Sonic Mania- Video Game Vinyl Soundtrack Review

Sonic Mania has recently released and has garnered rave reviews, with many complementing its throwback style and a return to the classic game play which made the series so popular during the 16-bit generation.
Classic Sonic the Hedgehog games always had great music and Sonic Mania, which has a mix of new and remixed songs, carries this tradition forward proudly.
Data Discs announced the Sonic Mania LP a few months ago and whilst I was conscious of the many missteps in the series along the way I took the plunge and pre-ordered the record as the music has, on the whole, been pretty solid.

Classic Sonic takes front-centre on the cover of this soundtrack

So what of this new album? Well the record features 16 new tracks selected by composer Tee Lopes, which provides an overall flavour of the diverse music in the game.
The cover is suitably 90s with classic Sonic front and centre and random colourful shapes thrown around, reminiscent of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or Saved by the Bell introduction credits. The record comes as a single 180 g LP which is available in 3 colours; blue, black or red, orange, white and blue splatter. I ordered the splattered vinyl and was pleased with how it looked, it does look very smart indeed.

On the vinyl the tracks are:

  1. Discovery (Title Screen Theme)
  2. Lights, Camera, Action! (Studiopolis Act 1)
  3. Wildstyle Pistolero (Mirage Saloon Act 1 K Mix)
  4. Tabloid Jargon (Press Garden Act 1)
  5. Danger on the Dance Floor (Mini Boss Theme)
  6. Built to Rule (Titanic Monarch Act 1)
  7. Dimension Heist (Special Stage)
  8. Ruby Delusions (Eggman Boss Theme 1)
  9. Comfort Zone (Main Menu)
  10. Prime Time (Studiopolis Act 2)
  11. Blossom Haze (Press Garden Act 2)
  12. Rogues Gallery (Mirage Saloon Act 2)
  13. Hi-Spec Robo Go! (Hard Boiled Heavies Theme)
  14. Skyway Octane (Mirage Saloon Act 1 St Mix)
  15. Steel Cortex (Titanic Monarch Act 2)
  16. Ruby Illusions (Final Boss Theme)

The tracks are very good with a tinge of nostalgia but also are uniquely modern. They just fit right in the world of classic Sonic with upbeat chiptune music but with added trumpets, drums, epic electric guitar solos and super fast boogie woogie piano. For fan of the original series this record is a must have as it feels like a natural progression musically to what had gone before in Sonic and Knuckles. Current standout tracks for me include Studiopolis Act 1: Lights, Camera, Action! and Mirage Saloon Act 2: Rogues Gallery, which sounds like a modern rendition of Morricone's Spaghetti Westerns mixed with an upbeat chiptune. Other tracks may come to the fore but these two are the ones that appeal to me out of the 16 at the moment.

The soundtrack is a triumph and I would recommend it highly to anyone with even a passing interest in the original 4 games from the days of the Megadrive.

Video Game Papercuts

I love video games and I also like taking photographs, so the idea of merging the two appealed to me. Over the past several months I have been taking characters from various video games and placing them in the real world and these are the results so far. It's a small portfolio but hopefully I'll add to it over time.

Top Chiptune Soundtracks You Don't Know

Soundtracks nowadays are similar in style and vein to movie scores, full of cinematic scope and bombast, which is great as it leads to fantastic scores like the ones for Journey, Thomas Was Alone or DMC. However there was a simpler time where space was limited and the sound files had to be compressed and optimised to fit on a cartridge with 8 or 16 megs. This economy of scale led to thoughtful and creative masterpieces that are still iconic even today.

Now we could rattle off the famous game soundtracks that usually fit into many of the 'greatest Megadrive / SNES / NES soundtrack compilations' which you can find on YouTube but I want to choose a few pieces that time has forgotten. This is away from the usual Castlevania, Sonic, Megaman and Mario soundtrack scores as everyone knows them and loves them. I'm talking about the rarely heard soundtracks of yore. Here are a few of my favourites, maybe you could tell me yours!

This music plays during the Underwater levels from the Disney game World Of Illusion. It also plays during Mickey's Coral Reef section.

Music from R-Type 1987 by Irem- this level could be described as looking like the contents of a stomach, possibly after eating genetically modified food.

Thunder Force 3 - Stage 5: Ellis. This music was so upbeat and rocking that I loved leaving it to last!

Preserving the Spirit of Media Past

Preserving the past is a tricky preposition and getting trickier with the amount of information stored on fragile digital media. Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese have made it their mission to preserve classic films whilst Christopher Nolan has sought to preserve the medium of the physical film stock itself. However whose mission is it to save the audience?

We are at a watershed moment in film history, not just with the impending extinction of physical film but the demise of an audience equipped to appreciate some of its greatest works. I am a great lover of silent film and early movies, having been introduced to many in my youth by my parents and BBC 2 Sunday morning programming. I have fond memories of watching Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. Having attended a University which specialised in media and film studies (but studying Anthropology myself) I was introduced to many 'new' old films almost through a process of osmosis. I would take 8 to 10 VHS tapes at a time and consume them voraciously between assignments, listen in to students discussing them in the library and although many years have passed I still appreciate and watch these classic movies.

The Great Dictator is an absolute classic and contains one of the greatest speeches ever written.

I was concerned that the medium would be forgotten by the new generation- these films exist out of the childrens palate don't they? Well as a teacher I have had to endure many wet plays and this past December was a particularly soggy one, so there were more wet plays than usual. So I put on some Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy short films. There was no hype, no boombast, no 3D and no dramatic Hans Zimmer score.

My 30 pupils were motionless for a few minutes, I assumed that they were struggling to find a way in but watching patiently out of politeness to me. After a few moments I asked "Do you want me to turn it off?" and the children shouted "No!" Then the laughter started, the children were mesmerised for the length of the 25 or so minutes, they requested more clips so I worked through my collection. Children don't need to be told what to like, they will intuitively try things out and relate it to their world and experiences. In this case Charlie Chaplin was like "An old Mr Bean."

In much the same way as cinephiles do not need to guard older films, we older gamers do not need to feel like guardians of gaming heritage.

This term I have started a Retro Games Club using the Retron5 with original controllers and games to introduce children to the games of yore. The first game I unleashed on them was the SNES classic 'Street Fighter II Turbgo.' The children loved it and recognised some of the main characters. This led to a discussion on other characters that the children knew like Megaman and Pacman as well as the more famous contemporary icons from more modern games. A few of the children told me that their parents had the old systems and so they played some of the older games at home.

Punchout is the spiritual father of Wii Sports boxing, a game many children have played.

This wasn't 'Fauxstalgia' (False nostalgia) but something palpable- the children could relate to these characters and games from their own experiences and those who couldn't recognised the mechanics from their current gaming experiences. In the same way that 'Punchout' was compared to Wii Sports Boxing by my children people will always find a way in and seek out the origins of thing. Our gaming and film heritage is in good hands; God is in his heaven All is right with the world.