About Masato Nakamura(Dreams Come True)'s involvment in the Sonic

Shoemanbundy · Jan 24, 2008

This is probably not that important to many others, but being a huge fan of Dreams Come True, I got curious to see what others might know about this..

I see people often say that Masato Nakamura is the composer of ALL songs in the first 2 Sonic games. I think, however, that this can't be true.
I've read interviews with people who worked on Sonic 2, which was made entirely in the US by the way. In those interviews, some people would mention how people on the staff there would make some of the music, specifically I remember the story about the famed "Hidden Palace Zone" which the person in charge of music just went on their piano and made it up almost instantly. If anyone's interested, I remember these being interviews on Sonic Cult(I think...)
I'm not saying Masato didn't do much at all, I'm just saying it's a bit off an exaggeration in my opinion when I see people say he did ALL of it. I have had a feeling though that perhaps he was in charge of the whole soundtrack to the 1st game, but I'm pretty skeptical about the 2nd seeing as how it was made in America and I've seen written proof that there was also someone in charge of the music over here.
There is this CD that was released in Japan along with the Sonic Adventure 2 10th anniversary package in Japan. On this CD, select songs from throughout the series were included. Those songs for the first 2 Sonic games are as follows:

# Title Music (Sonic 1)
# Green Hill Zone
# Star Light Zone
# Special Stage (Sonic 1)
# Final Zone
# All Clear (Sonic 1)
# Emerald Hill Zone
# Casino Night Zone
# Special Stage (Sonic 2)
# All Clear (Sonic 2)

We see here that Green Hill Zone, Starlight Zone, and the Sonic 2 ending theme all made it there onto this CD. Now, knowing that those are all songs that were actually made real vocal songs of on a few of Dreams Come True's albums, I think it might be safe to assume that it's those and the other few on that CD, as listed above, that are truely in his credit. It was easiest for Sega to just only release those since Masato is still a big name in Japan, and thus they were able to easily attain his permission to sell his music seperately. On a CD of songs from a Genesis you'd think they'd have room for the whole soundtrack, but it's just my guess that they only put what was easily attainable the rights to easily at the time.
Kind of got long, but just a theory I've had for awhile....
Does anyone perhaps know anything about Dreams Come True's involvement in the first two games besides those songs we know that are actually used on their albums?

RAMPKORV · Jan 24, 2008

I don't have the answer to any of this, but I must thank you for bringing up the topic. Staff members on vgmusic.com insist in telling me that I'm wrong and that the music in Sonic 1 & 2 were done entirely by one person.

XCubed · Jan 24, 2008

There were other songs besides sweet dreams that were made into actual vocal songs? I've been looking for years to see if there were any more and I came up with nothing. Do you know the actual names of the songs that were vocalized? or at least a website that still has samples of these songs?

T.Q. · Jan 24, 2008

This interview with Masato Nakamura (courtesy of Sonic Central) has some information about his music in Sonic 1 and 2. It was an interesting read.

I downloaded a couple of their songs from Limewire.

Shoemanbundy · Jan 25, 2008

XCubed³ : If you look at the music section on the wiki on this site you'll see the list under Dreams Come True's page.
I know all of DCT's songs by the way, so let me assure you that besides the ones that are known to be used in Sonic games, I don't think there are any others that resemble any Sonic music. :P

ICEknight · Jan 25, 2008

Well, Sonic Advance mentioned DCT in the credits and it included the following retro music:

-Sonic theme (invincibility)
-Star Light
-Scrap Brain
-Sonic 1 boss
-Sonic 2 boss
-Emerald Hill 2 player

I don't remember which which of those were credited specifically, though.

Scarred Sun · Jan 26, 2008

From wiki:

Sonic 1 - Star Light Zone: Kusuriyubi no Kesshin DCT Album and Track Number: Million Kisses, Track 6 (Please post in discussion section if you disagree, another track called "Wo KURIKKU Suru to Shichyou Dekimasu" has been suggested but this seems incorrect)

Sonic 1 - Green Hill Zone: Marry Me? DCT Album and Track Number: Love Ballad Collection, disc 2, Track 9

(Also, oh lawd, that article needs some serious cleanup. Stuff's just dumped in there.)

Qjimbo · Jan 26, 2008

Hahah all that stuff was actually from me, and that comment in brackets was after someone posted a different track there. I downloaded the track they put and it sounded nothing like starlight. I think there's more details in the talk page.

http://randomsonicnet.org/sonicinrealmusic...1%20%2B%202%29/

that's all the songs if you want to hear them.

BlazeHedgehog · Jan 28, 2008

Why is it so hard to believe one man composed all of the music?

It's not like it is today where even a game like Sonic Adventure has an 80 track OST. Sonic 1 had, what? 15 songs? Sonic 2 had 29, roughly four of which were re-used from Sonic 1. When you consider Nobuo Uematsu would compose the soundtrack to a Final Fantasy - enough music to fill four CDs - alone, doing a Genesis game with 15 and 29 tracks is childs play.

One interesting thing I remember about an interview I once read - maybe this is from Sonic Central, I haven't read it in ages - is that Nakamura would create the music normally as he would and then he'd send a tape to Sega. Sega would then have somebody else listen to the tape and re-create the sound on the Genesis audio hardware.

I'd love to hear what was on those tapes.

And personally speaking, I've never heard the quote where it was claimed somebody else did the music for Hidden Palace in Sonic 2.

Tweaker · Jan 28, 2008

I don't think the issue is the plausibility of one man composing the entirety of a game soundtrack—Richard Jacques did all of Sonic 3D Saturn and Sonic R—but rather to question if Nakamura truly did compose every single track in both Sonic 1 and 2.

Personally, I see no reason to doubt that he did, but you've made interesting observations nonetheless. I think they had simply picked out the tunes that they thought would stick out more in peoples minds, rather than randomly picking tunes from each game for no real reason.

In any case, with the inclusion of the "All Clear" tunes (which I assume is the credits theme for each game), each level song would be on the CD anyway, so that pretty much throws out the idea that Nakamura didn't do every single song in both games. :P

ICEknight · Jan 28, 2008

BlazeHedgehog said:

One interesting thing I remember about an interview I once read - maybe this is from Sonic Central, I haven't read it in ages - is that Nakamura would create the music normally as he would and then he'd send a tape to Sega. Sega would then have somebody else listen to the tape and re-create the sound on the Genesis audio hardware.

I'd love to hear what was on those tapes.
Click to expand...

For the record, I think it was Tom Payne who told me that each time they received some new songs, most of them stopped whatever they were doing and started listening behind Naka & Company's room.

And personally speaking, I've never heard the quote where it was claimed somebody else did the music for Hidden Palace in Sonic 2.
Click to expand...

Neither have I, to be honest.

Shoemanbundy · Jan 29, 2008

For the record, I think it was Tom Payne who told me that each time they received some new songs, most of them stopped whatever they were doing and started listening behind Naka & Company's room.
Click to expand...

I think this might just be the area of the article I recall reading that mentioned the Hidden Palace music. I couldn't remember where I saw it before, or the specifics about it, but that sounds very familiar. Needless to say if it is I obviously didn't remember it well enough(especially Nakamura being mentioned). My whole topic is probably pointless now I suppose........ :P

muteKi · Jan 29, 2008

While naturally I find these discussions quite interesting and informative, I cannot find any such articles saying any of these things on Cult.

HPZMan · Jul 10, 2008

I've noticed that Kessen Wa Kinyoubi from Dreams Come True is similar to Labyrinth Zone's theme.
I created a comparation using Audacity and Adobe Audition:
http://www.hotshare.net/en/audio/67503-6849493ef7.html

EDIT:
Kessen Wa Kinyoubi:
http://www.hotshare.net/en/audio/72346-694739822c.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EJrXjGV8mc

This is my Star Light/Kusuriyubi no Kesshin comparison:
http://www.hotshare.net/en/audio/72086-72998104a9.html

FinalBeyond · Jul 10, 2008

I've always thought of this, but never really posted it because it is so tenuous a link, but the streaming tunnels of light in the video for Nando Demo (here), seen in the chorus... They've always reminded me of the Sonic 2 Special Stage. :p

The Kessen's rather interesting. The transition from song to song certainly seems seamless.

About Masato Nakamura(Dreams Come True)'s involvment in the Sonic

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