May 18th, 2009 niki
I never played Novastorm. I’ve been familiar with some of it’s music for years though, via the French magazine game music CD I posted a while back. Having re-listened to it recently, I decided to finally seek the complete soundtrack for it, convinced from the quality that I would find a CD-DA redbook easily. Mistake ! Turns out the game’s audio is embedded into some complex compression system and that there’s no way to easily rip or even record it ! Player One Magazine must have received master tracks from Psygnosis themselves when they made that CD in 1994.
Anyway, searching around on the web, you soon notice that this soundtrack left a strong impression on those who played it. Youtube gameplay videos are full of music requests and lamentations over the lack of an official soundtrack. Among these, I noticed a person called Bobske who was claiming he actually recorded the game audio and could send it to anyone wanting it. And he did ! This is his work I am sharing here.
Sadly, I soon noticed the recording contained many skips and clicks. When I asked him about it, here was his answer:
“Yeah, that’s the problem with running old games on new hardware. Had to use DOSBOX to run the game. It works, but it isn’t perfect. The game had some slight delays and little distortions. I edited out most of the audible distortions but unfortunately, I couldn’t fix them all.”
So that’s it ! This version is pretty much the best it can get, unless someone goes through the trouble of running the game on an old ‘94 PC, or the master tracks are finally released by Psygnosis and Rik Ede, the composer.
Anyway, great music. Techno-ish sci-fi atmospheres, both epic and hypnotic, quite typical of the old European game music scene. Level 4 Stage 1 remains one of my favourites. Really too bad they didn’t choose CD-DA support !
Many thanks again to Bobske, and enjoy the music ~
>> Download <<
!!! edit: Dricks has since then completed a high quality game rip ! Get it >> here <<
Posted in Video Game Music | 46 Comments »
May 18th, 2009 niki
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 !
>> Download <<
Posted in Video Game Music | No Comments »
May 17th, 2009 niki
More 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 !
>> Download <<
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 !
Posted in Medieval-ish, Video Game Music | No Comments »
May 17th, 2009 niki
Been 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 ~
>> Download <<
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Medieval-ish, Video Game Music | 1 Comment »
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
>> Download <<
Posted in Mystery, Video Game Music | 2 Comments »
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 ~
>> Download <<
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Video Game Music | 7 Comments »
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 ~
Posted in Interplay LotR, Medieval-ish, Video Game Music | 3 Comments »
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 ~
>> Download <<
Posted in SoundTeMP, Video Game Music | No Comments »
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 ~
>> Download <<
Posted in Medieval-ish, Video Game Music | No Comments »
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 ~
>> Download <<
Posted in Medieval-ish, Video Game Music | No Comments »
