Tag Archives: YM2151

GunMaster – PA187

GunMaster is a December 1994 arcade exclusive game developed by Metro Corporation. It’s a single or two-player boss rush action game that’s part fighting game and part platformer; think a dash of Gunstar Heroes with a Neo Geo art style. The game uses a well-established combo of soundchips: the OKIM6295 for 4 channels of ADPCM… Read More »

Plus Alpha – PA185

We’ve got a really fun soundtrack to dive into this episode from a Jaleco arcade title released in 1989 called Plus Alpha, composed by Tsukasa Tawada.  It’s an overhead shooter similar to Twinbee, Raiden, or 1942 and was re-released on the Nintendo Switch in 2020 under the Arcade Archives series published by HAMSTER Corporation. This is… Read More »

Advanced Fantasian – PA155

Today we’re talking about an old school dungeon crawler RPG called Advanced Fantasian. The game was released by Xtalsoft in 1988 for the PC-88 and Sharp X1 in 1989. Xtalsoft was a small RPG-focused developer that eventually merged with T&E Soft, a topic we covered last episode. The composers Chihiro Fujioka and Yumi Satake (nee… Read More »

Sega System 16 Baseball – PA152

We’re taking you out to the ball game in this short and fun episode covering music from 3 Sega System 16 baseball games: Major League, Super League and Excite League. It’s late 80s baseball from Japanese arcades, so it’s 2D sprites, digitized samples and YM2151 FM patches all the way down. No composers confirmed but… Read More »

Quartet with Norm – PA115

Today we’re joined by long time listener and friend to the show Norm as we cover the classic soundtrack of Quartet. Originally developed and published by Sega in 1986, Quartet is a futuristic 4-player arcade platformer with elements borrowed from Gauntlet. Quartet only saw one major wave of releases in arcades and home consoles plus… Read More »

Dangerous Seed – PA108

Dangerous Seed is a vertical shooter released by Namco in arcades in 1989 and adapted by TOSE in 1990 for the Mega Drive, both released only in Japan. While not a groundbreaking shooter, it does feature an inventive tri-ship mechanic, allowing players to switch up their shot mid-game and introduces a bit of strategy in managing the… Read More »