This Week on Night-Time Listening, we went oldschool, like we always do. But we went handheld oldschool as this week, it was all about the Game Boy. First up we listened to the sounds of Final Fantasy Legend III. Then we went back to kill Dracula with Castlevania Legends. We traded cards with Pokemon Trading Card game. We saved Pauline in Donkey Kong ’94. And finally, we traveled to Goldenrod City in Pokemon G/S/C.

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Final Fantasy Legend III – Setting Off Into The Future

Composed by Ryuji Sasai

 

To start, here’s the World Map music from Final Fantasy Legend III. If I recall correctly, the Final Fantasy Legend games on the Game Boy were actually SaGa games rebranded to Final Fantasy since it was huge at the time. Final Fantasy Adventure was also a rebranded game as it was originally a Mana game. This was the only game I had in the FF Legend series, and I remember getting pretty hooked to the game. Who remembers how weird the western artwork for this was?

Castlvania Legends – Bloody Tears

Composed by Kaoru Okada And Yoichi Iwata

 

It’s such a shame that Castlevania Legends got retconned. Here we have a badass female vampire hunter, Sonia Belmont, that would’ve been the only female in the famed line of vampire hunters. It would’ve been cool, but alas, we still have Shanoa (who is not a Belmont). But we’re here about the music! And to me, it’s unfortunate that this version of Bloody Tears doesn’t get as much love as the other version of this song (y’know, the regular one). It would’ve been nice to hear this song mixed in with the regular one as part of a remix. The songs are short enough as it is, so mixing them could actually increase the length, wouldn’t ya say?

Pokemon Trading Card Game – Club Leader Duel

Composed by Ichiro Shimakura

 

Now we’re closing in on the big guns of the Game Boy. Alongside the release of Pokemon Red/Blue and the anime, Nintendo and (I believe) Wizards of the Coast released a line of Pokemon Trading Cards. They were all then rage! Of course, some of use had no idea how to actually play the Pokemon Trading Card Game. So Nintendo went meta and created the Pokemon TCG Game Boy game, which acted as a tutorial. I never bothered with the game, but it looked to have some good music. The game also came with an exclusive Pokemon card inside. Does anyone remember what card that was?

Donkey Kong (1994) – The Final Showdown

Composed by Taisuke Araki

 

The original Donkey Kong launched Shigeru Miyamoto’s career into the stratosphere, attaining almost god-like status amongst many gamers. So when the Game Boy was release, the idea of releasing Donkey Kong was far from alien. They did release it on the NES after all. But Nintendo didn’t want to just do the same ol’ port. They’d make it into a full on experience, throwing in even more stages and increasing the difficulty. The music was also improved, going beyond the simple melodies from the older Donkey Kong games on the Arcade and NES. What you’re hearing now is the Final Battle theme with against DK.

Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal – Goldenrod City

Composed by Junichi Masuda and Go Ichinose

 

Let’s end the week with another trip to Pokemon. After the success of Pokemon R/B/Y, Nintendo followed up With Pokemon Gold and Silver (and later Crystal). The music of Pokemon R/B/Y was great, but Gold and Silver improved on that tremendously, making use of more sounds and channels that were not quite explored in the original. For me, my favorite song in the generation is Goldenrod City. The melody is crazy addictive, and it’s always rung in my head through all these years. This generation of Pokemon would also be the last generation I played. Outside of buying Soul Silver, I’ve never played any other Pokemon game. So what your favorite song in this series?