I don't think between the hourish or so after my post and the time you spent writing your own reply, you really had proper time to absorb the Secret of Mana soundtrack in it's entirety. It sounds like you just skimmed through it out of context, and nitpicked based off of personal taste formed around liking the loss of fidelity other games exhibit.
It's a very atmospheric setup, and makes better (read: intelligent) use of echo/reverb compared to a lot of games. Too many games just turned it on because it "did something". Like people who don't really understand how to use chorus/reverb effects with their guitar setups, and just crank knobs and have it sound like total dick.
The bass (especially the slap/synth style) and percussion (the double bass especially) sounds pretty top notch. The percussion is pretty killer.
SOM predated the other great non Uematsu stuff from Square. Bahamut Lagoon, CTrigger, and SOM2 all came later. Of the SNES era, I think Square and Enix basically owned the sound award (Check out Illusion of Gaia). Nintendo's games themselves weren't even as good sounding sometimes.
Here's the thing, I probably WOULD like it better in-game with proper context, but yeah, you're right, I didn't really take my time to listen to it and appreciate what it does, I just listened to what you posted here and moved on... But seriously, out of context, I've heard much better on the system...
And speaking of Illusion of Gaia, all Quintet games for the SNES sound amazing! (I haven't played Terranigma though so I can't say, but I sure want to play it, but I only want to play it once I beat Illusion of Gaia)
But seriously, Actraiser... Not only is that my favourite Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack bar-none, but that's one of the quintessential SNES soundtracks, that's the kind of sound I like to hear on the system!
And I totally get your argument on the reverb, you're absolutely right, but you see, even Capcom themselves got better at it overtime, Final Fight 3 is in my opinion their best work on the system (which to me means it's their best work ever ;3) and in that game they don't abuse the reverb nearly as much as in their previous works...
It seems you have a strange subjective liking of SFC based around the loss of fidelity. Fine by me, as long as you recognize it as such. Like all the C64 fans that are completely aware that some of the visuals in the C64 look worse than their Amiga counterparts, despite preferring them more.
I like the way Amiga often sounded as a result of this loss of fidelity. It gives it a strange charm. But, if OTHER Amiga games *didn't* have this issue, I tended to go "oh that sounds better".
This ones pretty good. It's also awful with headphones because Paula is a moron.
You hit the nail in the head... I know that CD audio is """""Better""""" because it's higher fidelity and you can use it to make "real" music, but here's the thing, I don't care about "real" music, I like Video Game music, and while the SNES sounds a lot more advanced than its contemporaries, it still doesn't sound like "real" music, it sounds like Video Game music, but it STILL sounds more advanced than its contemporaries, so I like it more!
And yeah that sounds nice, too bad I only have headphones so the hard-panning does take away from my enjoyment a little...
I haven't really played much of any of the PS1 Final Fantasy games, I think they look like s*** with their yucky polygons and blurry pre-rendered backgrounds and FMV that totally don't go well together, and let's just say that "A good story" isn't exactly what I look for in my games
This made me LOL. The PS1 era stuff may look a little rough now, but some of that stuff was pretty ground breaking. The FF games were pretty brilliant with their use of pre-rendered BGs. It looks better on a TV with proper scanlining and scaling. I will fully admit some of that stuff looks really dumb on an emulator. Even the FF8 for PC looked funky to me. Play it on a CRT with composite, or RGB, and you will change your view I bet.
Seriously, the RPGs that used 3D environments back then lacked a lot of visual character by comparison. I am not sure what your FMV statement is either. The FMVs in something like FF8 were (and still) are pretty excellent, and fitting for the game.
Parasite Eve is another one that kicked ass.
I get that that stuff was mind-blowing at the time, but I'm a sucker for good 2D grafx and pixel art, and 3D doesn't appeal to me nearly as much...
Also, one of the "various reasons" why I won't try the PS1 FF games in a really long time is because I 'want' to play them on my CRT TV on a PS1 (or PS2), but my CRT is broken right now and I have to go and get it fixed, and let's just say I'm not exactly in a hurry to get a PS1 or a PS2, there isn't much on either system that I REALLY want to play...
as a complete aside,
f*ckkkkk yeah. best sampled OST ever.
how do you feel about the SFC version? I hate it:
it lost ALL of the atmosphere that it was supposed to be conveying.
Now that's a soundtrack I really don't care much for >w>
If we're talking about European soundtracks, my favourites on the SNES are Super Turrican and Top Gear 1 and 2, now THOSE are good soundtracks!
(And speaking of European soundtracks, check out Iridion II on Game Boy Advance, it's one of the stand-out soundtracks on the system!
)
Shadow of the beast is nice but... Not my style...
I'll give you that the Amiga soundtrack is more 'atmospheric' but I legit prefer the instrumentation on the SNES...
The only versions of the game I've played though were the TurboGrafx CD and the Mega Drive versions, and well, the CD soundtrack is nice, I actually like it better than all the others, but you know, exceptions exist, I can like a CD soundtrack better than its chiptune counterpart sometimes, case in point: the Dynastic Hero, I MUCH prefer its soundtrack to Wonder Boy in Monster World, the latter hurts my ears, and the former is soothing and nice~
But you see, all of the CD soundtracks I like better than their chiptune counterparts are on the PC engine CD, and it's not just because they're on PC engine and I'm a big fangirl, but because PCE CD soundtracks don't really sound like everything else out there, probably because they were made so much earlier...
And even then, I sometimes still prefer chiptunes over the CD audio of the PCE CD, like in the case of Dracula X and Asuka 120%, heck, I'd love to re-do the new songs from Maxima Burning Fest in the X68000 style and then replace the CD soundtrack with the X68000 one... Someday I will!
