By Joseph Walter
But the music. My God the music.
At first, many of the tracks seem like typical faire for 16-bit action-platformers, but upon closer inspection, it seems that the composer put in an extra amount of thought for each piece.
I can't imagine why, but my guess is that he was on a creative streak and just loved what he was coming up with, so he decided to go the extra mile and put in tons of extra details. Nearly every track is structured more complexly than others of the genre in the same era, with build-ups, motifs, and balls-to-the-wall bridges that come outta nowhere.
So for this edition of the so-called "Weekly Soundcheck," I wanted to discuss some of the stand-out tracks of "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie!"
Player Select
I can only imagine that the composer, Yasumasa Yamada, came up with the sweet background loop and then just played the solo improvisations live.
This is certainly exciting and head-bobbing, but the element of "we've got some ass to kick" is the selling point for this particular track. You can practically see the Rangers in the Command Center getting ready to suit up and deciding who is going where.
A short, sweet and awesome piece.
Shopping Center
The desperate buil-up in the beginning sets the scene for the under-siege shopping center, but it's the insanely sweet guitar blast at :15 that sells the track, while conveniently showing off the power of the SNES soundchip.
Overall, this is typical action-fare with a memorable tune that certainly sounds like you should be punishing putties to it. It's not really fast paced, but the beat is captivating.
As the mentioned before, the bridge of this tune, with its variations on the main beats and then its 1:13 insert of the main motif shows that a lot of kick-ass thoughts went into this piece.
Frozen Mountains
There's a big focus on percussion and guitar strumming, but the main synth takes center stage.
However, :53 to 1:01 escalates what is a fairly straightforward track to something that is just purely cool. I wish I could describe it better. On the surface, it's really just a simple shake-up, but in context it just absolutely sells a particular feeling. That feeling is, of course, being infintely bad-ass.
After this sequence, the track seems to loop, but that's a lie. Instead, the center-stage synth now starts to amp itself and go off on some increasingly-frantic tangents before the actual loop.
Not as good as the bridge, but it still manages to be more complex than it rightfully should have been.
Ivan Ooze
More than the others we've discussed on this list, this track almost exclusively features intense and full synthetic sounds, letting the still-present guitar take a backseat. The sounds are wavy, spacey and eerily electronic. Starting at L40, the main lick take on a hopeful atmosphere, but the sounds used for this sequence make it simulatenously make it feel hopeless.
But then there's the bridge.
1:03 to 1:30 is... it's just something else. It's beautiful. You can practically fully visualize the White Ranger facing off against the ultimate foe, Ivan Ooze, in a fateful stand-off with the galaxy in the balance. The full forces of good pushed to their limit against an overwhelming force.
It's outstanding work for such a meh gameplay experience.
Game Over and Stage Clear
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The "Game Over" theme, while not as outstanding as the minor-mode rendition symbolizing utter defeat in the first SNES game, is still a serviceable, arcade-styled "Game Over" motif, but the "Stage Clear" version meshes much better with the style of this game, taking the main theme and morphing (lol) it to fit the musical trappings that Yamada graced the rest of the soundtrack with.