis Sonic? Sure. Sonic 3D Blast (either version)? CD (either version)? Unleashed? Lost World? 2k6? No, I'm not at all convinced the majority of GAF played these games, and know their music beyond the Escape from the City's, Pumpkin Hill's and Can You Feel The Sunshine's. This is a forum that regularly argues that the series hasn't had a good entry since 1994 (or even that it was never good, period). Hell, we only just recently had someone laughing off the idea of music in Sega games being better than Nintendo's... and then having to quickly run off to brush up on what Shinobi, Super Hang-On, NiGHTS, Afterburner, Outrun and Panzer Dragoon sound like...
 
Gotdatmoney said:
Most of the 3D games have their own music played in a few stages. But Mario games contain many more levels than sonic games on average so I don't agree with the idea that the overall mix of music is significantly reused. When your game has 7 zones and 2 stages in each zone (or 6 and 3) why wouldn't you use more unique music? Yoshi's Island has 54 stages, Sonic 1, 2 and 3 put together have roughly the same amount :/
Click to expand...

Not too invested in this branch of the argument, but I do feel like noting that for those 54 stages, YI has a total of five themes.
 
Gotdatmoney said:
words
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I'm sure the poster you replied to didn't literally mean Mario is nothing but remixes, but when people talk about memorable Mario music, they're usually talking about one of the retro tracks that frequently gets remixed, or 3D Land's main theme, which you will hear countless times between the title screen and the staff roll. Mario games are just constructed differently to Sonic games so I'm not saying either choice of music placement is bad or wrong. I just want to deconstruct the idea of Mario music being more inherently memorable (and therefore somehow better) than Sonic music.

Sidenote, if you give the SMW soundtrack another listen, you might pick up on the motif they reuse in some way in every track. Even Super Mario Maker's entirely original Airship music reuses it, which I think's pretty neat
 
Figured I'd drop a small list of Mario music I consider "memorable." For the sake of discussion, I'm only picking ones that I have more or less memorized, and aren't from any of the mainline titles (2D or 3D). I'm also limiting myself to three per game so I'm not posting entire soundtracks.

Adventure's End - Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
Dreamy Somnom Labyrinth - Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
Antasma - Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
The Wastelands - Mario Strikers Charged
Crystal Canyon - Mario Strikers Charged
Highlights - Mario Strikers Charged
Endlessly Hungry - Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Bowser Battle - Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Megasparkle Goomba's Brilliant Battle
Champion of Destruction - Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario - Memory
Super Paper Mario - The Ultimate Show
Macho Grubba - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Rawk Hawk - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Final Battle - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Circuit - Mario Kart 64
Credits - Mario Kart 64
Rainbow Road - Mario Kart 64
Bowser Jr. Boulevard - Mario Sports Mix
Mansion Exterior - Luigi's Mansion
Credits - Luigi's Mansion

There's more, but I'm too lazy to go find them. And the list would absolutely balloon if I included mainline titles.

So there ya go.
 
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