Now for the real cream of SNES music! If you are trying SNES music for the first time, I recommend trying these out first. If you're already into SNES music and haven't heard these, then where have you been!? :)
Axelay:
(Composer: Souji Taro) The perfect shoot 'em up music and another classic from Konami. The tension-building scores grip you and just won't let go. My favourite level tunes are (from best to worst): 5,1,6,3,4,2, but they're all very good really. It's hard to find music quite like this anywhere else with the same standard of melody.
Pop 'n' Twinbee:
As soon as that intro tune kicks in, you know you're going to be in for a treat aurally...
Some of the most dreamy music ever - floating above those wonderfully colourful landscapes accompanied by some great melodies (I love the music when you're flying around that giant airship) makes Pop 'n' Twinbee truly special.
Secret of Mana:
(Composer: Hiroki Kikuta + contribution from Kenji Ito) One of the best action RPGs for the SNES also hosts some
brilliantly atmospheric music. Interestingly, the sequel's tracks are no
match for these...
The best tracks of the 63 listed are most probably:
"02 theme" (intro),
"07 forest" (most heard tune ;),
"09 battle",
"12 victory" (very umm.. victorious tune. cheers.),
"13 theme 2" (sad tune, i.e. when they cruelly kick you out of Potos village),
"14 story" (sad and very atmospheric),
"22 Pandora" (always reminds me of when the desert runs dry...),
"28 undine" (goes on for ages - floaty),
"43 Empire" (better known to me as gold city of course :) and of course the cool
"61 Mana beast"
Super Aleste:
(Composers: Takeuchi, Nagao, Katsumi Tanaka) Possibly the best shooter to grace the SNES and some very interesting music too. The style is quick, frantic and perfect for the game. There's actually a glitch with the usual RAR which stops it from working properly, so the patched version can be downloaded at http://www.alpha-ii.com/snesamp/. Perhaps the best tracks are:
sa-06.spc (Black Hole Anomalies)
sa-03.spc (Amazonas)
sa-07.spc (Rock Downfall)
sa-08.spc (Asteroid Belt)
Kirby 3 & Kirby Deluxe
(Composer (possibly): Jun Ishikawa)
Ok, ok, I know these are listed in the table, but quite a large proportion of the tunes are actually at least good. Anyway, prepare for some of the catchiest tunes you've ever heard... Combining simplicity with intricacy - at first they sound a bit shallow, but just give them a few listens and they'll grow on you! Refer to the table for the best tunes.
A pity the third in the series didn't match up musically to the quality of the first two (putting the 'background' in 'background music' - no melody/chords hardly), but there you go...
F-Zero
(composer: Naoto Ishida)
Better than the N64s FZero-X's heavy metal music, there are some good tunes, in particular:
Ending, Mute City, Silence, and the cool (best) Port town :)
Zelda 3
(Composer: Koji Kondo)
Although the scores are arguably not as good as Secret of Mana's, this music has a charm all of its own. It also has that crazy 'guessing game house' music. Great target practise, and I always got the targets of course. The best tunes are as follows:
'02 - opening demo', '04 - overworld', '11 - select screen', '12 - dark world', '13 - dark mountain forest', '22 - princess zelda's rescue' and maybe the best: 'hyrule castle', ... oh and the creepy 'sanctuary dungeon' and 'dark world dungeon' musics are cool too :)
UN Squadron
Typically Capcom, this conversion from the arcade offers some very listenable melodies. Anyone who's a fan of this stuff should also track down 'Carrier Airwing' - the sequel to UN Squadron which appeared in the arcades.
Here are some of the best:
Credits, Enemy Airforce, Front line base, Ground Carrier, and maybe the best; The Minks
Zombies Ate My Neighbours
Comical tunes with some inventive orchestration - these tunes really suit the game and are fun to listen to in their own right. Perhaps the '5th background music' tune is the most interesting melodically.
Super Mario Kart
(Composers: Taro Bando and Soyo Oka)
A consistent chirpy collection of melodies with no really outstanding ones apart from maybe the cool 'Rainbow Road'. They all need a little more layered orchestration, and then these tunes would be really good, but well worth a listen anyway.
Street Fighter II
Another consistent collection of tunes from Capcom. Different to the arcade (better and worse in different ways) and better than the remixed CD that appeared on NMS (Nintendo Magazine System) some years back.
In particular, the 'player select', 'Guile' stage music and a couple of the boss tunes are good...
Parodius 1/2/3
Derived from the word 'Parody', Parodius certainly lives up to its name, being as bizzare as they come. The music is equally bizzare sporting colourful remixes of some well-known themes.
Finally comes the section where the tunes are listed for miscellaneous reasons. Perhaps, they have a nice effect or the tune is reminiscent of something.
HioudenMaouTachi_hdn-01.spc (wolfteam flash)
Short, but very mysterious tune with nice drone and rippling arpergio. Reminds me of the Zelda 3 mirror sound actually.
Evermore_waterfall.spc
Not a perfect example, but a nice rippling arpergio through the augmented 5th+major chord.
EWJ2-seejimrun.spc & EWJ2-villipeople.spc.
Mellow synth remakes of the old classical tunes.
FinalFantasy4-29-The_Airship.spc
A perfect example of how seemingly good chords can actually sound inappropriately random when strung together without much thought %)
Ghouls'n'ghosts3-1.spc
This 'comical' music from level 1 sounds semi-suitable for the game, but just compare it to Tim Follin's awesome Amiga/C64 versions - you'll soon prefer those instead.
MickyMania_PANDP21.SPC & PyschoDream_PD_07.spc
Two of the worst SNES tunes I have /ever/ heard. The chords grate wonderfully. The first one starts off ok for about 3 seconds, and then the most stupid clashing chord comes in and wreaks havok.
OgreBattle_21-morning_star.spc
There's something very nostalgic about this short snippet. Nice dimunuendo towards the end...
Parodius2_Last_Stage.spc
There's been a few variations on this exact theme throughout the parodius series. Short, but very catchy.
Plok_fleepit.spc
Remember the zelda dungeon music? Well, the beginning of this tune is a hauntingly extreme version of that with some very deep bass o_O
Plok_RocketLauncher.spc
As soon as this kicks in, it seems to use the whole spectrum of sound. Afterwards, are some unusually weird rich chords, but they're done well enough to earn this a place in the misc collection.
Pushover04_space.spc
Included to demonstrate how the perfectly good Amiga version of the same tune could be wrecked.
SailerMoon_Balloon13.spc
A short, simple, but catchy number. Rather Super Aleste-y actually.
SatXmen_Gambit.spc
By Tim Follin, this very interesting tune contains some of the most bizzare chords I have ever heard. In the first minute, it's almost dream-like in places, and it just goes to show what's possible in music. It doesn't keep up the standard all the way through though...
SuperMarioWorld03beginning.SPC
or KoopaJuniorCastleClear.spc
The perfect music to start of a game such as Mario World. Pity the rest of the music in the game didn't live up to my expectations... (apart from that cool castle music).
Tetris_DrMario-Fever.spc
A /crazy/ tune, but with some interesting classical content.
FinalFantasy3e-s57.spc
An ordinary storm soundtrack on the PC, this sounds like the weirdest 'vaccum hoover' I have ever heard when played on one of the Amiga SNES players. I knew it was too weird for the Vacuum version to be the real one :-/
