Wow, thanks for posting about this!!
As a youngster I had a gameboy (and still have it) , the most memorable music for me was the Super Mario games, the Castlevanias and Contras... (basically what I had back then...) but I admit I never thought about other soundtracks on it, seems I am missing out...
Last year I bought a famicom since never had a NES/Famicom, do you know what was a great influence to get it? The game soundtracks!
González's Turok soundtrack that I am currently listening has that unique spectrum-y feeling, very nice tunes indeed!

On the spectrum things, there is a actually a game on the famicom that uses the AY-3-8912 sound chip along the famicom's one, Gimmick! , here is the repro I made from a donor cart:

Nowdays I am playing my gameboy games on the super gameboy, there is a mod that you can cut off the snes's clock input and wire a dedicated correct speed gameboy one, it makes sound the same as the handheld. KRIKzz just announced that he is working on a gb/gbc everdrive so listening stuff from the real hardware should be very easy soon enough 😀

Any more "unknown" soundtrack recommendations d1stortion ?

You're welcome keropi, glad you appreciate it 😀 it's a real shame that his work is so unknown, just look at the view count on youtube. He deserves much more credit than that...

Yeah Mario, Zelda etc. were what I meant by "usual suspects", I've had all these games since the late 90s and still have them, the tunes are all great and classic without a doubt, but I never felt that they took the GB hardware truly to the limits... I've had the Turok 2 and Smurf games roughly since they came out back then as a kid and was always intrigued by the music, it was technically more sophisticated compared to most other soundtracks. It seems that European composers had a technical advantage over their American/Japanese colleagues due to having had that home computer experience...

Of course being as popular as it was the system had a lot of shovelware and the music wasn't very good in some games either... in some ways I'd compare it to the OPL2/OPL3 on PC, many soundtracks for that have a generic and bland feel to them and only few used the hardware thoroughly for a unique style.

I'm afraid right now I can't come up with more AAA stuff since I haven't played all of the games for the system either, but I'm sure in Alberto's other soundtracks there must be some more gems 😀 and just to name a few others, Mega Man I-V and the Double Dragon games sound great too.

Awesome topic! I love me some GB chiptunes 😁.

Can't say I'm all that impressed by the Turok games, although I liked a couple of tracks. I just couldn't bare to listen to all of them. If you don't mind, pick out your favorites and I'll give them a listen. They indeed have a very home micro feel to them though! Same applies to the Smurfs.
You should definitely listen to some of the stuff Konami was bringing out of the system. I'll include some of my absolute favorites from games I owned on the system (not just Konami hehe):

Wario Land - Boss Levels : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS45H4aJEoU
Wario Land 2 - Title Theme : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWSdUANyxaI&li … EA78EC5E9D8326E
Double Dragon - Title : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_rFKoDBbo0
Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening - Final Boss : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcc9jSxbYN0
Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening - Mt. Tamarach : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h848dMB0LgU&li … FE1F3D5C2ABE5FF
Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening - Sword Search : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65LXFhqtt5k&li … FE1F3D5C2ABE5FF
TMNT Fall of the Foot Clan - Stage 1 Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlJm4VGqahw&li … 4A02452299CCD9B
Castlevania Adventure Soundtrack : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOpWwCxCCsc (Battle of the Holy and Revenge in particular)
Castlevania Adventure 2 - New Messiah : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5CY9uimc9E&li … 34A1F0311CD21EA

I know I'm forgetting a ton of others, for example the Pokemon games, but anyway.

Some of my favourite original Gameboy tunes, in no particular order, many of which are definitely impressive, include:

* Mega Man Title Music
* Final Fantasy Legend II Boss Music
* Pokémon Red/Blue Gym Leader Fight Music
* Almost every tune in Kirby's Dream Land
* Almost every tune in Batman
* The end-game tunes for both Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land 2

Incidentally, out of all the GBC games I've played, including some remakes of NES titles, I find GBC music tends to sound more washed-out than GB music, which is a bit odd. Almost as though the music developers started getting lazy with the GBC or something, though I will admit, I haven't played a lot of GBC titles. :P

I dunno why, but I have always found Game Boy chiptunes more pleasing to listen to than I do NES chiptunes.

That fami soundtrack... the bass actually sounds like straight from the MT-32 (9:10 etc.)! Pretty neat...

F2bnp wrote:

If you don't mind, pick out your favorites and I'll give them a listen.

How about a quiz: what does the beginning of track 3 from Turok 2 remind you of? 😁

F2bnp wrote:

I know I'm forgetting a ton of others, for example the Pokemon games, but anyway.

Let me fix that for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ixY6Da0g8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz29y40RjsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz8NqZ4nZPM (sounds actually kinda creepy for this kind of game if you ask me 🤣)

I find that pokemon music quite annoying 🤣
on the other hand everything d1stortion posted from mr. González is brilliant!

check out some great konami vrc6 action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdlOdjd1DMo (Mad Forest, Stream, Rising, Aquarius are some of my favorites, not sure if this video is from an actual cart or emulation though, sounds a little muffled to me)

Yeah, I was just about to say this can't be just a regular NES... sounds nice, quite unique 😀

and the four links I posted in the OP I consider to be the absolute best in GB music I've heard so far, be sure to check the fourth link for some awesome chiptune rock if you haven't.

Also, I made the topic mostly in mind with GB music but we have already expanded it to NES, I'm open for all platforms really, I'll go ahead and change the title 😀

Space Debris be good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkw7l8IgM4g

d1stortion wrote:

How about a quiz: what does the beginning of track 3 from Turok 2 remind you of? :-D […]
Show full quote

F2bnp wrote:

If you don't mind, pick out your favorites and I'll give them a listen.

How about a quiz: what does the beginning of track 3 from Turok 2 remind you of? 😁

F2bnp wrote:

I know I'm forgetting a ton of others, for example the Pokemon games, but anyway.

Let me fix that for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ixY6Da0g8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz29y40RjsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz8NqZ4nZPM (sounds actually kinda creepy for this kind of game if you ask me 🤣)

Hehe, it reminds me of Cheetahmen to be honest! Is it on purpose?

And yes, those Pokemon tunes are great. That last one has forever been etched in my memory I think...

Wow, you even got it right! And no, I don't think he went for that kind of questionable influence or even knew anything about that... game, although the original tune isn't as bad as the actual game is 🤣

Famicom has slightly different hardware than the NES. The Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse aka Akumajō Densetsu [Devil's Castle Legend] soundtrack is using a special sound chip called the "VRC6" on the game cart that can only be utilized on Famicom hardware. What the VRC6 microprocessor chip did was add two extra pulse-wave channels and a saw-wave channel to the sound, and also allowed for smoother sprite animations.

Mr. Gimmick had special soundchips as well and unfortunately for the NES, special soundchips of any kind can NOT be utilized on an NES even with a Famicom-to-NES convertor cart.

The Famicom version of Contra used the VRC2 which allowed for better animation and background animations, once again the USA counterpart didn't have this chip.

The list goes on and on really, IMHO the USA got screwed with the release of the NES, why Nintendo just didn't give us a real Famicom and simply name it Nintendo Entertainment System is beyond me.

actually the NES can use the extra sound chips on famicom carts, you need to use a converter and rebuilt the expansion_audio line, just a wire and a resistor IIRC

About the Japanese Contra release, are you sure there is extra animation going on? I have built a repro of the game that is translated to English and uses the MMC3 mapper instead of the VRC2... it was common practise back then to butcher games for Western market... or make them easier.

keropi wrote:

actually the NES can use the extra sound chips on famicom carts, you need to use a converter and rebuilt the expansion_audio line, just a wire and a resistor IIRC

About the Japanese Contra release, are you sure there is extra animation going on? I have built a repro of the game that is translated to English and uses the MMC3 mapper instead of the VRC2... it was common practise back then to butcher games for Western market... or make them easier.

About the Japanese Contra release, yes, i'm completely sure. Cut scenes, windblown palm trees in Area-1, snowstorm of Area-5 , and the undulating innards of Area-8 are all VRC2 effects which are ommited from the US release.

There isn't much that tickled my fancy on either GB(S) or the NES, but I do like the chiptunes from Tetris Plus and the above mentioned "stock" games from the latter.
Also guys, don't forget about our good ol' Tandy sound chip =D
I've recently re-discovered how awesome it sounds working on my project.

I like the fact that Zelda OoA/OoS had unique themes for each dungeon. Being stuck with just two themes (well three if you count the castle) always bothered me in ALttP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhGS79bPPCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M828fvIoho

Many of them loop too fast, so they tend to get old quickly when playing and I wouldn't rate them on one level with those awesome 1:20 arrangements from Turok. Maybe the programmers were just a bit limited with the higher complexity of the game. Neat tunes nonetheless.

Speaking about the SNES, just no comment for this masterpiece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSJQATRDBSw

d1stortion wrote:

Speaking about the SNES, just no comment for this masterpiece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSJQATRDBSw

Gecko Yamori is a god! You should listen to his Streets of Rage remixes/tunes.

here's another favorite of mine: Moon Crystal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG2SV87mKls

Digitally Imported has a chip tunes station, but they always seem to be playing something I don't recognise. It doesn't list what game its from iirc