SOTN on PC Engine

[spenoza]

Konami's PCE chiptunes are definitely competent, but not technically spectacular the way their laTer NES tunes were, with the exception on Parodius. On the NES Konami was big on sampled percussion, yet only Parodius appears to do this on the PCE.

[ToyMachine78]

When it comes to NES, I'm a sunsoft tunes man myself.

[Mathius]

Konami's PCE chiptunes are definitely competent, but not technically spectacular the way their laTer NES tunes were, with the exception on Parodius. On the NES Konami was big on sampled percussion, yet only Parodius appears to do this on the PCE.

The NES and MSX got all of Konami's chiptune juice for whatever reason. I still prefer the NES soundtrack to Life Force over PCE's Salamander PSG. Sunsoft's PCE development team was laughably small yet they still did great tunes unique to the Engine. It's a mystery why Konami didn't put in the same effort.

[Arkhan Asylum]

It's interesting that in some cases, the Konami SCC version of songs sound better than the PCE ones.

Salamander being the prime example.  The PC Engine soundtrack is fucking weak by comparison.

just listen to Stage 1 on both:

The PCE one's percussion is "technically better" in that it's samples... but it completely lacks the percussive snap of the MSX one and sounds pretty weak.

The leads on the PCE are also a mixed bag of "what the fuck is going on here", and it's not mixed particularly well.

They did more with less on the MSX.   It's confusing, honestly.

On MSX, they TECHNICALLY had 2 more channels (SCC is 5 channels, plus 3 PSG channels).   That gives you extras with shades of gray since 3 are goony PSG channels that end up being for SFX or combined for percussion.   

But, they had no panning options.   They can also only use 4 unique voices vs. the PCE's 6.

The only thing the SCC does that PCE doesn't, is that the waveforms (IIRC), while still 32 bytes, are actual 8bit values, whereas PCE is 5bit.

At least they got their shit together for Parodius.

The MSX Contra soundtrack isn't that fantastic either.


I think I would prefer a CD soundtrack for Contra, something akin to what they did with HardCorps.

I actually enjoyed the Legacy of War soundtrack on PS1 alot, too.   It was pretty ambient at times.  Too bad the game itself was so clumsy.

I remember Contra Adventure being pretty OK too... and the game itself being pretty not OK.


what I am getting at is, a CD soundtrack might be good.


Just use Vomitron's soundtrack, or the other metal OCRemix stuff, lol

hell fucking yeah.

[Michirin9801]

Yeah true, Konami's PSG soundtracks on the PCE weren't their best, I was mostly thinking of their SCC tunes when I commented that... Which as we've seen from ccovell's recent music disk, translate pretty well onto the PCE!

But seriously, if converted by the right person, the Contra soundtrack could sound pretty great on the PCE PSG!

(Don't look at me, if I am to do some Konami music I'll do more Twinbee...)

When it comes to NES, I'm a sunsoft tunes man myself.

Agreed whole-heartedly ;3

[Arkhan Asylum]

Which as we've seen from ccovell's recent music disk, translate pretty well onto the PCE!

as they should, since, aside from the 5/8bit difference, the PCE can do all of the same stuff, and more, lol.

The Snatcher soundtrack on PCE CD wasn't that great either compared to the MSX equivalents.   Snatcher on MSX had the SCC+ though.    That gave it more ram, and each channel could have it's own waveform.

Sometimes the PCE one was OK compared to MSX for it, but it's still really weird how the MSX versions seem to be overall, better soundtracks for all of the games.


Squirrel and the overall MML setup for it was partially inspired by MusicA on MSX, and the fact that it supported SCC and proved it was a functional setup for making music for games.

It sucks the PCE doesn't have a keyboard though, because I would totally revive the OLDDDD version of Squirrel player that stored MML strings in memory and parse/played, to give some sort of "live fiddling" capabilities.

[Mathius]

Speaking of Snatcher I rate the PSG in the game dead last. I've not heard the SCC versions, but compared to the Mega CD Snatcher's sections with chiptunes the PCE chiptunes sound horrible. I've tried to hear something in the PCE version to endear itself to me but it hasn't happened yet.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Speaking of Snatcher I rate the PSG in the game dead last. I've not heard the SCC versions, but compared to the Mega CD Snatcher's sections with chiptunes the PCE chiptunes sound horrible. I've tried to hear something in the PCE version to endear itself to me but it hasn't happened yet. 

You can sometimes catch nice moments in some of the tunes mostly because the leads are nice and warm.  The Neo Kobe christmas tune is OK!


but it's pretty fuckin limp overall.   The fuckin dope intro CD music should have just been there for the whole game.   That stuff ruled.  Fuckin cyberpunk saxophone sexrock.

I think the MSX  one is overall the nicest soundtrack for that game.    The Megadrive one sometimes sounds pretty cool and SciFi, but it's also kinda wonky.   I'm too used to the MSX one.

That little jingle at the start when it splashes the text about cyberpunkers is pretty cool.  I don't recall it in the PCE or Megadrive ones.