Mario Kart Wii (#2827)

[BrevonJr]

I wish the Mario Kart Wii .brstm files would have provided hints on the individual composing/arrangement credits for Ryo and Asuka like with their other titles...

New Super Mario Bros. Wii has many audio files with suffixes hinting at who did the respective songs.
In that game, and Ryo and Asuka's solo works, it would be ".ry" (= *Ry*o Nagamatsu, and ".o" (= Asuka *O*hta, her maiden name).
Ryo worked solo on the new music for Wii Sports Resort, and Asuka did Wii Fit Plus alone,
and those titles got files with .ry and .o all over them respectively!

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Knowing this pattern there's a new way of thinking; MKWii suspiciously got many audio files that lack a different commonly used suffix in many Wii titles that use the .brstm format;
a simple "32" at the end of the track name.
This stems from the conversion process of the raw audio into .brstm when the developers determine the sample rate of the music;
"32", in this case, refers to the songs being compressed into a sample rate of 32000hz.


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Asuka was the lead composer for the title, listed first in the credits, and had previously been the lead for NSMB. DS.
For Mario Kart Wii, she may not have been using her .o suffix. 'Grumble Volcano' ('n_Volcano32_n') and 'Rainbow Road' ('n_Rainbow32_n') are her two confirmed compositions, and those files do include the "32" sample rate indicator.

Nagamatsu, who provided support,
would then add his .ry suffix like usual to indicate who composed the track.

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However, the MKWii devs that manage the audio files would want to clean the names up for more orientation.
Nagamatsu's confirmed composition, Moo Moo Meadows ('n_Farm_n') noticeably does not have the "32" in its name (despite the 32hz sample rate).

From here, it's easy to assume the file could've originally been named something like 'n_Farm.ry'.
The converter automatically turns it into 'n_Farm.ry32'; from here, the devs would remove the .ry suffix for maximum clarity without regard for the '32' and then add another suffix to signalize if it's the normal (_n) or last lap version (_f).

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After an ultra-long text wall on this speculation (that I wish was backed up a little harder), and if I didn't make any oversights;
if we account for all those discrepancies in the names, I would attribute a good chunk of the tracks to them as follows:

Asuka Hayazaki (focus on the main mode)
Composer: Luigi Circuit, Coconut Mall, DK Summit, Daisy Circuit, Grumble Volcano*, Rainbow Road*
Arrangement: All Retro Cups / GCN Cookieland

Ryo Nagamatsu (additional main tracks but mostly with a focus on the battle mode)
Composer: Moo Moo Meadows*, Mushroom Gorge, Maple Treeway / Block Plaza, Delfino Pier, Funky Stadium, ChainChomp Roulette, Thwomp Desert
Arrangement: N64 SkyScraper, GBA Battle Course 3, DS Twilight House, SNES Battle Course 4

[MIDIWIZI]

I think normally this would be flimsy since there's a lot of reasons for filenames to change conventions, but I agree that it seems to line up exactly with my guesses. Since Nagamatsu and Ohta have such wildly different composition/arrangement styles and sample choices, it's a pretty easy one to figure out. It's also worth noting that all the GCN tracks are identical streams to the originals, so no arranger necessary.

[BrevonJr]

Originally Posted by MIDIWIZI

Since Nagamatsu and Ohta have such wildly different composition/arrangement styles and sample choices, it's a pretty easy one to figure out.

I absolutely forgot to mention this whole aspect as I derailed hard with the whole file name explanation. Ofc, prior to the discovery of the file names I already had some strong guesses based on the styles (a good chunk also already having aligned to this find).

Nagamatsu absolutely liked to make many tracks sound very Country-like in MKWii, for a lack of a better explanation. Tracks like 'Wario's Gold Mine' use a different naming scheme (allcaps and 'cleaned' file name), but this style of his is really able to be heard there. He even got a Staff ghost for this stage, implying a stronger connection.
It's also easy to think the sound director wanted him to also compose MK8's Mount Wario because of his good composition for a prior Wario-themed stage prior.



Another factor for me giving those file names a tad more credibility than normal would be the additional layer of security of the Wii's disc format.

All music files would have looked 'clean' if it weren't for homebrew folks who were easily cracking the format wide open. But the initial security made various dev groups a little more careless; I, too, would just quickly slap the newly approved music files into a .brstm converter and later make it so that the game packing tool/compiler whatever is commonly used hide these things

[MIDIWIZI]

I do think Wario's Gold Mine is a pretty blatant Hayazaki track compositionally. I don't know much about the staff ghost but I doubt that really means much.