Mega Man II Music Improvement 「GB」

Musical improvement by Supper.
As the name of the hack suggests, this is the improvement of Gameboy's Mega Man 2 music, leaving the game soundtrack pleasant to the ears.
For more information on this hack, and to download it here (.ips file):
www.romhacking.net/hacks/4695/
Thanks for watching! :)

[@Bro-cx2jc]

This is EXACTLY the kind of change I've envisioned for this music. Just reducing a single channel by one octave, leaving the others unchanged. It doesn't bring the music up to its full potential like some of the great remixes up here have done, but it keeps everything Game Boy compatible and since it's still technically the same exact music with just partial pitch reduction, it has the closest "original" feel to it.

[@homuraakemi103]

This kind of thing with music is honestly fascinating to me…

[@mtvbrill6620]

Now it just needs sound improvement.

[@Bro-cx2jc]

I also really enjoy how the certain actions you perform in-game change the musical instruments.
I don't know the names of 8-bit instruments, but they're not hard to describe.
Shooting your weapons changes the main melody tone to a deeper sound like a low-toned beep.
Jumping and landing, or pausing the game, changes it to a flatter sound which happens to be my favorite.
Getting hit by an enemy when certain other sound effects play simultaneously can change it to an even flatter, thinner variant.

[@StarAllies]

This is actually due to console limitations since all sounds in a game are playing in "different layers", so in order to play the sound effects, the developers had to sacrifice one of the instruments to play the sfx.
I do also think it sounds pretty cool, but that's nothing more that another little trick the devs had to pull out to deliver quality games in such limited hardware.

[@Bro-cx2jc]

@@StarAllies Well I know some parts of the music fade momentarily for sound effects due to console limitations, but transforming the overall instruments shouldn't be. I've never heard that happen in any other Gameboy game in my life, only this one.

[@solarflare9078]

The "8-bit instruments" are square waves

[@AverageJoeMama]

@@solarflare9078 Duties, to be specific.
There are 3 main kinds of duties on a regular NES/Game Boy sound chip.
The lead in the first part of Metal Man's theme is a 12.5% duty.
The backing in Wood Man's theme is a 25% duty.
The lead in the title theme is 50% duty.
There's also a -25% duty (lead for Air Man), but the only difference between it has from 25% is an extremely subtle popping sound whenever a note starts.

[@TheRealPatete]

Average bug enjoyer

[@blossom6309]

This game is underrated

[@wiimote__1727]

This channel needs more love

[@zuger2519]

you are an ear savior

[@tanjobi0202]

Now the music is more pleasant.

[@FiftyFour54]

Que Buena, Guey!

[@shalpp]

Now would there be a way to stop that one pulse channel from changing duty cycle depending on the sound effects?

[@homuraakemi103]

Apparently, there probably IS, but it’s more complicated than changing some hex values or something…

[@shalpp]

@@homuraakemi103 my guess is that it's an oversight in how the actual sound driver was built
You'd probably need to check that the duty cycle matches what's supposed to be playing at that particular note

[@zuger2519]

you are an ear savior