MIDI Week Singles: "All I Need Is 30 Deaths" - F-Zero X (N64)

"All I Need Is 30 Deaths" from F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64 (1998)

F-Zero X Original Sound Track

Record Label: Pony Canon (PCCG-00459)

Composers: Taro Bando & Hajime Wakai

Game Developer: Nintendo EAD

Now, anyone familiar with the F-Zero franchise will probably be wondering why I chose such a random song from such a large catalogue of recognizable music.  Simply put, until last week, my brain had misinformed me about the origins of this particular song.

Up until last week, I was convinced that the melody from this track (starting at 0:22) was from Faceball 2000.  How sure was I about this apparent fact?  I would have put money on it.  I have been so sure that this song was used in Faceball 2000 that since the first time I heard it, probably back in 1999 that I absolutely knew that this song was in that SNES game from 1992.

That is, until last week when I went looking for it.  

Can you blame me though?  Listen to that odd little bit of melody that lasts a mere 10 seconds.  Now go back to last weeks MWS and tell me that this melody would not have worked perfectly in Faceball 2000.  I am just a bit sad that this has not been the case.

Nevertheless, I find this to be a pretty catchy little ditty that lasts 10 seconds amidst rising driving chord progressions (pun not intended).  And despite this song being an original composition and not based off of a weird and quirky soundtrack from 11 years prior, I still like it.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Running In Circles

MIDI Week Singles: "City Zone" - Faceball 2000 (SNES)

"City Zone" from Faceball 2000 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1992).

No official soundtrack release

Composer: George "The Fat Man" Sanger

Developed by: Xanath Software F/X

Unsurprisingly, there is not a whole lot of music from Faceball 2000 out there in the Interlands.  There are even fewer videos up on Youtube to pull music from.  The music from Faceball 2000 was composed by George "The Fat Man" Sanger, who also composed the music for all other iterations of this game that previously came out on the Gameboy and Atari ST (1987 and 1991 respectively).

What I find interesting for myself, is that I never owned any version of Faceball 2000, but played the hell out of the copy that Dr. Potts had on the SNES.  I could probably still never sing you any of the songs from game as they are all odd in both their melody and cadance.  But, but, BUT, I still find them all catchy and make me feel like a 12 year old all over again, maybe riding my bike over to Dr. Potts house for a weekend of video gaming and pb&jers.

It is most likely one of those songs that unless you grew up playing this game, you may run the high risk of not only not liking this song or the rest of the music from the game, but find it grating on your ears.  Just throw in a bunch of "BOW" sound effects and you'll be right at home.  Nevertheless, I still like it, which is how and why "City Zone" found its way here to MIDI Week Singles.  

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

P.S.  And if anyone out there actually has all the MIDI or mp3 files for this game, let me know, as I seem to be unable to locate them out there in the hinterlands.