There are few experiences where the situation is so incongruent that you are left utterly speechless at the absurdity of it all, your mind incapable of processing what just happened, after feebly trying to search for an explanation. One of these is the soundtrack for Resident Evil: Director’s Cut DualShock’s Mansion Basement:
A survival horror game should have music that sets a creepy ambience, but this track has fans baffled, variously describing it as “clowns farting”, “Charlie Brown gets in trouble”, or “trombones falling down the stairs”.
One interesting theory is that the MIDI instruments got messed up in this track; here’s the same with the instruments “corrected”, the difference is night-and-day (skip ahead a bit):
Thus we arrive at one of the truisms with music - sometimes it’s so easy to get it wrong just by doing one or two things poorly. In games, with budget, time, design and technical constraints, we can have music that is actually great but ends up being done poorly. Sometimes technical limitations don’t let the music shine. Sometimes not enough care or expertise was used when integrating the music. In this post we’ll examine a few prominent examples, and discuss how they (and we) can do better.
Ruined by Repetition: Shining Force 2
Although not as notable or critically acclaimed as the likes of Final Fantasy, the Shining series of SRPGs in the 90s was, with Phantasy Star, one of the two RPG pillars for SEGA and well regarded. The second mainline entry, Shining Force 2, is perhaps the pinnacle of the series, with a large cast of characters, sweeping plot, and a kick ass soundtrack. The way composer Motoaki Takenouchi brings symphonic sound out of the Mega Drive’s 6-channel FM synth chip is nothing short of masterful.
But this is not how players typically experience the music. As an SRPG, the “strategy” part of the game alternates between the battle map and fight scenes, with different musical themes used for each. Because of this rapid alternation, the player hears the first 5 seconds of the musical themes again and again, as the music starts from the beginning each time…
This means players typically never experience the full battle music themes, which are some of the best tracks in the game, because every time a character is attacks or is attacked, the game screen changes and the theme restarts from the beginning again. The tracks are not exactly minimalist which means they become repetitive real quick. What a shame!
How could the game have done better? I think having different musical themes and switching between them is a good idea, but don’t restart from the beginning. Have them pause and resume when we’re swapping in and out, and this means the themes are fully utilised.
I’m not familiar with the game’s programming, but I suspect even if they could implement pause-and-resume music, it may have been difficult on the hardware, so I’ll put this one down to technical limitations. Our next example also suffered from technical limitations, but in a different way.
Strangled by Space: Bubble Bobble
This choice may seem out of place because the Bubble Bobble theme is very good. Not only is it a great melody, but it does a lot with its severe technical limitations:
It uses only 2 channels but sounds like it’s using more via alternating instruments, and manages to squeeze in echo effects as well. It is quite a long theme for its time, at almost 50 seconds before fully repeating, but uses minimal memory space due to clever repetition of patterns. And the theme resolves back on itself, making the repeats sound natural and satisfying rather than jarring.
Despite all these good things, I would argue that it unfortunately falls into this uncanny valley where the theme is almost but not quite long enough to not sound repetitive, which is not helped by its reuse of patterns/riffs, so if you’re not paying full attention to the music (for example when you are playing the game), you might pick up the same riff playing that you heard 10 seconds ago, so the theme sounds even more repetitive.
But if technical limitations meant themes couldn’t be long or complex enough to overcome this uncanny valley, what else could they have done? Well, how about like Donkey Kong:
This iconic “theme” is just a bass-line of 5 notes, so it doesn’t even qualify as a theme, and is more like a riff. By being this minimalist and simple, Donkey Kong’s music manages to stay out of the way and repeat itself ad infinitum without feeling repetitive. Compared to other game music of its era, like Pac-Man and Galaxian’s sirens, to Xevious’s grating attempt at a theme, Donkey Kong’s is masterful by comparison.
In other words, Bubble Bobble’s theme could have been better if it either kept it simple, or be made more complex with variations, additional layers and an overall longer theme. It’s hard to imagine what this may have been like though, given how iconic the theme has become, but it’s definitely a theme that hasn’t aged as well as it could have.
Overstaying its Welcome: Empire Earth
When you’re making an RTS to take on one of the best in the industry - Age of Empires - and outdo it in the way it’s known for - its epic scale - you need a heck of a good soundtrack. Empire Earth’s attempt was commendable, as it had a varied and polished soundtrack, with moody ambients and moving crescendos.
Yet if you listen to it for any significant length, you’ll notice how utterly repetitive it is. First, the tracks are very short. Don’t let the runtime of online listings fool you, most are sourced from a bad rip that overstates exactly how short the tracks are - don’t believe me? Load them into an audio editor and see. I find that one minute is usually the bare minimum length for a game track to avoid it sounding repetitive, and usually you want two minutes at least.
Second, the tracks sound good at first but some show clear signs of corner-cutting. Some tracks feature a simple theme that repeats endlessly with variations. One track is pretty much just a cover of Behold the Darkness. There are ways to make good music like this, but in Empire Earth’s case, unfortunately it’s not done well.
I would give the game’s creators the benefit of the doubt and to put this down to severe budget constraints, and that the studio did a great job given the circumstances, but this style of music simply cannot be done well on the cheap.
Bad Timing: Age of Mythology
By the early 2000’s video games had established itself as a major entertainment medium, rivalling Hollywood in budget and technical sophistication. Many games already had great music and were starting to be recognised as such, but not quite yet. Games had an inferiority complex when compared with the film and record industries, and were eager to prove and outdo themselves. If you read literature from around this time, you will see terms like “cinematic” or “immersive” thrown around liberally to describe good games.
It’s against this backdrop that many games dove head-first into dynamic music. Instead of fixed soundtracks that played in the background on repeat, wouldn’t it be cool to have them react according to what’s happening in the game? It’s a new and exciting concept, so there were bound to be times where people got it wrong. One of these is Age of Mythology.
The game otherwise has fantastic music that’s done well. It even has “mellow” versions of its main tracks which are played in various cutscenes or when the action is subdued, a very nice touch. However it has a jarring “town attack” track which plays whenever your town center is being attacked, or if you attack an enemy’s.
There’s nothing wrong with the track but it’s entirely to do with its hair-trigger: even if the enemy is attacking with a few scout units, or you’re ordering your army to attack various things, as soon as you click the town center, this track cuts abruptly in, often interrupting some chill track that’s typical of this game’s soundtrack. The effect is extremely jarring and takes you out of it - the opposite of what a good soundtrack should do.
It appears Age of Mythology: Retold reworks this somewhat, having the track cut in during more appropriate triggers. It shows how tricky it is to have dynamic music work well.
Too Much Change: Streets of Rage 3
Streets of Rage was a huge deal back in the day. During the Nintendo vs Sega console war, the two developer-publishers put out numerous quality series and were pretty competitive with each other, but Sega’s Streets of Rage convincingly trounced its counterparts. With its innovative gameplay, slick styling and pumping EDM soundtrack, it cemented the Genesis/Megadrive as the go-to platform for beat-em-up gamers. The second game in the series was its apex, with its club techno-inspired soundtrack universally acclaimed for its quality and pushing the limits of its FM synthesiser hardware.
Obviously a cover, but you can tell how fantastic the source is nonetheless
For the third iteration, Sega took what worked in SoR2 and iterated on everything. The composer Yuzo Koshiro drew heavily from club influences at the time and used a unique system to compose its highly experimental soundtrack. The result fiercely divided fans and critics.
For fans accustomed to the melodic techno of the second game, this was certainly very challenging, and many hated the chaotic and atonal tracks. But others, particularly those who were familiar with its club influences, recognised it as such and lauded its creativity. Time proved the second group right as it aged well and was shown to be a masterpiece ahead of its time.
Perhaps we can draw two lessons from this: don’t alienate your fans by deviating too much from what they like, and be careful with being too ahead of the curve. I will say one thing though: despite how avant-garde the music was, the style is perfect for boss battles where the high energy and tension is most suitable. Just have a listen to this banger, IMO one of the best boss themes for the Megadrive:
To Recap
We’ve hit on a few themes here, how good music can be ruined in a game:
- Using the wrong instruments (Resident Evil): yikes! You’d think professional composers could easily avoid this, but in any case, we can all learn how important factors like instrumentation, tempo or dynamics can make or break a piece.
- Lazy integration (Shining Force 2, Age of Mythology): respect your music, and take the time to integrate it properly. Don’t let excessive repetition or jarring transitions ruin the music and make it unwelcome.
- Not enough space (Bubble Bobble, Empire Earth): depending on the type of music, they need to be long and complex enough to develop properly and not sound repetitive. Likewise a soundtrack needs a certain length so that the same tracks don’t repeat excessively.
- Too much change (Streets of Rage 3): don’t excessively change what works. Games that come with a built-in fanbase will also come with expectations, and that goes for music as well.
I can write more in depth about how to do game music well, and provide positive examples, but this post is already dragging on, so perhaps another time.