Where have I been for the past few weeks, you ask?
Well, pretty much alternating between my bed and the hospital, thanks to a recurring case of strep throat followed by an allergic reaction to anti-biotics.
But I’m feeling much better now, so here’s some video game music! I plan on putting up some more game tunes in the coming weeks too, so take notice!
Mega Drive Special
Super Thunder Blade
Altered Beast
Space Harrier II
This is one of the stranger game soundtrack titles I’ve bought since moving to Japan, and that’s saying something trust me.
This is pretty much an EP with three audio tracks, each titled after the game whom which the music came from. The tracks aren’t individual songs, however, they’re just collections of music, complete with multiple fade-in and fade-outs to break up each song. Why weren’t they split into individual tracks? I have no idea. I just know the music is great. Especially the Space Harrier stuff. I never played part two, but I remember playing the shit out of part one for the original Sega Master System and that shit was my jam.
But the bizarre track configuration isn’t the weirdest thing about this release. No, the weirdest thing about it is that it’s a CDV.
As you can probably figure out, CDV stands for CD-Video. However, it has nothing in common with the far more successful/practical Video-CD format that was widely used throughout Asia up until the 2000s. In fact, it has far more in common with Laserdisc technology than any other CD format.
That’s because while the audio on a CDV is standard CD digital audio, the video is analog (with digital audio), just like laserdiscs. So that means its not compatible with 99% of the home media players that are currently on the  market, as none of them are equipped to play analog video off of a disc. I can’t even rip it off the disc to my PC, that would be like trying to rip a VHS tape. The only way I could ever get the video content off this disc and onto my computer would be to hook up a laserdisc player to my PC via an external video card and record as it played. And hey, I already have two near-useless laserdisc players back in the states, and I have no plans to add a third one to my collection here in Japan. Sorry.
But hey like I said, the music is great, so enjoy!