Todays rip: 12/08/2023
Viva La Robocop
Season 2 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume L [Side A]
Ripped by Scooblee
There's something so fascinating about the chiptune community's ability to uncover incredible music from the strangest of sources. In the 80 and 90s, licensed games were being pushed out left and right by companies nobody was talking about, and nobody seems to remember in retrospect. Most of these games aren't considered classics, and many have been forgotten, yet companies like Ocean Software employed some bizarrely talented musical talent for the games they'd make. The obvious example to point to would be the Follin brothers, who would create absolute musical wizardry for games like Pictionary on NES or Bionic Commando for Commodore 64. Its immensely interesting seeing games that would otherwise be swept entirely to the wayside be remembered due to the hidden musical talent they contain.
Robocop for Game Boy is a clear example of this - composer Jonathan Dunn gave the game an absurdly crisp chiptune sound, and topped it all off with a title theme that sounds borderline melancholic. Its a really good tune on its own, and one ripe for rearranging with the game's distinctly unique sound. And thats what Scooblee did here - Viva la Robocop rearranges said title theme to the melody of Coldplay's Viva la Vida.
Scooblee has been doing chiptune music both on and off of SiIva for a very long time and are really damn good at it, and that skill is reflected here. Its an excellent arrangement that captures the emotional power of both songs really well, and has held up tremendously despite being six years old at this point. Due to the aforementioned forgotten state of the game in question, this rip too has sort of been forgotten on the channel, in favor of bigger-name games like Mario 64 or Pokémon. Yet it sits right alongside them, with a dedicated group of chiptune fans keenly aware of Jonathan Dunn's musical talents. And being able to uncover forgotten gems like this one entirely on my own amidst a vast sea of rips, is a huge part of why I love SiIvaGunner.
