Recommended Soundtracks: Gauntlet IV

As someone who grew up with a Super Nintendo instead of a Sega Genesis during the Great 16-bit Console War®, I’ve preferred the comparative sound of Super Nintendo games for most of my life. This was understandable not only because I was most familiar with it, but thanks to how the system’s sound was powered by a special Sony chip that made several titles sound ahead of their time. When I played Genesis games at my cousin’s place and eventually got one of my own near the end of the 16-bit generation through the Sega Nomad, my conclusion was that every game could have sounded better if the system had the same sound setup as the SNES.

It wasn’t until I became an adult (or adult-ish) that I realized how Genesis games came with their own unique sound. Genesis games could sound worse, sure, but that depended on whether the composers and sound designers could take advantage of the architecture or not. Fortunately, a number of them did across the world. I first fully realized this after buying the Genesis game collection for PS3 (Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection in the United States — a terrible name), and I’m still discovering the composers that got the most out of the Genesis hardware. The newest one I found: Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Several composers figured out how to take advantage of the Genesis’ hardware, but some were more dedicated than others. Sakimoto, for one, took the extra step of creating his own custom FM synthesizer to get the most out of each console’s sound during the generation, known as the Terpsichorean. It was unfortunately only used for a handful of Genesis games while Sakimoto and partner composers like Masaharu Iwata also worked on moderately popular SNES games like Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and games for Japanese PC and PC-centric platforms. But the few they composed for Sega’s console with the setup were great. Among them was Gauntlet IV’s soundtrack.

The catch for this Recommended Soundtracks entry, which you can also consider a disclaimer, is that I haven’t actually played Gauntlet IV. Again, I grew up with an SNES, meaning there’s a treasure trove of Genesis games that haven’t been included on all the collections and individual retro releases over the years that I haven’t played. Emulation exists, sure, but there will still be games you just don’t have an opportunity to get around to. But ever since I’ve started listening to this game’s soundtrack, I haven’t been able to stop having it on in the background. It’s one of the best Genesis soundtracks I’ve heard, thanks to Sakimoto and Iwata taking special advantage of the hardware.

“Sortie” was the first track I heard from Gauntlet IV, which inevitably made me want to seek out the remaining tracks. I’ve always been a big fan of 8-bit and 16-bit music, and those adjacent to it like PC games from the time, that featured heavy bass use, and this one qualifies. The use of multichannel stereo sound is good too. It’s a melody that’s difficult to get out of your head upon first hearing it.

“Adventures of Iron” is the track that projects the game’s sense of adventure, the kind all games of this type needed for the player to immerse themselves in its style. This track, like all the others, is composed with a synthesizer, but the percussion pipe and base use could trick a person into thinking it’s using real instruments. You might also notice some Terminator theme inspiration here.

“March in the Dark” inherits the running theme of this soundtrack in having a heavier use of bass compared to other Genesis game soundtracks. This theme’s tempo is more fitting for a game with a medieval fantasy setting than one that channels the Terminator’s theme in parts, but don’t mistake this for me thinking that “Adventures of Iron” is ill-fitting.

“Retribution” has a more subtle melody compared to the bass-heavy tracks. Just because it’s a running theme doesn’t mean all tracks inherit that trait, nor is that a bad thing, as this superlative track proves. Variety is nice.

“Transparent Obstacle” highlights another necessity with good 16-bit tracks: Atmospheric sounds. Wind blowing through a corridor can be heard within the track alongside sinister growls, needed in lieu of the player being able to see those thanks to technology at the time. The bass fully returns here, and the drumline use is killer.

It’s soundtracks like these that showed me how Genesis music was capable of sounding just as good as SNES music when composers realized the former console’s strengths. There weren’t many composers at the time like Yuzo Koshiro, Motoaki Takenouchi, and the duo of Sakimoto and Iwata, but the music they composed will be timeless because of the solid melodies and use of the hardware. This just makes it a shame that Koshiro is the only composer still creating music like this, but perhaps there’s a chance that Sakimoto and Iwata will contribute to one of those FM style music compilations in the future, if not an old school-style game.