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  #1  
Old Feb 19, 2015, 05:13 PM
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LuxKiller65 LuxKiller65 is offline
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I'm curious how can someone own this already.
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  #2  
Old Feb 19, 2015, 05:37 PM
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Pre-order folder.
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  #3  
Old Feb 20, 2015, 01:59 AM
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Got it, thanks

Curious if it got release a full month before during some event, but that seemed a bit too early.
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  #4  
Old May 17, 2015, 03:31 PM
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Release date seems to have been pushed to "early Summer" due to "intensive production"
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  #5  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 10:29 AM
RingoStarr39 RingoStarr39 is offline
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Has anyone heard anything about this yet? I'm hoping that it won't get canceled.
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  #6  
Old Jul 10, 2015, 05:01 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RingoStarr39 View Post
Has anyone heard anything about this yet? I'm hoping that it won't get canceled.
Still being worked on!

https://instagram.com/p/48scfYQfmX/
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  #7  
Old Aug 6, 2015, 01:24 PM
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We've got a web presale date of October 2 and general release date of October 30 now!
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  #8  
Old Aug 6, 2015, 01:46 PM
RingoStarr39 RingoStarr39 is offline
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It's about time... haha
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  #9  
Old Sep 13, 2015, 06:28 AM
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No bonus CD with vol. 5?
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  #10  
Old Sep 13, 2015, 01:23 PM
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Nope, bonus for this one appears to be transparent stickers of the games' logos.
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  #11  
Old Sep 14, 2015, 05:49 AM
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Will they be inside the sealed album or separate? I hope they're included... otherwise it means limited quantity...
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  #12  
Old Sep 18, 2015, 02:19 PM
RingoStarr39 RingoStarr39 is offline
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They just announced the tracklisting if someone wants to add it.
I'd do it but I don't want to mess anything up.
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  #13  
Old Sep 18, 2015, 02:32 PM
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Just add it, I or somebody else can fix it if anything is wrong.
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  #14  
Old Dec 10, 2015, 08:05 PM
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Could someone who owns this please add scans?
I'm curious to see what the packaging looks like.
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  #15  
Old Dec 1, 2018, 01:09 PM
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I feel SuperSweep got some of the credits wrong for Cyber Commando. The tracks that we all know Hosoe didn't do have either "NEGATEN" or "NUGATEN" in their titles in the ROM (I checked using ctr's QuattroPlay). The track credited to Sasaki on the CD has "NUGATEN" while Ishikawa's tracks have "NEGATEN" in them. However, "Metal Serpent" also has "NEGATEN" in it while "Rafflesia" has "NUGATEN". This could indicate that Ishikawa and Sasaki composed those tracks respectively, which would make sense since it does sound more like their styles than Hosoe's.

Not sure if I should update the credits yet, though.

Last edited by drdevilfx; Dec 1, 2018 at 01:11 PM.
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  #16  
Old Dec 1, 2018, 11:18 PM
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I would hopefully trust Shinji Hosoe to get the credits right on a works album published by his own company haha, but I'll note that the SuperSweep website specifically doesn't have the greatest track record in accuracy, and that's where the current breakdown comes from. I'd be interested in hearing if the booklet has different credits.
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  #17  
Old May 20, 2022, 09:31 AM
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What are tracks 9~14 on Disc 2 from? They sound a lot higher quality then the arcade version of StarBlade, but I also don't think they are arrangements created for this album, as they sound far closer to something the people credited would've made during the 90s. I'd then assume it's from one of the home console ports of the game, but based on the gameplay I can find on YouTube, the Mega CD, 3DO and PS ports of the game all just reuse the Arcade soundtrack. I'm confused on the origin of these songs due to all of this.
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  #18  
Old May 24, 2022, 05:37 PM
ShinHarmony ShinHarmony is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SGoW View Post
What are tracks 9~14 on Disc 2 from? They sound a lot higher quality then the arcade version of StarBlade, but I also don't think they are arrangements created for this album, as they sound far closer to something the people credited would've made during the 90s. I'd then assume it's from one of the home console ports of the game, but based on the gameplay I can find on YouTube, the Mega CD, 3DO and PS ports of the game all just reuse the Arcade soundtrack. I'm confused on the origin of these songs due to all of this.
I don't have an answer, but I think you might be right in that they are not new arrangements made for this album.

The booklet says: "Works made by employee & ex-employee of BNEI in the course of his/her duties". That applies to both Hosoe himself and the arrangers. BNEI means Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. To me it sounds like tracks 9-14 on disc 2 were indeed arranged versions done for the game or its ports.

Maybe they are alternate versions or prototype/unused versions for the arcade game itself? I don't really have a clue, I'm just guessing...
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  #19  
Old May 25, 2022, 08:52 AM
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I was actually looking at the Namco Game Sound Express albums yesterday, and Vol. 12 has the exact songs I mentioned so they definitely aren't for this album. Considering the Game Sound Express album only mentions Galaxian 3 Theater 6, I'd assume they were for that game.
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  #20  
Old May 25, 2022, 06:18 PM
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I did an extensive write-up on Galaxian 3 and its music last year and yeah, when they downsized the 28-player behemoth down to a 6-player machine that could be installed in arcades (the Theater 6) they reused and remixed some tunes from Starblade, which itself was born out of a failed attempt to make a single player Galaxian 3.
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  #21  
Old May 25, 2022, 08:47 PM
ShinHarmony ShinHarmony is offline
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Aifread, is your Galaxian 3 write-up available online somewhere? I would be interested in reading it.
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  #22  
Old May 25, 2022, 11:35 PM
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It was in Chris Porter's soundtrack collector group on Facebook. More just a summary of what I was able to find about the game than an in-depth analysis. I'll repost the text here:

Spoiler:
As part of a recent early Shinji Hosoe kick, I decided to pick up Attack of the Zolgear since it was cheap on Mercari. Hey, what's that say at the top?
GALAXIAN³
Huh. I guess "Attack of the Zolgear" is some sort of Galaxian sequel?

Oh.

Oh no.

Welp, strap in cause I guess we're going down this rabbit hole now.

The original Galaxian³: Project Dragoon was an attraction at Expo '90 in Osaka, a 28-player rail shooter played in a 360-degree theater. Aside from that ridiculous sentence I just wrote, the game was also incredibly graphically ambitious, utilizing video streamed from a LaserDisc interlaced with top of the line 3D graphics. Namco's goal at this international expo was to create a Hollywood sci-fi cinematic experience complete with English voice overs and CD-quality music from Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso, and Takayuki Aihara. Seriously, look at some gameplay footage of it. It's insane that it existed at the time that it did. Bubble economy Japan ftw.

Soon after Namco tried to develop a single-player version for arcades, but this was scrapped and eventually became an original game called Starblade. Starblade was perhaps the biggest hit of all the games I'll be talking about and was a huge influence on the budding 3D shmup genre, paving the way for the likes of Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon. The music in this one was handled solely by Hosoe, though there isn't much of it (only 4 tracks). The soundtracks to both Starblade and the original Galaxian³ were included on Namco Sound Express Vol. 6. An interesting thing about this album is that the liner notes for each are written upside-down relative to each other so that both read left-to-right and either can be made the cover image, though the popular Starblade is what customers saw first before opening it.

Meanwhile Namco was still wondering what else they could do with the original Galaxian³. A massive 28-player theater-sized arcade cabinet was obviously too cumbersome to install anywhere sane. So they relocated the original machine to their theme park in Tokyo (yes, Namco had their own theme park called Wonder Eggs) and produced two scaled-down versions for arcades, the GM-16 (16 players) followed by the Theater 6 (6 players). With the latter came new music from Hosoe and Saso, including some reused and rearranged from Starblade, all of which can be found on Namco Sound Express Vol. 12.

Unfortunately, even the more compact versions of the game still took up a lot of space and once interest in the game dwindled arcade owners were all too eager to scrap them for parts and make room for new games. As a result the machines are now incredibly rare and the subject of preservation efforts.

This also offers a potential explanation to why Starblade ended up being the real hero of this story; as a single player cabinet it was surely more economical to install and maintain in smaller arcades and shops than its larger multiplayer brothers and likely reached a wider audience because of this.

The epilogue to this saga comes in 1994 when Namco released a sequel called Attack of the Zolgear, which is how I found myself in this mess. It ran on a modified Theater 6 from the smaller arcade version of Galaxian³, this time packing not just one but two LaserDiscs. Hosoe and Saso returned once again for the music, joined by relative Namco newcomer Nobuyoshi Sano (sanodg), though it seems his main role was sound effects. The soundtrack to this one is on Namco Sound Express Vol. 16.

My overall impression of the music is quite good (obviously, or I wouldn't have gotten balls-deep into it) but most of the tracks are rather short and so are best heard together as full album experiences rather than individually. The same could also be said of the albums themselves, as each volume is only about 20-30 minutes long without the narration tracks, meaning you could comfortably listen to all three in one sitting. I wouldn't be put off by their short length though since they were cheap on release (¥1500) and are even cheaper now. I don't think I have to go too much into Hosoe himself since pretty much anyone familiar with VGM should know the guy and his style. The stuff here leans strongly on the jazz fusion side, heavy on spacey synths and strong basslines. If you're a fan of his work on Ridge Racer or Dragon Saber I don't think you can go wrong here.

Diagram of the 28-player Expo '90 version:


Footage from the 28-player version (video title is wrong): https://youtu.be/n7sL2pJ34vg

Footage from the 6-player arcade version: https://youtu.be/xngRAh7L6Ak

Last edited by Aifread; May 25, 2022 at 11:41 PM.
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  #23  
Old May 26, 2022, 04:07 PM
ShinHarmony ShinHarmony is offline
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Thanks for the reposting the text, Aifread. That was a really interesting read! The 28-player arcade cabinet looks amazing in the video. I will check later more gameplay footage to better see how they combine LaserDisc with 3D graphics.

More importantly, now I really have to listen to the soundtracks for Galaxian 3, StarBlade and Attack of the Zolgear. I know some of Hosoe's music (like Dragon Saber), but he has done so much and his stuff is pretty hit & miss for my tastes that I often feel discouraged to figure out what to listen to next. I've often seen those Namco Sound Express CDs for sale and noticed their low release price, so he is in the back of my mind quite often.
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  #24  
Old May 27, 2022, 04:26 AM
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Though he's a pretty ubiquitous name to anyone into VGM (if not for his own works than for his arrangements that crop up everywhere), he wasn't really on my radar until I discovered that he created some of the most impressive music to grace arcade cabinets in the late 80s, even running circles around the likes of Hiro at Sega imo. Check out "BGM4" from Assault (1988) to see what I mean. It's pretty insane for its time. Metal Hawk (also 1988) is crazy good too. They're available on vols. 1 and 2 of this series, respectively.

Last edited by Aifread; May 27, 2022 at 04:39 AM.
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  #25  
Old May 27, 2022, 02:00 PM
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I'd say he's one of my favorite composers, due to his creativity and versatility, so he's made many bangers over the years. That being said I've noticed that a few of his OSTs have received quite a bit of criticism, including Cyber Sled and Xenosaga II, due to the tracks being considered overly upbeat and repetitive. Although those aren't perfect, I still dig his style, whether it's 80s-style synthpop, crazy techno or jazz fusion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CHz View Post
I would hopefully trust Shinji Hosoe to get the credits right on a works album published by his own company haha, but I'll note that the SuperSweep website specifically doesn't have the greatest track record in accuracy, and that's where the current breakdown comes from. I'd be interested in hearing if the booklet has different credits.
Turns out those tracks are credited to Hosoe even in the booklet. Personally I trust the implied credits via the in-game song messages more, especially as they do sound in-line with Ishikawa and Sasaki's compositional styles. I guess mistakes can happen though, especially given how many of these albums the SuperSweep crew produce. Either the credits Namco supplied them were slightly erroneous or whoever had to type up the credits in the booklet just overlooked the two different credits.
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  #26  
Old Aug 4, 2022, 05:09 PM
ShinHarmony ShinHarmony is offline
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Tracks 9-14 from Disc 2 come from a LaserDisc release of StarBlade. This release was kind of like a video strategy guide that showed the game. (A reviewer on Amazon wrote a short snippet about it.)

The LaserDisc has a catalogue number of VILL-59 and you can buy it for example on Surugaya.
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