Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Why the 8-bit music in video-games is often acknowledged as the best?


If you've been gaming for around 20 or more years, then you might've notice the evolution in video-games on all fronts; music, storytelling, graphics, game-play, length, art styles, connectivity, formats, sound, etc.  The former, one of the most subjective and rich components of video-games, has found –despite all the improvements in technology- continuously brought back to its roots.

But why is that? Why is that, tunes we have the most fond memories of, are the ones from our earliest gaming experiences?  The easiest answer could be -nostalgia value-, and it would be partially correct, but is not that simple. Plenty of us can listen to a track from classic 8 bit games that haven’t heard before and still like it as much as someone that listened to it 15 years ago (example♪)… well that’s because is good, duh! (Well, not every single one). But why is that we gave it that attribute? Not just to a particular song but to a whole era of this style of music.

The answers lies within video-game history, specially on its technological limitations, but specially on its technological limitations in sound; Not that long ago (or maybe that long ago, but I don’t want to admit that I´m getting old) video-games were composed of the simplest of geometrical shapes, the square (technically they still are) called pixel, they had the advantage at the time over vector games for having color proprieties, the more pixels and colors on screen, the more resources took  from the format in which they came (very limited for today standards). The sound would also take an important percentage of these formats, to the point that early sounds, - “sounds” being a generous word here-, were given the role of feedback to the player, not music whatsoever. 

Space invaders is the first game that try implementing musical rhythm with these punishing limitations. And punishing it was, I wouldn't go as far as calling music to 4 notes that repeats over and over; but it was a first try (sample).

Castlevania Rondo of Blood ♫ (sample)

Before moving further, I consider necessary a mutual understanding that, when gamers refer to 8-bit music, are technically wrong, since we include with this concept, music from NES to turbografx 16 or even neo-geo; right before, or just about the beginnings of the CD format on gaming, many of which weren't 8- bit systems or technically hadn't 8-bit music. But we do so because they all share certain characteristics that composers had to implement in order to include pleasant music in video-games and perhaps the answer to our ladder question.


Ninja Gaiden II ♫ (sample)
So…The way that composers worked around these limitations were very ingenious, most of them applied a simple concept -less is more- ; instead of presenting fully developed orchestral pieces with many instruments or voice (that weren't possible to reproduce on a faithful way at the time), they focused on the melody of such songs and gave it a protagonist role (sample♪). The reason being, that the most popular system for that time (and the one that gave a breath of fresh air to the industry), the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), out of 5 channels it has for audio, 3 are a great choice for making melodies and 2 for percussion or noise. The following video (which I didn't make) helps to understand these concepts:


By definition the melody is the most recognized part of a song, and fewer elements made for musical compositions easy to grasp, remember and enjoy.

Koichi Sugiyama
From that point forward music was an integral part of gaming, especially in japan where its influence gathers around the best talents to create masterpieces such as this one

Nintendo would maintain the lead in gaming music with its Super Nintendo and created, alongside Sony and Ken Kutaragi, a sound chip way ahead the competition, that made possible memorable music (sample) with a greater set of tools for composers, that were able to expand on genres (sample♪)

But despite the hardware advancements, gaming music before the CD media, was consistent on its own style, at the time composers had developed certain skill to work within these boundaries and it was more cost efficiently for companies to keep doing so, at the same time fans had developed a familiarity with it; That, leaded to a genre, or term called 8-bit music:
Easy to identify pieces with limited synthesized sounds; Music that can be stuck in your head long after the gaming session is done, that enhances the gaming itself and sets a mood for the whole experience or a situation at hand.
Mario 
With this in mind would be hard not to grow certain love for at least a couple of these tunes, many of which have had a cover treatment from fans and musicians alike throughout the years, and kept fresh the memories of these music. All of this, reasons why most of us think so highly of it, it’s not good just for being good, but for being a pioneer on a pioneer form of art, for sorting difficulties that no other media had faced before with music; Because, despite borrowing from many music genres, it differentiates from the rest by making each genre its own, and while may not be relevant to some, it still is an interesting -GAMING TOPIC- to take on… Thank you for being awesome

1 comment: