MIDI Week Singles: "Episode 1, Page 2-2" - Comix Zone (GBA)

 

"Episode 1, Page 2-2" from Comix Zone on the Game Boy Advance (2005)
Composer: Howard Drossin
Arranged By: Manfred Linzner
Album: No Official Soundtrack Released
Publisher: SEGA Europe Ltd.
Developer: Sega Technical Institute

"Episode 1, Page 2-2" is an arranged version of "Episode 2, Page 1-1" from the original version of Comix Zone, released on the SEGA Mega Drive.  The ported version on the Game Boy Advance, which we're specifically pulling today's MIDI Week Single from, was ported in 2005 by Sega Technical Institute for only the French and German Game Boy Advance markets.  The song was originally composed by Howard Drossin and arranged for the Game Boy Advance sound chip by Manfred Linzner, who had been adapting music for the GBA since 2001.

What's great about this song, and a lot of the music from Comix Zone on the Game Boy Advance, is that the sound quality of the sound chip, often adding a lower quality and static sound to the background, works well with how the music meshes with the 80s action hero aesthetic of the game.  Sounding a little garbled and tinny at the same time, I find that this song manages to capture a nostalgic sound that was just starting to exist when the song was first written for the 1995 release on the SEGA Mega Drive.

The only bad thing I will say about this song is how it actually sounds when you're playing the game.  Once Sketch Turner swings down to the panel below and the second part of Page 2 starts, this new music starts, without any kind of transition.  In the first panel, the music sounds fine, but once Sketch swings down to the next panel and begins fighting the face-hugger-type aliens, the various sound effects kind of take over the forefront of the in-game sound, and something is lost in the music.  I get it, though.  The sound chip on the Game Boy Advance is one of the most criticized aspects of that system that I've read, so combining drum and guitar-heavy music along with kicking/punching sound effects along with creature noises and grunts from Sketch, there are going to be some casualties.

But that's why we love to feature music on its own here, to be heard and shared outside of the game, because it's just that good.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Drawn in by a Lost Memory