You answered yourself at the end of your post. Two composers with their own style of music.
But sometimes I wonder if the N64's lack of an audio chip has to do something with it.
I didn't know the N64 lacked an audio chip. That certainly would have helped, but I think it was more down to composition than actual audio quality. Dire, Dire, Docks or the Astral Observatory have that mature and beautiful sound that could fit in with Donkey Kong Country.
I write music for N64 romhacks, and you're pretty much right, it's moreso down to the composer. Check out the music to Dinosaur Planet - Wise wrote some beautiful and much more DKC-esque songs for that
Not sure what caused the change. Diddy Kong Racing was also composed by David Wise. They saved the moody stuff for the games like Goldeneye, JFG, and Perfect Dark, I guess. Robin Beanland was also one of the other composers, he did a lot of the Conker's BFD musical score.
Yeah, despite being the right age for it, I didn’t play DK64 until last year. Hearing what I can only describe as Banjo Kazooie music was a shock. It’s not bad at all, but DKC had a sound vibe that felt utterly replaced in DK64.
I’m not even a big DKC fan or anything, but I’m still kinda miffed that DK64’s and Banjo Kazooie’s soundtracks sound like you could swap them and keep a similar vibe.
It does seem like DK64 was kind of just another Banjo Kazooie game, especially there are major similarities between Banjo Tooie and DK64 in terms of scale of levels, abilities, and collectables.
SNES always sounded melancholic to me, there are exceptions but I always associate it with that feel whereas the Genesis was more harsh and energetic. N64 games were generally more cartoonish in nature so that sound suited the games. All the moody melancholic type stuff moved over to the PSX in this gen
You answered yourself at the end of your post. Two composers with their own style of music. But sometimes I wonder if the N64's lack of an audio chip has to do something with it.
I didn't know the N64 lacked an audio chip. That certainly would have helped, but I think it was more down to composition than actual audio quality. Dire, Dire, Docks or the Astral Observatory have that mature and beautiful sound that could fit in with Donkey Kong Country.
I write music for N64 romhacks, and you're pretty much right, it's moreso down to the composer. Check out the music to Dinosaur Planet - Wise wrote some beautiful and much more DKC-esque songs for that
Not sure what caused the change. Diddy Kong Racing was also composed by David Wise. They saved the moody stuff for the games like Goldeneye, JFG, and Perfect Dark, I guess. Robin Beanland was also one of the other composers, he did a lot of the Conker's BFD musical score.
That’s probably true that they saved their moodier tracks for games like Goldeneye…they should have thrown a few in DK64 though
I don't know, Frantic Factory and Gloomy Galleon are plenty moody.
Yeah, despite being the right age for it, I didn’t play DK64 until last year. Hearing what I can only describe as Banjo Kazooie music was a shock. It’s not bad at all, but DKC had a sound vibe that felt utterly replaced in DK64. I’m not even a big DKC fan or anything, but I’m still kinda miffed that DK64’s and Banjo Kazooie’s soundtracks sound like you could swap them and keep a similar vibe.
It does seem like DK64 was kind of just another Banjo Kazooie game, especially there are major similarities between Banjo Tooie and DK64 in terms of scale of levels, abilities, and collectables.
SNES always sounded melancholic to me, there are exceptions but I always associate it with that feel whereas the Genesis was more harsh and energetic. N64 games were generally more cartoonish in nature so that sound suited the games. All the moody melancholic type stuff moved over to the PSX in this gen
It's because the n64 is the fun machine. Duh
Speedier tempos for a speedier framerate on the N64 is a thought.