Source: Ape Escape - Coral Cave (PS1)

Ima hit you hard with the nostalgia. This was one the games that takes me back so long, one of the finest PS1 games.

I'm obviously talking about Ape Escape, which was very innovative at the time, because it had a unique idea. Basically you had to catch monkey's to complete a level, with each level being expansive and well though-out. You had multiple tools at your disposal, as well as villains to fight at the end.  The game is made by Japan Studio and has undergone many remakes, mostly in updating the graphics, but with some remakes adding new tunes, and minigames. Only 3 games were made tops, with the rest of the games being spin-off's or games with multiple characters from different franchises. I don't know why they stopped at Ape Escape 3, maybe something killed it i don't know, but i will say when i was young i was playing this a lot, it's a fun game for sure.

But why focus on the game? The soundtrack is among the finest in the PS1 catalogue. Perfectly unusual blend of cartoony melody ideas, synthetic percussive ideas, and the most obviously, jungle breaks. Rich in Techno and Jungle, but also rich in light-hearted fun in some areas. A lot of the tracks are super simple, mostly looping 1-2 bar phrases, while some go for more heavy melodic ideas. The more i talk about it, the more i would love to put every song on here, but alas i can only choose one. 

The music was done by Soichi Terada, who (Except for the second game) has composed pretty much all of the games in the series. What's also interesting, is that he wasn't even a composer at this point, he was a producer making electronica albums for his own record label, Far East Recording. So this game was a turning point into VGM. All in all, you have to check this dude out, he's so good. I had a hard time picking one track from the game, but in the end i choose to go with Coral Cave. Very relaxing, but also very simple. Only 2 chords are used throughout the whole piece, with the main traction coming from the dynamic melody. Creativity will be needed for this one, but that's good, as music doesn't always need to be expansive (The Bomberman round showcases this well). Hope you do this one justice.

GAME: Ape Escape

Source: Coral Cave

So here's the video:

And as expected from me, my own MIDI:

https://www.vgmusic.com/file/ab08d1620f0b0a3dce1d24d7de2737ba.html#disqus_thread