8-bit era soundtracks

My brother and I were talking about older video game soundtracks, and he feels that a lot of early soundtracks could get away with dinny and discordant messes, but the true standout soundtracks in the early days had to stand solely on the strength of their compositions because of technological limitations. I thought about it for a while and figured that he was probably right. Games like Crystalis, the NES Final Fantasies, and to a lesser extent, the Dragon Quest series all have memorable tunes here and there that still get stuck in my head.

Not sure where I'm going with this exactly, but what were some of the "standout" 8-bit era soundtracks for you?

I guess this would apply to Gameboy songs as well, which could be interesting to me since I usually mute Gameboy games when I play them.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Kanji

I actually enjoy 8-bit music quite a bit. Indeed, the compositions had to be strong because of the limitations at the time. I think that composing today could also be challenging though.. Just because there's more options doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be easier to create something that people want to hear. The 8-bit era had a sort of forced conformity (which could be challenging in its own way), but the freedom of modern technology could also make things difficult. Just a thought for discussion. =o

Yeah, fair enough. I don't mean to insinuate that the advent of better quality synths or the inclusion of real instruments has made recent composers lax (not sure if you'd find anyone who would argue that), but for most early composers, I imagine that the compositions were pretty much all they had.

Newer technology broadens a composer's options so that they can fit the score with the game. So, say, a horror game can have a very atmospheric soundtrack that you probably couldn't achieve in the 8-bit era (someone here can probably provide an example that contradicts this. <_<), or the inclusion of a full orchestra could give a game's soundtrack an epic feel. Though, to be fair, epic songs could still be made with 8-bit technology. The instrumental quality just gives it an edge to me in that case.

A nice point about 8-bit era conformity. I'd hesitate to actually call it conformity, though. I do think composing in that era would be challenging because everyone in that period had access to the same basic materials to make their stuff. The challenge comes in creating something unique. I'm guessing that a composer's songs had to have something special and different from everyone else's to make it really stand out back then, or else it'd just be written off as generic 8-bit noise. This problem isn't really present nowadays.

Well, back on track.

There's nowhere I can't reach.