SNES vs Gameboy music: Mega Man Xtreme
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
- Did you know that a bunch of the levels and bosses from the Mega Man X games were remade to fit on the Gameboy Colour in a spin-off series called Mega Man Xtreme? I didn't until super recently! The 'demade' versions of classic Mega Man X tunes made on the GBC hardware are super fun to listen to, especially if you know the original versions really well. There are tons of small (and not so small) tweaks to the original music that make the soundtrack a real treat!
0:00 - Introduction
1:32 - Stage Start!
2:49 - Flame Mammoth Stage
5:32 - Armored Armadillo Stage
11:04 - Chill Penguin Stage
16:17 - Outro
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As someone with a channel dedicated to making these sorts of demakes, I really envy and appreciate the lengths the arrangers went to make the music work on the GameBoy. It isn't easy to work with only 4 channels, and sometimes you need to come up with some creative solutions. Sadly I don't know enough about music to completely rearrange basslines and percussion like that, so my demakes tend to be a bit more conservative haha.
Right? I'm trying to do KoF demakes like this and it's ROUGH; especially finding a good instrument choice for the various guitars and sax lines they got going on in them.
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@@martinaraujo2555 Thank you!
Im so jelly of peeps making covers and whatnot, I wish I could do a few but I legit know nothing and don't know where to start- MMX is my favorite sounding set of ...'soundfonts' style?
@@JaneValentine007 I'm sure someone made a tracker for it, or if not there's always mml, which is what I use. Just google around and you're sure to find something!
on the gameboy, when the bass notes jump to a higher octave it also produces a slight "click" because of how the wavetable chip is implemented, which helps give the noise channel drum more kick :) it's a very nice trick
That GBC bassline of Chill Penguin is totally giving Quick Man vibes and I'm here for it.
YES! I was thinking the same thing.
Ah! Yeah! That's it! I thought it was cut or elec, but you're right.
I knew it reminded me of something lol
Literally just opened up the comments section to say this as it came on. Wouldn't be the first time an X1 piece stole from MM2.
Nice ear, Vanessa! Quick Man’s theme is one of my fav
FINALLY someone gives the xtreme games a look!! I've always loved how they demake the osts, thank you so much for giving it a spotlight!
Man. The Game Boy and the Commodore 64 had the most pleasing sound chips. Especially through the old hardware and not upscaled. I really appreciate 8bMT including the hardware specs in tandem with the theory itself. Cross-systemic analysis is kind of a bleeding edge frontier that really suits UA-cam as a medium to develop it.
...the three voice structure of Game Boy and Nintendo I grew up with helped me a lot in my collegiate days. It's so useful for voice-leading analysis.
C64 also had the scariest. 5 years old trying to play Caverns of Khavka and the Forbidden Forest series with the intensity that thing spat out made it difficult to play them, especially with how visceral Beyond FF's deaths were
I would LOVE to hear an analysis of castlevania 2 Belmont's Revenge soundtrack on GB
I would LOVE to see this stuff reimagined on the C64. Of all the 8-bit sound systems, C64 was top shelf stuff!
You should check out the Teenage Engineering PO-20 Arcade. It's really fun to try and squeeze melodies out of that with the C64 sounding synths and arps.
One of my favourite examples of this type of thing is the original Monkey Island opening tune.
The PC speaker arrangement manages to do an absolute ton with so little and ends up being my favourite version of the tune.
Man I didn’t even realize the eXtreme versions of these games existed. So cool. Love hearing this and seeing the theory breakdowns. Time to dive in to more GB tunes. 🎃
Same. Further appreciations given to the music-technical GB tunes to bring Rockman/Megaman tunes to it!
11:36 is some of the happiest I can feel. This song comes back to me all the time.
Also, chill penguin’s intro base sounds just like the base of SF II character select
As someone who works with C700 quite often, I love the SNES version wholeheartedly, you really can't beat those overdrive guitars and the Spark Mandrill slap bass. I didn't even know there were official GBC ports, so learning about them and some of the choices they made simply to fit the same tunes into half the channels was quite the interesting deep dive!
I was introduced to Mega Man via Xtreme (we had an NES but despite me being into games I never picked up the Mega Mans on them, had to play the originals later on) and the GBC versions will forever hold a special place in my memories. Very cool hearing how they improved upon the original tracks in so many ways - Chill Penguin's SNES theme sounds so different it's insane.
I always got this "summer remix" vibe from that track and now it makes sense why
it was the music that really drew me into this game as a kid. well, also the robot with a laser cannon for an arm. but the music was definitely part of it.
I adore the Xtreme2 arrangement of the Overdrive Ostrich theme. In my opinion, it exceeds the original, which was already excellent.
Chill Penguin Stage (Snes): cool song (badum pss)
Chill Penguin Stage (GB): samba
That patreon plug was AMAZING!!! It was out of left field and so unique. I have never been so amused by a meme’s potential. The rest of the video was also great, this was just the icing on the cake
This makes me want to make new SNES remixes with the GBC arrangements some day.
those exist!
look it up here on UA-cam ;-)
This is really cool! I love how the sound team (or person?) behind Xtreme managed to work around with the gameboy soundchip. Would love a video like this comparing Streets of Rage or Ristar for MegaDrive/GameGear. Or maybe Shining Force? although I'm not sure if the Game Gear reused songs.
anyways, awesome video as always! ♥
Takara also worked some magic in their Gameboy ports of Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, and of Battle Arena Toshinden.
The GBC arrangement of Morph Moth’s stage theme has been living rent-free in my head for over two decades and I’ve never been able to explain why. Cool video!
The Game Boy versions are definitely interesting and fun to listen to, and it's commendable how they made the pieces work on much more limited hardware, but the original SNES soundtrack is one of the foundational pilars of my music taste, so I have to stick with it. That's just me, though.
I get that. Personally, I'd like to hear some remixes of the GBC versions using the X samples and even high quality samples.
YES YES YES I WAS HOPING YOU'D GO OVER THE REARRANGEMENTS THEY'RE SO GOOD
It is always good to learn through the scales of these soundtracks.
As a composer myself it's still hard figuring out things like that.
This gives me hope one day we'll see a video on the battle network series' music -- especially the battle themes because there's just something so battle network about it them across the games.
Amazing how work with the limitations can create some interesting twist to existing tracks.
When I was a kid I felt something special with Donke Kong Land. This game has tons of unique songs that works really well on game boy. I remembered that the K.K Roll song of this game also was used on Blast corps.
I always liked the GBC version of Launch Octopus's theme. Something about it sounds more underwater-y than the SNES version to me.
That first comparison was great the bombastic bass fills lol
Oh my god thank you so much for this video. MMX has one of my favorite sound tracks of all time and it's so awesome to hear a music theory breakdown of it!
Mega man Extreme is extremely underrated I remember playing the heck out of it because it was badass and the music was always a banger
I've seen this game's Spark Mandrill theme be remixed back into the SNES soundfont because a fan found the additions that much more pleasing. As for me, my favourite Xtreme tracks that weren't mentioned are Xtreme 1's Sigma Stage 1 (for sounding similar to a Classic Fortress theme while keeping its own identity), Xtreme 1's Vile theme (which also plays during 1st form Sigma, so it's made more menacing to match such a foe), Xtreme 2's Opening Stage (for capturing the hype factor of X2's opening stage), Xtreme 2's Sigma Stage 1 (for sounding mysterious and conveying the feeling that it's not going to be easy) and Xtreme 2's Sigma Battle (for being a more faithful arrangement than the previous game that could also be considered Sigma's most frequent theme)
Xtreme 2 in general is one of the greatest things. Not only the music, but they way they remixed stages.
Blast hornet on GBC was always a highlight for me
Loved this video, thank you! Gameboy music is honestly so underrated, it's amazing what they've managed to produce with such limited resources.
This game soaked up so many hours of my childhood. Hours I would give again again. Such a great game and soundtrack!
a perfect comparison would've been from the sequel, x-treme 2. there you get the counter hunter stage theme from mmx2, and the differences it has actually make it arguably better with a different pitch and fewer instruments to hide the drums
This reminds me of how different Acts in Sonic 3 zones had the same tune in different styles!
As a kid I never knew how much went into composing these soundtracks. I just knew it sounded "different." Thanks for putting together this awesome video!!
This was amazing. Pease do a part 2!
that build on chill penguin's stage made my eyes go wide, amazing
Now I want to hear a backport of Xtreme's music back over on the SNES soundfont and re-arranged for the wider instrumentation.
More musically interesting _and_ more distinct instrumentation.
This is literally the first time I've heard these versions of the songs, and I am angry at the Internet for not telling me about them sooner!
thank you putting me on to this soundtrack love this
Even as a child the Mega Man X soundtrack blew me away. Also, I love all the gameplay strats/exploits you show in the footage
0:36-0:38 Man, you get it (and by extension, me). To be able to maintain that line on an actual bass is Magnifique.
I had considered myself a Mega Man X fan, but then realized I only ever owned spinoff games, Xtreme on the GBC and later Command Mission on the PS2. I am glad to see that the music I got to hear when I was younger was more than just a downgraded version of the original SNES tracks. No one ever talks about these games and I really like getting to see one getting some attention after all this time.
A praise-worthy work of both presentation and explanation! I was never too sure about what to think about those GB arrangements but clearly they were made with great interest and care.
If I were to be nitpicky, I'd say you can make the GB noise channel slap nearly as hard as the SNES drums, especially reenforcing it with the bass channel. This is, however, a completely different philosophy in working around the chip's limitation, mostly having to do with a part of the world that isn't Japan, so it didn't really make sense to mention it there.
Keep it up, I'm really looking forward to you eventually covering X2 with all the crazy drum paterns and signature changes.
Oh man, Mega Man X's SNES soundtrack is awesome and worthy of all the praise it gets, but thanks so much for talking about the Xtreme versions of the songs too! Armored Armadillo and Chill Penguin's themes in particular are even my favorites from Xtreme's soundtrack-- with Armored Armadillo in particular being my favorite song even in Mega Man X's SNES soundtrack-- so I'm super happy you talked about those two specific songs so much in this video.
Was looking forward to hearing about Neon tiger but oh well
you can tell from what IS here that it’s worth checking out separately from the og
Absolutely fantastic video! I adore this style of video with analysis of the same music across different games! And I love all the focus you gave those sick bass parts here too!
There's this really pervasive myth, I feel, where the closer a sound is to a "real" instrument the BETTER it is. Like all music is in some sense striving to be acoustic and/or high fidelity. I think this comparison goes a long way to show that that's not necessarily the case. You can make an 8-bit sound chip slap harder than Will Smith if you write music FOR the particular tools you're working with Sure, it's a hardware limitation, but there's a big difference between being limited and being constricted.
I always thought it had to do with the fact of it not being an instrument you play, but one that plays what you ask it too. But given how computers are prevalent in today's music, that doesn't seem right.
I guess it makes it hard to mix them up with something else. For example I would love an orchestral piece featuring one or several soundchips. Yet, I know nothing about orchestral direction, but I think it would be hard to make musicians play with an instrument that isn't really there, and even moreso finding an environment where the result acoustically works. Perhaps I'm wrong, I would love to be. Jake Kaufman sort of gave the idea a try with the Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment trailer, but it ultimately wasn't a real orchestra, and there's no other similar effort that I personally know of.
@@thepulseman7154 Might be something David Bruce could be interested in exploring.
@@OdaKa I admitedly never heard of him but will check him out, thanks!
@@thepulseman7154 I feel like he'd be into playing around with mixing orchestra with 8bit soundchips, yeah.
@@thepulseman7154 Look up Wintergatan Modulin. It's basically a hand held synth that would play chiptune sounds that could be paired with an orchestra, in theory.
This was a great OST breakdown video! Thanks! I like demakes and chip tune/8-bit music so much, but the OG soundtrack to Mega Man X is one of my favorite on the SNES, so I definitely prefer it. The GBC versions are also really good, but I’d argue it’s because they were using the SNES versions as inspiration. That’s why I think they had the potential to be so good. Good source material! (I’m also nostalgic to a fault, and my first console was the SNES. So there’s that…)
Everytime i see a new video came out im happym like your content man, Respect!!
I always heard the Flame Mammoth chord progression as having a Bb major. Definitely didn’t expect the C7 though!
Wow, you're basically describing how I've been privately beatboxing videogame tracks and arranging them for piano. Basically I end up with a bass/lower-register/left-hand part that serves as bass line, rhythm, and harmonic texture (on piano), or some other creative interspersing of the bass line with the melody alongside rhythm delivered separately (when I beatbox, sometimes).
I though 8-bit was safe from the "It's more complex, so it's objectively better" fallacy that all the jazz theory channels fall to, but he actually said "objectively cooler" to something that was only subjectively cooler.
THANK YOU! Nobody seems to know these games even exist, let alone how good their soundtracks are.
Another underrated capcom game with a great OST is “mighty final fight” the cute version of final fight in nes, some mega man compose red definitely worked on that game
This is a great video! The GBC games are lovely, particularly Xtreme 2 which might as well be a new game due to how much it introduces - a full PSX Zero, new level designs and fortress, it's great, really. It's a shame you didn't take a look at the Xtreme renditions of X2 and X3 themes - some of them are also very interesting and I'd argue some X3 tracks sound way better in Xtreme 2 than on the SNES.
I definitely think you're onto something with Flame Mammoth and Armored Armadillo, they have very interesting updates to the song. Especially Armadillo's, that's got a breathtaking active beat that you highlight at 10:39. Those are both pretty good upgrades to the songs! I can't agree with the updates to Chill Penguin's theme, though. While musically it is more complex, I think the more solemn tones of the SNES version are MUCH more fitting of the stage/character. The more samba, floaty feel of the GB version don't sound like a icy stage at all; if anything, it reminds me of something from the Kirby games! It doesn't fit, even if it is more 'interesting' musically.
One of the coolest videos you've done so far
bit of trivia: the armored armadillo drumbeat is called the "d beat" and there's actually a subgenre of hardcore punk just called "dbeat"
Just another excellent theory lesson here.
I think you hit on exactly why I always preferred the 8-bit Mega Man music (though I was never able to articulate it). Too much emphasis on sampled rock elements over the spicy tricks needed to make very simple sine waves musically interesting!
Awesome vid! I have to go listen to this soundtrack right away. I've even played the GB game and I didn't notice how good it was.
X OST is one of the GOAT not only in the SNES era.
This! This Right here is why Demake Remixes are so darn good we love hearing complicated pieces brokendown into more limited musical toolsets music if Very Flexable like that
Yep. That's some good stuff right there.
Just realized the Chill Penguin bass track on the Gameboy has the same feel as Quick Man's theme in Megaman 2
This is such an amazing analysis. MMX is still one of my favorite games ever. I had the Xtreme games, as well.
Finding the Rockman X Arranged (Alph Lyla) album on MegaMan homepage bank in the day was my first exposure to vgm&jazz, which I love so much! When I found channels like insaneintherain, JMusic, and the Consouls over the last 5ish years has been such an awesome time, for me!
after your video i noticed something that kind of scares me, a lot of the elements from the xtreme version of the tracks, have A LOT in common with a lot of ace atorney themes lol
Whaaaaat. How did I not know these existed?
Also nice cut before you ate that crush death at 0:38. Pretty sneaky, sis
There's just something dreamy about Gameboy music, even when compared to the NES. Maybe it's because it came out later and there was more time to experiment and compose for it? In any case, I remember more of the 8bit music from GB games than the NES.
Great video! I'd love to hear an analysis like this for Donkey Kong Country vs. Donkey Kong Land :)
Gotta admit, it's been a hot minute since I last played the games, but I don't think I ever even noticed that there was a difference between X and Xtreme's soundtrack. Even though I know next to nothing about music and understand only the less technical parts of the vid I've now gained a new appreciation for the effort that went into those games.
Great video! I think you should do a video about the Boss music (specifically, the Legion of Stationary themes) in Paper Mario: The Origami King. It has some interesting harmonic and instrumental choices, and I'd love to see your take on them.
It's also quite true that in a digital world, it's so easy to blast a world of sound to make your music interesting enough to listen while the content is rather simple. Not saying orchestration and texture isn't vital aa a composing idea, but a caution in mind.
FINALLY!! A Mega Man X video! Damn!
I understood exactly.. nothing of this video xDDD......... (Also, thanks for stealing my video suggestion, Freddy. I asked this dude for months to make a MMX video.)
Super interesting. I loved those Riffs back in teh day. I guess part fo Mega Man OSTs I am a Metal Head these days.
It's accurate to say that the Armored Armadillo Stage base drum is playing a tresillo rhythm, but it's one that starts on the second sixteenth note of the second beat, or, more accurately, one that starts on the second beat of the tresillo rhythm and makes that the down beat. It's a "rotation" of the rhythm, if you will.
A lot of these composition techniques harken back to things in the old 8bit NES Mega Man games
Acutally this alligns perfectly with the thesis I am writing, you just got cited lol :)
I always find it interesting to see how creative people deal with constraints. The true geniuses are able to use the constraint to create something unique and wonderful
2:19 It's worth noting that the GB version is based on Mega Man 7's stage start theme
What a kick ass video idea
I just noticed something in this video, the snes x trilogy soundtrack is largely focused rock sound with some exceptions one of those being chill penguin's theme and ironically the later x games starting with x4 sound a lot more like chill penguin than the rest of the game
Rockman, Bass and Treble, etc. It is by design that the influence comes from jazz and rock/punk/metal, especially in X1 to X6
I swear, the bassline from the Xtreme Chill Penguin theme sounds REMARKABLY similar to the Flash Man theme from Mega Man 2.
I was kinda thinking that too!!
The bass in Xtreme's Armored Armadillo theme kind of reminds me of Gemini Man on NES, and the bass in Chill Penguin is almost the lead melody right out of Quick Man!
Great find. Would’ve also been neat to see you try to reintegrate some of the GBC rearrangement ideas on the SNES hardware. Maybe adjust the instrumentation accordingly. “Best of both worlds.”
They're definitely both playing to the strengths of their hardware very well.
Interestingly those GBC tracks feel almost more like they'd be from the compositionary palette of Donkey Kong Country or Sonic 3 moreso than Megaman X.
My favorite part about power chords is that you don't even need the octave. It's why they're sometimes called dyads.
7:32 Oooo, this is cool. This is what I like to call a Go Ichinose bassline. Ichinose (and Masuda) used this sort of bassline a ton in earlier Pokemon games, usually with slap bass or a square wave.
As someone who doesn't always get along with the sound of Megaman Xs music, Xtreme was a wild ride.
😩By far one of my favorite games and definitely favorite MegaMan soundtrack
Eventhough I'm a complete music illiterate I love watching these videos. One thing I do understand though is that now I want to listen to SNES-style versions of the GB arrangements, LOL.
Woah, I had no idea GB music could sound this good. To be fair I haven’t played a ton of those games, but they always seemed to have something off about their soundtracks - Metroid II especially, every song except the end theme and “initial decent” just hurts my ears
Very good video. I was brought up with the SNES version so I still like the original rock-inspired soundtrack more but I definitely agree the gameboy versions are more interesting given your analysis.
And that outro though 😂
1:30 100% truth. Great video as always. Thanks again. I personally like both versions in their own way.
Amazing as always!! I would like to suggest something to look into as far as the Armored Armadillo theme. While it definitely IS that clave rhythm happening in the SNES version, being rooted in the rhythmic vernacular of punk music, it is much more specifically associated with what is called a "d-beat". Look into bands like disfear/the varukers/anti cimex or even some swedish death metal like entombed or unleashed. Not say your assessment is incorrect, i just want to try and make sure the more extreme/unique sides of punk and metal are represented as well!!
maybe its the alcohol, but this was one of the best videos yet
I found out about this guys channel because my music teacher told me he taught him
I always thought it sounded off when the credits theme of Xtreme 1 didn't slow down at the very end like it does in the SNES version. That probably wasn't something they do on the GB which I find interesting.
Oh my gosh I knew there was a reason I remembered the music in this game
Now I want to hear the game boy's tweaked versions ported back to SNES.
Super interesting, thanks for the video, do we know the composers behind those different versions?
I NEED Mega Man Xtreme for my Collection but it is SO *RARE*