Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Mystic Cave Zone (1 Player)

Composer: Masato Nakamura

Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the few Sega Genesis games I had actually played back in the day, as I never owned a Genesis. Being a young SNES enthusiast perhaps clouded my judgement toward any non-Nintendo games; I had always taken at face value the fact that the Super Nintendo was far superior to the Sega Genesis. Technically speaking I know nothing about how video game music is composed, compressed, integrated into the cartridge and then processed by the box. The SNES and Genesis, despite both being fourth-generation, 16 bit gaming consoles, obviously differ in how they process and play back their music. A good example would be comparing the soundtrack of an SNES game to that of a Genesis; the songs themselves are the same - same progressions, notes, etc. - but are processed differently, or perhaps use a different sound library for playback. Somebody knows, and that obviously is not me.

Whatever.

The intro farts out the short recurring motif featured throughout the song as it segues from verse to verse. The motif itself sounds eminent and dangerous, something you would think as introducing you to the stage's boss. As the trash-lid drums and bouncy metallic bass lines kick in under the loud, sustaining 'wooooooooo's of the four-note lead, I cant help bob my head a little bit, despite how painfully dated the Genesis music processor makes the piece sound. In fact, in spite of loving the cheeky cheery bass and upbeat groovy tempo, it's hard not to find the lead slightly annoying. Balance the levels out and turn the lead down just a hair and it would be perfect. Just underneath the mix you can hear a bloopy-bleepy descending riff just past the fourth mesaure in the five-measure lead riff. As the tune segues into the second verse, this becomes a simple two-note hammer on/pull of over the circus-inspired carnivalesque lead.

The lead in the second verse is pretty much stolen from Entry of the Gladiators by Julius Fucik. Knowing this song since my youth and always associating it with the circus or a carnival but never knowing what it was called, I just had to take a good ten-minute time out to prowl YouTube in hopes of finding it. Jackpot! Anyway, even as the Mystic Cave Zone track segues into the Gladiators riff, the rhythm holds it down in place, the great bouncy bass line continues before it loops back around to the intro motif that connects the two pieces together. Like a tessellation, all video game tracks are to be looped ad infinitum; the motif is the glue that holds the two verses together and allows for a smooth flowing endless loop.

This fun, upbeat tune is one of the best to be found in the Sonic franchise, and will no doubt be one of the few, if any, Genesis tracks that will make this list. Now after listening to this track over and over while composing this entry, I think it's time to fire up the Xbox Live Arcade and play me some Sonic 2!