"Feiton" is quite good, and there's even a full score of it in the booklet. It's not horrible, however, and there are a few tracks that redeem it. It also lacks the number of different pieces that Gradius 3 or the Parodius games had. It ends up sounding like a bad ripoff of general Gradius music. It's almost as if the composer(s) were trying to imitate the styles from the previous games, but merely didn't dedicate themselves to the task. ![]() I loved the music from the previous Gradius games but unfortunately this one doesn't hold up as well. The slight majority is original and arranged music from the game Gradius 4. I can't say I'm entirely happy with my purchase, however, I'm not entirely disappointed either. At the time, I thought there was no chance Gradius 4 would ever get a console release (this has since changed). (I don’t remember even seeing this one on my last Japan trip, which leaves me a bit worried as to how it’s faring in the market.) Given that Konami’s keen to piss their valuable IPs away, it’s doubtful we’ll ever get any new music in this style… unless, of course, they make a Salamander pachislot.This CD was the first game music CD I bought completely "blind" - i.e., without haveing heard any of the music. Naoki Maeda, like a lot of key Konami talent, is off doing other things these days: last I heard, he was at Capcom working on an arcade game called Crossbeats Rev. If Sensation is all about “HELL YEAH LET’S KICK SOME MID-90S PRERENDERED CG ENEMY ASS,” Speed is like “Well crap, we’re really in this one for the long haul, aren’t we? Hope you’re ready.” There’s also a something kind of big and sweeping about it, especially when you hit that bridge of music before the track loops. It’s got that same fast tempo and heavy synth, but a very different mood to it: it feels more trepidatious, because now you’re further along in the game and shit has gotten real. Maybe it’s the different instrument samples sounding kinda weird, or maybe because it hits so many of my arranged game music pet peeves (“let’s cut out the backing instruments here, it’ll sound great!”).īut you know what? Sensation isn’t even my favorite Salamander 2 song. I know, I know, it’s sacrilege to say you don’t like a Shinji Hosoe song… or a piece of Bemani music. I’ll be honest: I don’t really like this particular remix. This was not done by Maeda, but rather Shinji Hosoe, who has had a long and fruitful career in game music (and is one of the key figures behind game music label SuperSweep). This song, “Sensation,” was remixed and later appeared in Keyboardmania 3rd Mix (and the PS2 home port, Keyboardmania II, which contains music from the arcade 2nd and 3rd Mix). In fact, there’s one tune from Salamander 2 that I’m sure the VJ crowd knows very well, and it’s this one! This was just a couple of years before Konami would begin releasing games like Beatmania and Dance Dance Revolution, and future Bemani maestro Naoki Maeda (along with arranger You Takamine) was already beginning to hone his craft in the game’s many uptempo, synth-heavy tunes. The musical legacy continued throughout the series and into its spin-offs, which brings us to Salamander 2, released in 1996. Hell, it was impressive from the point where you booted it up and waited for that bubble memory to heat up. Konami was one of the leaders of this zeitgeist in the arcades alongside Namco, Sega, and Taito, and Gradius was among the first games that made people sit up and take notice of what game music could sound like. Gradius’s release in 1985 came at a time when sound hardware was beginning to evolve to a point where musicians could make songs that were far more musically complex than the 10-second loops ripped off of some public domain ditty. (I also dig Gradius V for the same reasons.) Oh, and also because the soundtracks in them are amazing. ![]() I do, however, really like the Salamander/Life Force series, mainly because it doesn’t have those checkpoints placed strategically in the areas most impossible to clear when you’re powered down to nothing. I’ll be real here: I’m not a huge fan of most of Konami’s shooters, mainly because most of the stuff from the Gradius school of design punishes you harshly for any matter of mistake.
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