Retronauts Episode 185: The Music of PS1

That was episode 100—check it out.

Retronauts

I spent the whole episode desperately hoping Tenchu would be brought up, and my heart skipped a beat when Jeremy finally nominated it's sublime ninja jams at the very end. Thank you.

Brian Silvers

Perhaps we should get a Retronauts episode on the CD format itself. They were everywhere by the late 1990s, and the ubiquity made it possible for many artists to release their works, as well as allowing AOL to infiltrate our homes.

Can we get a list of the tracks mentioned and played in episode?

Carl Petroff

So hyped for the Virtual Boy book!

ItsumiMario

That version of Vampire Killer from Castlevania Chronicles sounds so much like Megalovania from Undertale by Toby Fox to me, that's crazy.

matt wyble

Amazing episode, definitely do a second part with rest of the suggested tracks

It's interesting how many of these songs revolve around Drum & Bass music.

littleterr0r

Someone should create a playlist of all the songs in this ep ;)

B. Traven

I'm going to give a shout out to a crap game(that I got my PS1 for...) with an amazing orchestral soundtrack, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Really made you feel like you were playing one of those early cgi Dinosaur Documentary, in till you fell through a platform...

Tentomon4

As a big fan of Happy Hardcore since the late 90s I never thought I'd hear the genre mentioned on Retronauts.

littleterr0r

Like all music episodes, this was painfully labor intensive, which means we'd like to do more of them... but sparingly.

Retronauts

Ridge Racer Type 4 is probably my favorite racing game of all time. And I have absolutely zero interest in cars for that matter. RRT4 is one of those rare games that convey a hypnotic dream of racing, like Outrun before it. Instead of focusing on the minutiae of licensed cars and engine parts, you are gliding along beautiful stages, soaking up the breezy atmosphere of a jazz fusion wonderland. It's probably a game that would never get made today amongst the Grand Turismo/Forza Horizon arms race of licensed cars and realistic detail, and that's a damn shame. Speaking of Namco... I wonder if "Jumping Flash" will be featured on the next PS1 soundtrack episode?

Nice to see Tenchu mentioned here on Retronauts! I was a big fan of the original, and later Wrath of Heaven on the PS2. A lot of that affinity has to do with the great atmosphere of the series, in which the wonderful music is key component. As a fan of classic Samurai cinema, Tenchu's semi-historic, brooding Ninja vibe hit a sweet spot for me. I feel the Batman Arkham games much much later realized the roof hopping stealth aspirations of Tenchu, but I loved it just the same.

I really enjoyed this show, and I love when Shane can participate. With both Jeremy and Shane in the conversation, the amount of detail recalled is amazing, and really interesting. While I know you are always concerned about time, Jeremy, these longer shows are my favorite as longer shows generally mean more granular bits of information and insight. I know you can't be on mic all day, but its really great when the conversations have room to breath. Great show, great to have Shane back for a spell, and I look forward to you continuing this thread, a la the MetroidVania conversations.

RyoGeo

Please consider doing more episodes in this format. I am enjoying the discussion and the music!

Will Oliver

Awesome episode. It's easy for me to fetish-ize the SNES and Genesis loops that defined my youth as the most memorable game music out there, but Jeremy, you make a strong case for the PSX's library. Retronauts has been bringing some serious Sega love over the past year, but if you're into exploring the other 32-bit Red/Yellow book audio machine one day, you won't be disappointed. If I might indulge a little, here are some of my faves: They're re-arrangements, but the Suikoden 1 &amp; 2 asian, celtic and piano albums reach Brink of Time and Chrono Cross OST heights for me. From beginning to end, they're all stellar. Lastly, it's not the most interesting song, but this semi-deep cut stands out nonetheless. I love the eerie quality that those little bassoon-y notes give to the world. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC3M8MzPZMA" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC3M8MzPZMA</a>

Travers Travers

Shane is being restrained for once! Yay!

Antony Lowbridge-Ellis

These are the episodes that I support Retronauts for! Loved all the musical samples and Shane is always a good addition to the crew. Great episode.

Kormakur Gardarsson

I really enjoy Shane as a guest on the show. He has a depth of knowledge much like you, Jeremy, but with different facets. Always great when looking back to get the details from two pedantic nerds instead of just one!

RyoGeo

Oh my god I can't wait to listen to this one. Loved so many soundtracks on PS1.

takeshikitano3

I never owned a PS1, but even then there are soundtracks to games on there that I'm super keen on, mostly Chrono Cross, FF8 (that's a cheat because I played about 70% of the PC port back in the day) and Wild Arms. And Legend of Mana. Also the Xenogears Creid album.

pimento

Ohhhhh man. My life has been PlayStation lately, ever since happening upon a very smooth (but very large), backwards compatible PS3 a couple months ago. We've got bad snow coming today so I'm very excited to kick back with this after work.

Zach Bernard