Awesome Music/Third Generation or Earlier

This is the Awesome Music page for NES, SMS, MSX, GB etc.

Showdown at the Tower from DK '94. It even has a neat solo around the middle!
Blaster Master for the NES was quite a popular game back then. It also had a very cool soundtrack. While it has been remixed before, there is only one that stands out from the rest. A Medley by Vomitron is the most epic, so much it will make you sad when the remixed credits music ends.
Ah, Korobeiniki! What, you never heard of it? Oh yes you have! This song has burnt its way into the minds of almost every single gamer that has ever grasped a GameBoy in their lives. It's old, but damn if it's not good.
- Ahem! Bradinsky from Atari/Tengen Tetris too!
- Tetris: The Grand Master ACE has an epic trance remix of Katjusha. It plays during the latter 2/3 of Another Road, which makes it into a 20-minute Crowning Level Of Awesome.
- The Tetris: The Grand Master series, while lacking Korobeiniki, has some awesome music in its own right: "Hardening Drops (Instant Death Mix)" from TGM1 (level 500-999, too bad this troper can barely hit level 400), and the music from the first part of TGM3's Shirase mode.
- How about just "anything vaguely related to the word Tetris in any way"?
- Pssst-It's even better with a Live Orchestra [1]!
- This troper always preferred the B Theme on the Game Boy version actually. It's the bass line.
- A Complete History of the Soviet Union Through The Eyes of A Humble Worker. It's still Korobeiniki, but the lyrics are sheer brilliance.
- I always get messed up when people say "The Tetris Song" because I played the NES version first, which has "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" as its main song.
- We can't forget the EPIC C64 Tetris music. 25+ minutes of pure awesome. It's the only good thing about that version of the game, but man, it's awesome.
Monty On The Run.
- Instrumental version of the above.
- By the same composer (Rob Hubbard) One Man and his Droid
- Really, most of Rob Hubbard's output. Nemesis the Warlock, Thing on a Spring, Commando, and many others. There's a reason one out of every six songs on remix.kwed.org is a Hubbard song.
Chris Hülsbeck should really get his own page for composing a lot of awesome songs for games such as ones from R-Type, Great Giana Sisters, and Jim Power in Mutant Planet
Action 52/Cheetahmen II ...what's this? The music is awesome? And it's spawned dozens of remixes on Nico Nico Douga? What's going on here?!
Various themes from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. Yes, even the one now famous on the internet for "Nigga Stole My Bike".
- the Wii Remix of the Main Theme.
The vintage economic-simulation game MULE had possibly the catchiest theme tune ever.
Behold, the Xenon 2 Megablast theme. It was a pretty good game too.
Shell we start naming Sunsoft games of that era? Distinctive Sunsoft Bass.
- Batman, Batman - Return of the Joker, Gimmick, Gremlins 2, Blaster Master, Journey To Silius and Super Spy Hunter are a few of them!
  - Ufouria, too.
    - Now with a Lemmings rendition.
    - Also, Fester's Quest; as bad as it was, it gave an epic soundtrack to a game based on The Addams Family. The TV series-- not The Movie, which came out after the game.
  - How are you guys forgetting Gimmick!?
Epic music is epic. Your Mileage May Vary. Yes, this is a shameless EntryPimping.
Duck Tales The Moon.
- Oh, and there's an orchestrated remix on YouTube as well. It's every bit as awesome as the original.
- Transylvania too. And the boss theme, and the Amazon... pretty much every track in the game.
- African Mines.
NES Double Dragon II: Shizukanaru Tsuiseki (A Quiet Pursuit), Asayake no Kaishingeki (A Pleasant Advance to the Morning Glow) and of course Souryuu no Otakebi (Roar of the Twin Dragons).
Recca. TOO bright example not to get a mention. Not only it's the only licensed NES game to get a trance soundtrack, it also fits the game like nothing else (some may say, though, that Recca needs a GOOD music replacement, while 70% or more of people disagree meanwhile). Some music samples to make you get the full soundtrack somewhere.
- And also remixed. Officially.
The Stuntman Seymour in-game theme isn't half bad for a C64 game. (The high-quality version feels a little more 8-bit.)
The attract mode music for the 1982 arcade standup Reactor.
Tecmo World Wrestling: Invincible Attack (theme of Akira Dragon), as well as this mildly Russian-flavoured tune.
Skate or Die 2 has one of the most metal soundtracks for the NES
- The C64 version of the first game had a rocking theme as well. (The NES version wasn't bad either, but it's those guitar and synth samples that makes the C64 version even better.)
You know what, lets's just say the Commodore 64's schtick is Crowning Music of Awesome and leave it at that. The thing has a freaking programmable FILTER in it's SID chip.
The arcade versions of Gradius and Twinbee used a type of magnetic "bubble memory" that required the machine to literally warm up to a certain temperature, a process taking over a minute and a half. That's a long time for an arcade operator to wait, so thus, while the machines booted, they played a catchy little baroque tune known as "Morning Music".
Turbo Outrun and Hot Rod, by Jeroen Tel. Keep in mind that those sounds are coming from a Commodore 64.
- And as if that weren't impressive enough? Word of God (see the YouTube comments on that first link) says that Jeroen coded these tunes in assembly language as a teenager.
The music of Bucky O Hare and The Toad Wars for NES? Most part of the music from this game is really badass. We have the Green Planet level music, the Red Planet music, the Yellow Planet music, and if that isn't enough, there's two of the four melodies for the final levels: The Salvage Chute and Escape music themes. In general, the music of this game is pretty badass. Seriously.
- And let's not forget the music for the final boss battles. It brings the feeling that you are fighting with the most terrible adversaries in the game, and you're going to listen this song constantly, especially in the fight with the second-to-last boss. It's terrible hard.
- The Ending Credits music califies as Crowning Music of Awesome, too.
Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker was an obscure Game Boy Color game based on a German cartoon, released only in German-speaking countries not long before the GBA came out. The game itself was not all that interesting; indeed, it's a fine example of The Problem with Licensed Games. Its soundtrack, on the other hand, is ridiculously amazing; it was composed by demoscene veteran Stello Doussis, and it shows. This troper didn't even know some of those sounds could be made on original Game Boy hardware.
- And the same guy did another equally awesome soundtrack, too-- this one for a licensed game based on a hippo-shaped chocolate candy. Behold Das Geheimnis der Happy Hippo-Insel.
You wouldn't expect a McDonald's licensed game to have good music, but MC Kids pulls that feat off quite impressively. Again, no surprise that it's the work of a C64 demoscene vet, this time Charles Deenen from Maniacs of Noise. The stage 2 theme is particularly excellent.
Lemmings. At least half the tracks would qualify (some because they're taken from earlier awesome works such as Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca) but for now I'll confine myself to one: Level 15.
Thunder Landing from the arcade Super Contra.
Music from Shadow of the Beast.
Penguin Adventure for the MSX had some crazy good music. Listen!
Robo Warrior for the NES may have been a frustratingly difficult game, but it had some great music. However, this piano version is arguably better than the original.
Despite the limits of 1984 technology, Below The Root's soundtrack made use of melody to invoke the chants and rituals that pervaded Green Sky life in the original book. Windham Classics also did a great job with classical music for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz text-adventure.
Battletoads. No surprise, really; it's by David Wise, who'd go on three years later to compose some music for a little series involving a giant ape and his simian sidekick. Even the short loop that plays while the game is paused rocks.
No mention of Crystalis yet? For shame. Let's start off with the overworld theme and Mt. Sabre's theme.
ZX Spectrum has the music from the Dizzy games, but of particular note is Fantasy World Dizzy and Spellbound Dizzy. In-game music from those.
- Magic Land's music was catchy as fuck too.
- To say nothing of Tim and Geoff Follin's work on Chronos for the same system. To take a system as primitive as the Spectrum and make music like this is a freaking accomplishment. Granted, to the uninitiated it'll sound like angry robot bees, but get used to the sound and it's fantastic.
- The NES versions of the Dizzy games were no slouch either. Fantastic Dizzy, in particular-- composed by Matt Gray, of Commodore 64 Last Ninja 2 fame.
- Also on the ZX Spectrum, the technical achievement involved in mixing the in-game music together with the sound effects on a system with only one sound channel in Manic Miner and its sequels.
Contra! The first stage deserves merit.
- This jam by Chris Kline is absolutely dazzling.
Even at the classic ages, Ninja Gaiden gives out nifty musics. Like this music piece from the Stage 4-2, which doubles as the credits song.
- The sequel opens up with an awesome first stage music.
A fairly obscure (but nonetheless excellent) one--James Bond Jr. for the NES. Not necessarily the best platformer, but dear GOD.
- In a similar sort of musical vein, the first level theme from Target: Renegade deserves a special mention because it's by Tim Follin (as mentioned a couple entries up), a very respected composer for the C64 and ZX Spectrum, among others. He also worked on the incredibly infectious soundtrack for Body Slam. That bassline...
- Neil Baldwin, the same guy who did the James Bond Jr. soundtrack, had several other impressive soundtracks. Magician was his first NES work-- and he cobbled this together with no prior knowledge of the system, and with manuals only in Japanese. No, really, Word Of God. Also, Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge has some great tunes, even if the credits theme is reused from James Bond Jr.
The Game Boy version of NBA Jam has a nice title theme.
Mission 2 - Kendhull Badlands from Project S-11 is very catchy
The Angry Video Game Nerd may hate the Silver Surfer NES game, but it has an awesome soundtrack, also composed by Tim Follin and his brother Geoff Follin!
A somewhat obscure pinball game, Rollerball, had only one table, and one background song. But it was awesome.
Sweet Home. AKA the Famicom game that was the precursor to today's survival horror games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Here is the entire soundtrack.
What, no love for the music of "Dragon Spirit: The New Legend"? The song for stage 3 especially is one of my all time favorites.
The Famicom tie-in to Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix has some excellent music. Stage 1 and Stage 3 stand out.
AWWW YEAH
The Ending Credits of the GB Version of Tetris Attack is one of the most Heartwarming songs this Troper knows. The part from about 2:00 onwards is notably heartwarming
As bad as the NES Rambo game was, it had some awesome music, such as the Title Theme and the Jungle Theme.
Kirby's Adventure pushed the sound generating capabilites of the NES to its limit, and it shows - a variety of tunes in a number of styles, from cheery to intense to ethereal to pure awesome.
Late in the Famicom's life, Konami came up with an mapper called the VRC7 which among other things packs a derivative of the YM2413 sound chip, in essence combining the sound capabilities of the Famicom and the Sega Master System. Sadly, it was only ever used in one game which was released in 1991 in Japan, but it didn't go to waste. It should therefore come as no surprise that those who have played Lagrange Point all claim it has the most technically sophisticated music of any game on the system.
The BBC Micro isn't the first platform that comes to mind in terms of awesome music, but Galaforce (starts at 3:12 on the linked video) is one that Beeb fans don't forget easily.
Bubble Bobble. That is all.
ZX Spectrum's Havoc theme. Some of the most intense bleeps and boops you'd hear on that machine.
Power Blade, a relatively obscure game featuring a boomerang-throwing Arnold-esque main character from Taito features some pretty kickass music. Here's Sector 1 and Sector 5.