Bomberman 64 Soundtrack

[Ray Kowalewski]

Thedecision to let the RSP and CPU process sound made the N64 more like a PC than a traditional home console, at least on the audio side: it utilized a unified memory subsystem that brought together audio, video, and the CPU in one place, which was also the direction that personal computers were heading in once more. Consider that the SNES had a soundchip, but it was designed to allow for audio samples that topped out at just 64kb in size. It took some slick thinking and programming by Yuzo Koshiro while composing for ActRaiser to discover the workaround for this limitation that would allow for less obvious looping and more complicated song structures in compositions for the platform, but that there was a limitation at all was the thing that eventually bothered Nintendo enough for them to do something about it at the hardware level.

It looks like many Europeans have a little more bite on the technical side of things. From our perspective, the N64 is almost as complicated as the [Sega] Saturn. You can do amazing things, as those last Saturn games that are still coming also prove -- but you have to program in a way that you use the resources to a tee. And many people over here don't seem to be able to get to terms with that and the outcome is often disappointing. To say it bluntly, in that respect it seems that European and Japanese companies -- with few exceptions -- are simply better. Rare has gathered the cream of the European programming elite, and it's quite visible that they're technically ahead. And in Japan, look what Major A, Konami, managed to squeeze out of the N64. In that respect, it seems that many Americans just have a to try a little harder (laughs).

July marks 40 years of Hudson Soft\u2019s (and Konami\u2019s) Bomberman franchise. Throughout the month, I\u2019ll be covering Bomberman games, the versatility of its protagonist, and the legacy of both. Previous entries in the series can be found through this link.

Whether Bomberman Hero is a good video game or not is up for debate. Sure, the people who don\u2019t think it\u2019s any good or that whined about the lack of multiplayer in it as a reason to not bother with Bomberman\u2019s second Nintendo 64 adventure are wrong, but it\u2019s the kind of wrong you can debate. What isn\u2019t up for discussion is whether Bomberman Hero\u2019s soundtrack is any good: it rips, the end, thanks for playing.

Bomberman Hero\u2019s soundtrack is legendary, and has been included in best-ever lists as well as features on sites like Pitchfork \u2014 think about how many video games there have been, and then consider how impressive it is to make rank on something like that. Bomberman soundtracks in general \u2014 especially those composed by June Chikuma, like this one was \u2014 are excellent listens, loaded with personality and adding very clear value to the gameplay experience itself. Bomberman Hero\u2019s is the best of them, which says something. Chikuma herself has said that it\u2019s \u201Cthe most remarkable title in terms of music among the Bomberman series,\u201D and it\u2019s also the source of this anecdote about actor Nicolas Cage\u2019s taste in video games, in which he showed up in a retro store loaded with imports and requested, \u201Cthe Bomberman game with the good soundtrack.\u201D The employee in question, of course, knew what game this referred to, even though that shouldn\u2019t have narrowed things down at all given the quality of the series\u2019 soundtracks. And yet! We all know, don\u2019t we?

Bomberman Hero\u2019s soundtrack is more than just some killer tracks that show off Chikuma\u2019s excellent understanding and use of drums and cymbals, as well as an extensive knowledge of various electronic dance music genres and subgenres. It\u2019s also a showcase for what the Nintendo 64 was capable of on the audio side; like Bomberman Hero itself, the N64\u2019s audio hardware was often criticized for what it wasn\u2019t rather than what it actually was, and there was more here of importance than either was given credit for.

Nintendo made a massive change when they designed the N64, as they didn\u2019t utilize a dedicated sound chip. The Super Nintendo and rival Sega Genesis had very distinct sounds, due to their vastly different approach when it came to choosing a sound chip \u2014 the SNES featured a chip designed by future rival Sony, that, while it did feature wavetable synthesis that would allow for a more \u201Ctraditional\u201D use of instruments, as Karen Collins put it in Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, developers more often went for an enhanced version of the chiptune sound of the 8-bit era, which resulted in some more pop-oriented tracks, while the Genesis, with its heavy use of synth thanks to its Yamaha chip, was ideal for a more progressive rock-oriented sound and instrumentation. For the N64, Nintendo wanted to open things up more than the SNES had allowed, and in a decision that would give developers more freedom but also more work, didn\u2019t include a dedicated sound chip.

So, without a sound chip in place, where did music come from on the Big N\u2019s 64-bit system? The CPU itself, or the Reality Signal Processor (the RSP \u2014 which was already responsible for shading, clipping, lighting calculations, and more on the graphical side). Rather than a separate piece of hardware installed in-system like with the Sony chip in the SNES, the N64\u2019s audio could all be processed by the same CPU that was responsible for ensuring that the game on the cartridge showed up on your television and played like it was supposed to. It was a decision that was often criticized at the time and also resulted in some poor sound quality for various games \u2014 more on that in a bit \u2014 but it was also something of an ahead-of-its-time, peek-into-the-future design. Nintendo seemed behind by sticking with expensive cartridges over moving to a CD-ROM format like Sega and Sony had with the Saturn and Playstation, respectively, but they had the one 64-bit system in a 32-bit world, and they were trying to push the boundaries of audio with that extra horsepower, too.

The other thing, too, is that the amount of space that existed for audio in pre-N64 systems was set, and if that memory wasn\u2019t used for audio as intended, well, it went unused, idle. With this change in hardware design, the audio\u2019s only real limitation, in this particular light, was in how much memory was left for it after the graphics and such had been accounted for, but that was also clearly looking at things the wrong way for a developer who cared about sound quality. What the change could mean, instead, is that memory was no longer tied up in a preexisting task, but instead, if you needed less memory for audio at a given time, then it could be utilized elsewhere, such as on the graphical side, or vice versa. Memory didn\u2019t have to be left idle with a system like this: nothing had to be wasted, but could instead be applied exactly where it was needed.

This wasn\u2019t how things always worked in practice. As developer Factor 5 \u2014 known in part for their excellent audio quality and their understanding of hardware \u2014 put it in an interview with IGN in 1998: \u201CThe N64 shares its workload with the co-processor -- actually, let me rephrase that: The whole machine does it, because you can also make music with the CPU. It just seems that at the moment most people are preoccupied with pumping out cool graphics -- and that's also what most gamers want. And the more graphics you do on the N64, the less performance you have left over for sound.\u201D

Now, there were workarounds to squeeze more out of the CPU and RSP, but a developer had to put in the effort for them, which didn\u2019t always happen. Instead, you ended up with a lot of audio compression, which affected the audio\u2019s quality, so that all the \u201Cleftover\u201D memory could be used on the graphical side. This wasn\u2019t always how it went down, though. Later in that same interview, Factor 5\u2019s rep explained that their audio achievements on the system came from \u201CCompletely new, homemade [audio] drivers from top to bottom,\u201D which they also assumed Rare took the time to produce for their own high-quality audio development, as well. Not every developer did this, though, and the emphasis on graphics would sometimes mean there was little room left for quality, memory-consuming audio, resulting in a tinny, mono sound: on a small television playing through its built-in speakers, this might not be a big or even noticeable deal, but if your N64 was hooked up to a television with a sound system, well, you better hope you had a Factor 5 or Rare or Nintendo game in there.

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