Varestine Castle music on MSX FM

From the soundtrack of "Ys III - Wanderers from Ys" by Falcom, 1989
Original music by Mieko Ishikawa

Still more or less Work In Progress.
The MSX version had PSG support only, which gives a pretty weird contrast considering the high-quality graphics and technically impressive engine of the game.

I tried to interpret the way that Falcom *may had* arranged the song if the game would have supported the FM-PAC.
The interpretation is partly based on the Dragonslayer VI (Legend of Heroes) soundtrack (and to a lesser extent, that of Sorcerian or Dragonslayer V), since those games do make (excellent) use of MSX FM.
The arrangement itself is an amalgamation of how it sounds in several ports - in particular the MSX2, PC-88, NES, SNES and Sega Genesis versions.

Unfortunately, the tracker which I use (and which seems to be the only choice) does not support elaborate PSG control, so the drums are very minimal since it's impossible to reproduce the PSG effects as heard in the MSX2 version.

In the future, I consider to also arrange the music of the Tigray Quarry, Ildjarn Ruins, Lava Ruins, boss battles and Clock Tower for MSX FM.

• Category

  Gaming

[CBoyardee]

Hey man, this is great! What's the name of the tracker you're using? I don't know much about MSX tracking or the capabilities of its soundchip, but this is a great sound I'd like to get into. I've written tons of songs with VOPM and a couple older Adlib trackers and I love the FM sound you're getting from this.

[John Hassink]

Thanks man! This tracker is "Moonblaster version 1.4" and has recently been declared freeware. You can download it at the MSX Resource Center. If you intend to use an emulator, I recommend blueMSX or openMSX.

[huaxiong90]

...and I forgot to add: Well done. :P

[John Hassink]

Thank you. :D

[huaxiong90]

Just about all Ys games have great music. That's what I like so much about Ys 7 and Oath in Felghana...the music still has that retro arcade-ish feel.

[John Hassink]

Yes, I totally agree. Recently played some Ark of Napishtim on PS2 and was pleasantly surprised by the musical style.

[Igal Sirour]

Very Nice work



[RedHairdo]

Yuzo Koshiro only did part of the soundtrack of the first two game,s not Ys III onwards.

Anyway, nice arrangement. :) Good job.

[zyatareo]

裏メロはSFCか。

[John Hassink]

Another important reason to leave out Audio (for this particular song) is, that the whole point of this arrangement was that I wanted to see how Ys III may have sounded if it had supported MSX FM. So, I'm 99% certain that this setup (max. 9 channels FM + PSG drums) would be the one that Falcom had opted for, as they did with Dragonslayer VI and (more or less) Sorcerian. They wouldn't have used MSX-Audio. :)

[John Hassink]

Accepted!

About the MSX-Audio, well, for the time being I want to try and explore MSX-Music to its fullest. You know I always preferred Music anyway, right? ;) I was never a big Audio fan.