Moldorian Game Gear Game Recording

May 18th, 2009 niki

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I recorded this tiny rip from a nicovideo.jp sound test video. The music is by Hitoshi Sakimoto, and there are indeed neat melodies here and there. And hey, it’s a Game Gear RPG ! That alone made it deserve a recording …

Enjoy !

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Wizardry Gaiden 1 & 2 Game Boy Game Recordings

May 17th, 2009 niki

cover1More Wizardry Gaiden ! Ripped recently this time, from Kingshriek‘s GBS archives.

Compared to episode 3, the first 2 Wizardry Gaiden games stand less by their beautiful melodies than by their kickass battle themes. It always amazes me to see the power and passion some composers could pull from a couple primitive wave sound channels. I definitely encourage you guys to find the arrange albums for these series. In fact, basically anything Ikuro Fujiwara is worth getting. :3

Enjoy !

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edit: “Actually, the rips were done by anonymous 2CH ripper (and later reripped from GBR to GBS by ugetab). Kingshriek did the GBS from Wizardry 1-3 remakes, not the gaiden ones.”  Thanks Knurek !

Wizardry Gaiden 3 Game Boy Game Recording

May 17th, 2009 niki

cover13Been a while, heh ? This one is an old rip of mine. I’ll just quote the nfo:

I never played this game, except for the tiny part that became required when ripping the music. The reason I ripped this game is the arrange album based on it: “Wizardry Gaiden III ~ Scripture of the Dark” (COCC-11006) which was arranged by Ikuro Fujiwara himself and is simply wonderful. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the greatness of this album wasn’t due to extra melodies like it’s sometimes the case, but rather to the fact that the original game music it is based on is good to start with.

I searched for a while for a way to rip GBS directly from the ROM and tried the jap utility GBSND that some site describe like GB ROM to GBS utility (they lie or just don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about). After I understood that it’s in fact an utility to convert SND logs extracted with the jap GB emulator DBOY, I gave up on it and decided to record the audio from the game. I fortunately found a code unblocking a Bonus Mode which unlocked a Sound Test and could record the whole thing (enter ” -PIN- ” including spaces in the Training Ground to unlock it).

I then encoded the WAVs to MP3 APS and named the tracks partly after the arrange album.

So yep, that’s it, enjoy the music ~

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The Return of the Unknown Compilation

September 5th, 2008 niki

This one is relatively famous among VGM P2P adventurers … It used to float around under the name “Dragon Quest 3 Into the Legend”. The first 10 tracks indeed are one of the DQ3 symphonic suites, but the next 14 sure aren’t.

It has been established already that it is probably a fan compilation of both VGM and anime songs. A damn fine one, too. I’ll post it here one more time in hope you people can help identify some of those tunes. :3

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La Compil’ Player One

August 31st, 2008 niki

Player One was a French video game magazine. In the mid 90s, they released a couple videogame CDs bundled with the mag. That one probably was the first VGM CD I ever owned. Well, there was also that DBZ Budokai 3 one, now that I think of it …

Anyway! This CD is quite famous among French video game fans, and I think it actually deserve some international attention. Not only is it a pretty neat compilation of early 90s titles, but it also has some pretty rocking live arrangements. The couple original songs are kinda meh, though.

Unrelated, but the archive for Lord of the Rings pack 2 has been updated with the repaired track 5 provided by Sagi. Many thanks to him.

Enjoy ~

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Interplay – Lord of the Rings Pack 2 – PC CD-ROM Redbook

July 1st, 2008 niki

So I could get my hands on this hard to find 1993 CD-ROM version. I was pleasantly surprised to notice it indeed had redbood (CDDA) tracks, and here they are.

They were arranged from Charles Deenen’s compositions by Eric Heberling. The main theme sounds more like the early PC version while the shire theme surprisingly sounds exactly like the SNES version. I’m sad the arrangements aren’t that great too, as they lose much of the atmosphere of the originals by using an almost constant “blaring trumpet” synth style. Well, it’s still pretty cool to have new versions. :3

Most ingame tracks are very long and loop a bunch of times. Track 5 sadly skips a lot, which I’ll try to fix if I can find another ISO. Tracks 6 to 16 contain dialogues.

Enjoy ~

>> Download <<

!!! 31-08-2008 edit: Track 5 updated with a repaired copy provided by Sagi ~

Seal Online Game Rip

June 16th, 2008 niki

And here’s another MMORPG soundtrack composed by the talented SoundTeMP team. While, in my opinion, they never achieve such greatness as they do in Ragnarok Online, all their works have their particular touch.

Enjoy ~

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Anno 1503 Game Rip

June 6th, 2008 niki

Listening again to Stronghold music made me rip that one. Quite similar to the Stronghold rip, except longer and contains actual medieval/renaissance compositions as well as some more synthy stuff.

Special tracks and medleys anciently accessible online on the game’s official site were added to the tracklist.

Expect something different next time, and enjoy ~

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Stronghold PC Game Rip

June 6th, 2008 niki

Excellent music to an excellent game. Stronghold is a medieval castle battle simulation, and it looks as gorgeous as it sounds. Very medieval sounds here too.

What’s in this archive are 22khz ogg files converted from the game’s weird raw format. You can also find mp3s of a slightly enhanced version that was edited by Robert Euvino himself at Stronghold Heaven.

Enjoy ~

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Gotha 1 ~ Ismailia Wars Saturn Redbook Audio

June 5th, 2008 niki

Listening to the Sega Saturn History first volume, I noticed a pretty good track from Gotha 1. I managed to find an ISO and simply ripped the redbook tracks, which is what you’ll find in this archive.

The music here is pretty classic for an early Saturn game, and only a couple melodies do stand out, including the very nice main theme.

I also found quite amusing that track 10 features excerpt melodies from Camel’s The Snow Goose album, which I happen to like a lot. Only the fans will notice, though ~

Enjoy !

>> Download <<

Interplay – Lord of the Rings Pack 1

June 3rd, 2008 niki

As avid fans of the book, me and my brother bought the SNES version of this in the early 90ies. Offended by both the image it gave of Tolkien’s work and the horrible gameplay, it was one of the few games we actually resold. If one positive thing we remembered though, it was the music …

Years later, internet is here and I’m in my early web scouring moments. I discover the wonderful SPC format, and naturally searches, among tons of others, for Interplay’s Lord of the Rings music. In vain, since it turns out some weird drivers make the game music undumpable.

After a while, armed with a SNES emulator, action replay codes and a wave recorder, I decide to record the game music myself. I’ll go through the game in a couple hours to discover it contains a grand total of 4 tunes, all of which accessible in the first 20 minutes of the game … unless of course the last Moria level featured something new or the game actually had an ending theme, which I doubt. I’ll probably never know since the game froze while entering the Moria. A common bug happening even on true SNES hardware, I read … ~_~

Anyway, the music, while short, is still great especially the main theme. It was composed by good old Charles Deenen, whom I actually discovered at that time by the way.

Searching around, I noticed other versions of the game existed, and recorded the C64 and Amiga versions as well. They sound very much alike without being completely similar. They’re also completely ripped off Basil Poledouris’s Flesh + Blood score, unless it’s actually a traditional medieval composition, which I also doubt. Nonetheless pretty awesome too, and included in this archive.

What’s now missing is the PC DOS recording, which could be full of Adlib greatness. And of course the one and only sequel of that intended trilogy: the Volume 2 also on PC DOS.

In the meantime, enjoy ~

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Brandish 1 & 2 PC98 Game Recordings

June 2nd, 2008 niki

Among Falcom’ successful series, Brandish is one of those that gets the less attention. Perhaps the fact it’s actually not a part of the Dragonslayer timeline is to blame ? Who knows …

Anyway, Brandish music, while still having that particular Falcom sound, is a lot more melancholic and dark than it’s fellow trademarks. I personally love the resulting atmosphere and melodies, especially in Brandish 1 which got some of my favourite Falcom tunes (oh Mieko Ishikawa <3).

Those 2 recordings were given to me by a Japanese guy I met on Last.fm. They sound different from the original soundtracks (different hardware I guess) and are actually looped twice.

Enjoy ~

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(ps: cover above is actually the Renewal edition, but I think it rawks so heh ~ )

Might & Magic 3, 4, 5 PC Adlib Game Recording

May 29th, 2008 niki

Those are recordings of the DOS versions of Might & Magic 3, 4 & 5. Very atmospheric, melodic, medievalish chiptunes which are perfect to listen to late at night. Personally spent countless hours doing so, at least. 4 and 5 are specially remarkable, and were both composed by Tim Tully.

Those recordings were done by Lord Skylark. Many thanks to him ~

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MPTeam – Ragnarok Online Selection

May 26th, 2008 niki

Yeah, we play Ragnarok Online. This is basically a chronological selection of the places we (MPTeam) spent time on. There again, the aim is to recreate the atmosphere of a gaming experience.

Music is by the most excellent SoundTeMP Korean composer team. Should be releasing more stuff by them in the future.

>> Download <<

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Follin Project – Amiga

May 25th, 2008 niki


Aaaand here is the Amiga collection. Two of my favorite versions are on this, namely Ghouls and Ghosts and Gauntlet 3. Some of the atmospheres on that last are truly reminiscing of one of his (in my opinion) best work ever: the Equinox soundtrack.

Enjoy ~

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Story of Thor 2 Game Recording

May 24th, 2008 niki

Quoting the nfo:

Composed by the famous Yuzo Koshiro, the music from The Story of Thor 2 was never officialy released for sale. There are records on the web showing that a self-produced CD was released by Ancient surely mostly for their own archiving needs, but I believe a few copies made it to some fans collections. Some of the few infos can be found at Ancient’s site itself. (or rather, could)

Reasons for the fact it was never released could be it’s uncommon nature. No loops, no main themes, no or few event music… In fact, the musical atmosphere in SoT2 involves a lot of silence. You’ll walk around and a music will suddenly fade-in depending on where you are, play and then be followed by another silence. The songs themselves aren’t conventionally composed, as they progressively evolve without ever repeating themselves, much like some classical music pieces. Some of the songs, like the Wind Shrine theme, actually make you think of classical symphonies.

Sadly, it is saturn ADX audio compressed at it’s worse, and the sound quality is of course damaged by it. The thing is it was one of the first games for the Saturn and they were probably still experimenting with the sound processor. Ah well… Still another great work by Yuzo Koshiro. ^_^

This rip was recorded from the Saturn via my PC line-in in Cool Edit. As the volume varied GREATLY from one song to another, I then normalized the songs. There are still pretty big differences in audio levels, but I just can’t fix that without remastering the audio, and that just wouldnt be right. The buzz noise you’ll maybe hear in some of the most silent tracks, if putting the volume up, is due to both the analogic recording and the Saturn ADX audio compression. The track names were taken from the game location names for the most part. It can be noted that “Final Battle” is also the 2nd introduction music.

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Castles II Amiga Game Recording

May 20th, 2008 niki

Here’s a short recording of the music from Castles II on the Amiga. It was composed by Charles Deenen, a western video game music composer favorite of mine. Not That I like everything by him, but his most medieval sounding works are truly delightful to my little ears. So yeah, another medieval-ish chiptune release, there.

Enjoy ~

>> Download <<

Follin Project – NES

May 20th, 2008 niki

While most of early Follin works are basically ports of the same games to different platforms, the trend starts to change a bit with the NES, which had several exclusive titles from Software Creations. Some really rawking tunes.

All the tunes on this archive have been recorded by Rimo from the original hardware. Much props to him for his awesome work <3

Enjoy ~

>> Download <<

edit: oh my forgot props to strx10 for the Magic Johnson’s Fast Break tracks. Sorry pal ~

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Asteka 2 PC88 Game Recording

May 18th, 2008 niki

Here’s the PC88 music from a 1986 Falcom game: Asteka 2. The game was also released on NES and you can find a game log at Slick Productions (search for Tombs and Treasure). A remake was also made for Sega Saturn’s Falcom Classics 2, which contained an audio bonus CD.

The music here is pretty simple and nice and composed by the great Takahito Abe.

This is part of a huge series of Falcom retro PC game rips I found on Japanese P2Ps. I have no way to be sure, but considering some of the material I found, I’d say most of those are actual hardware recordings.

Enjoy ~

>> Download <<

Terra Phantastica Sega Saturn Game Recording

May 18th, 2008 Emperor Udan

Here is Terra Phantastica OST recorded from Sega Saturn hardware by Emperor Udan at niki’s request.

The game was released only in Japan on 12-1996 as [GS-9054] and a classic version was out on 11-1997 as [GS-9176]. None OST of this game was ever released.
Music tracks on original cd-game can’t be ripped like most of Saturn game but fortunately for us, there is a sound test in option screen, explaining that sound quality is pretty good but not perfect because of the hardware.

This game, like most 2D Tactical RPG from those years, always inspired me good quality game with unique magical ambiance and a good deep story in a small world appart.
Musics here are a bit more classical compared to T-RPG for me but make me feel the same way.
Eventhough I like this kind of game, I’m not patient enough to go through them. To be honest, I don’t play this game a lot. Like Tactics Ogre on Super Famicom, I often listen music of the game without playing it a lot.
Hope this OST make you want play the Game.

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