Oh yeah, Tin Star, a real bonafide SNES classic, right up there with Super Meatroid and Super Mario World. Still of great relevance to the videogame soundtracking industry.
>Likely to boost soundtrack sales
partially. it was mainly to stop unauthorized recordings. this all started off during the late 1980s when arcade games started putting timers onto sound tests that would stop playing after a few seconds or the sound test was reduced to an automated system that played the first few seconds of each track and moved onto the next song/sound effect. thankfully you can get cheats for mame that can let you listen to all the songs in a game, if the sound test has been gimped or whatever.
>seemed to be a Sega thing
It's not though. A ton of games on Nintendo consoles had sound test menus.
music on games suck now
You're not wrong. It's sad when you can we the decline within a series too. The music from Pokemon used to be fire and get sticking my head, but every since gen 6 (when the series really started cutting corners and going to shit) it's been so forgettable. A lot of other games have forgettable music too.
But some games still have great music. DKCR: Tropixal Freeze has some great music and the of the water themes in particular is amazing and even blows the amazing original out of the water (I'm not even exaggerating). The Mario games still have some good tracks too. Zelda also, but it's mostly ambient now.
I remember Kirby's Dreamland and Final Fantasy Legend II having a sound test that you'd need to enter a code for. Kirby's Dreamland you'd get it after you beat extra mode but you can easily find out if you press similar buttons that unlocked extra mode. In FFLII they didn't give you a hint and the only reason I found out is because it's a similar button combination as KDL.
>music gets unlocked in the sound test after you hear it in-game
It satisfies my completionist-tism. But ideally there should also be a cheat code to unlock all of them.
Yeah, I think Phantasy Star IV's sound collection works like this.
On another note, kudos to Wolfteam/Tri-Ace to always give access to their soundtrack.
The Genesis music in Sonic Jam seems to have parts of the channels come out of my rear speakers. I don't know if that's intended or not but it sounds cool
Been playing Sega and Snes on a Trinitron and I’ve noticed all kinds of little nuisances from the sound and how it’s pushed out in odd but cool ways. It really grabs the attention.
Sound tests are a debugging feature for the devs, like background or sprite tests. They usually disabled the later before release but left the sound test since it's pretty harmless and because why the hell not. Now though, it's no fun allowed.
>most people would rather look it up on youtube instead of launching the game and sitting on a menu
That's more convenient but channels that host game soundtracks get removed all the time. It's nice to have the option of plugging in an aux cord and recording it straight from the game.
>game soundtrack is garbage >game has sound test >game soundtrack is the best thing you've ever heard in your life >game does not have sound test
makes me mad as frick
oh yeah, this and >has in-game jukebox you can interact with >lets you play some of your favorite tracks of the game >jukebox stops playing as soon as you leave it instead of the game letting you listen to what you chose in-game for a while
fricking hell
>jukebox stops playing as soon as you leave it instead of the game letting you listen to what you chose in-game for a while
What are games where the music keeps playing then?
Because in those days you had composers making sick ass beats on Yamaha synthesizers. Nowadays it's all sanitized "orchestral" music or FL studio shit.
I want to give a shout-out to Atelier Totori which lets you customize the music in downs, dungeons, and battles to damn near anything from the entire Atelier franchise.
From what I've seen, all modern Atelier games has this. Gotta download them for Switch, but it's free DLC. Pretty useful for your Atelier since you spend like 40% of the game in it
>game has sound room >full of a bunch of weird tracks with esoteric Japanese visuals which never play in the main game
What the frick were the Wario Land 4 devs on?
It's an early GBA game. If I had to guess, it's audio capability testing turned into audio capability showcase turned into weird bonus collectible shit
Likely to boost soundtrack sales, also most Nintendo games, even on NES and SNES, lacked sound tests and seemed to be a Sega thing.
Tin Star for Super Nintendo had it.
As did CV4, I guess third parties were open to them. Still, I seem to notice Sega games tended to have more sound tests.
Oh yeah, Tin Star, a real bonafide SNES classic, right up there with Super Meatroid and Super Mario World. Still of great relevance to the videogame soundtracking industry.
>Likely to boost soundtrack sales
partially. it was mainly to stop unauthorized recordings. this all started off during the late 1980s when arcade games started putting timers onto sound tests that would stop playing after a few seconds or the sound test was reduced to an automated system that played the first few seconds of each track and moved onto the next song/sound effect. thankfully you can get cheats for mame that can let you listen to all the songs in a game, if the sound test has been gimped or whatever.
>also most Nintendo games, even on NES and SNES
A lot of NES games had hidden sound tests though.
There's many more on NES and Snes that are dummied out for some reasons too. They're there, but you need an Action Replay to access it
>seemed to be a Sega thing
It's not though. A ton of games on Nintendo consoles had sound test menus.
You're not wrong. It's sad when you can we the decline within a series too. The music from Pokemon used to be fire and get sticking my head, but every since gen 6 (when the series really started cutting corners and going to shit) it's been so forgettable. A lot of other games have forgettable music too.
But some games still have great music. DKCR: Tropixal Freeze has some great music and the of the water themes in particular is amazing and even blows the amazing original out of the water (I'm not even exaggerating). The Mario games still have some good tracks too. Zelda also, but it's mostly ambient now.
Zoom off a cliff watching YouTube
Why?
music on games suck now
>sound test is locked behind game completion
Kirby Dream Course comes to mind
I remember Kirby's Dreamland and Final Fantasy Legend II having a sound test that you'd need to enter a code for. Kirby's Dreamland you'd get it after you beat extra mode but you can easily find out if you press similar buttons that unlocked extra mode. In FFLII they didn't give you a hint and the only reason I found out is because it's a similar button combination as KDL.
There's a sound test in Minish Cap (I think it's the only Zelda game to have one) but you have to collect all of the figurines to access it.
>music gets unlocked in the sound test after you hear it in-game
It satisfies my completionist-tism. But ideally there should also be a cheat code to unlock all of them.
Yeah, I think Phantasy Star IV's sound collection works like this.
On another note, kudos to Wolfteam/Tri-Ace to always give access to their soundtrack.
>be kid bad at games
>play sound test
>listen to music from levels I have never been able to reach
Like Hidden Palace Zone?
SOULERINO
Sound tests are sick because you can sample sweet one-shot sound FX
I liked being able to listen to all of the main game music in this. The promo scans and video clips were cool, too.
PS get fricked mods, KH sucks ass
The Genesis music in Sonic Jam seems to have parts of the channels come out of my rear speakers. I don't know if that's intended or not but it sounds cool
Been playing Sega and Snes on a Trinitron and I’ve noticed all kinds of little nuisances from the sound and how it’s pushed out in odd but cool ways. It really grabs the attention.
Sound tests are a debugging feature for the devs, like background or sprite tests. They usually disabled the later before release but left the sound test since it's pretty harmless and because why the hell not. Now though, it's no fun allowed.
Sonic had debug mode, but other games with sound tests also didn't have debug mode, which is why Sonic games have the superior retro SOVL
There isn't really a point since most people would rather look it up on youtube instead of launching the game and sitting on a menu.
I think sound tests are like game manuals. They're nice to have and it's a shame that they're gone, but I hardly used them to begin with.
>most people would rather look it up on youtube instead of launching the game and sitting on a menu
That's more convenient but channels that host game soundtracks get removed all the time. It's nice to have the option of plugging in an aux cord and recording it straight from the game.
Games still have them. They're just called jukeboxes or something.
>game soundtrack is garbage
>game has sound test
>game soundtrack is the best thing you've ever heard in your life
>game does not have sound test
makes me mad as frick
oh yeah, this and
>has in-game jukebox you can interact with
>lets you play some of your favorite tracks of the game
>jukebox stops playing as soon as you leave it instead of the game letting you listen to what you chose in-game for a while
fricking hell
>jukebox stops playing as soon as you leave it instead of the game letting you listen to what you chose in-game for a while
What are games where the music keeps playing then?
Persona 3
And, not retro, but Sonic Generations
Because in those days you had composers making sick ass beats on Yamaha synthesizers. Nowadays it's all sanitized "orchestral" music or FL studio shit.
I want to give a shout-out to Atelier Totori which lets you customize the music in downs, dungeons, and battles to damn near anything from the entire Atelier franchise.
From what I've seen, all modern Atelier games has this. Gotta download them for Switch, but it's free DLC. Pretty useful for your Atelier since you spend like 40% of the game in it
To listen to those b***hing sonic tracks? Why do you have a problem with this?
>game has sound room
>full of a bunch of weird tracks with esoteric Japanese visuals which never play in the main game
What the frick were the Wario Land 4 devs on?
It's an early GBA game. If I had to guess, it's audio capability testing turned into audio capability showcase turned into weird bonus collectible shit
too make sure your sound card was working perfectly
>sound card
>on a TV
Coz game soundtracks are now all awful generic orchestral Hollywood style rubbish.