Pokemon Yellow - OMG 8-Bit!

Holy bejezus, it's cold. D:

Say hello again to my team:

Wartortle - L34
Fearow - L34
Venusaur - L34
Marowak - L35
Hypno - L35
Charizard - L36

I was going to freak out inside for a moment if I couldn't find a playlist sharing site that would let me post something up here, because I could easily have a lot of songs to talk about. Thankfully, MixPod had something nice for me. Here you guys go!

Create a playlist at MixPod.com

Thank you, MixPod. Anyway, as you can tell, I'm going to be lightly discussing the musical element of Pokemon Yellow. This could easily  become a complicated subject in my opinion - the music is 8-bit. Why am I mentioning it in a blog post, then? Well, 8-bit was and is the home base of video game music. The first Mario game had it, the first Legend of Zelda game had it, and plenty of other classics had music composed on the silly little chip. Few, however, can comprehend the complexity that goes into its composition, and though I really hate to be borderline judging anyone, few can also truly appreciate what goes into making music with this microprocessor.

Regardless, take a listen to the battle themes above. (For the record, the theme with the artist title 'Unknown' is the Elite 4 Champion Theme.) You'll notice how frantic each of them sound. That was the tactic. Little actually went on in a Pokemon battle during the 90's. If you were to take away the music, the battle would be veeery boring. This frantic music helped wake battle up. In fact, I remember occasionally drifting through tall grass and the wild battle theme startling me - but that was the point.
Not all themes were frantic and fast-paced though. Let me show you Route 11:

My point to make with this theme is what work went into the liveliness of the music. C'mon, it's 8-bit - how can that possibly be lively. Well, with a 8-bit composer's range pallet being so tiny (along with a lot of other aspects in designing a game back then), you really had to think outside of the box and work with what you had. Sounds had to be 'stretched', per say, to make them sound like larger or different sounding 'instruments,' and you'll see that done particularly in this route's theme. And just as a little funfact, 8-bit was also used to make sound effects in video games. You'll notice that they sound very similar to percussion, next time you listen.
Now, take a listen to the remake of this route's theme in the Pokemon remake of FireRed and LeafGreen:

You hear horns, don't you? And drums? Well, that's what you were supposed to hear in the previous video, and you can, to a certain point. But making music dynamic with an 8-bit processor was extremely difficult, and making a theme sound even relatively close to instrumentation was commendable. Next time you're playing the first Pokemon, or any other old school game with 8-bit music, pay closer attention to how the simple broadening of sounds or pitches makes the music come that much more alive.

Give me a little bit of time to get farther into the game so I can talk about my next and last topic in Pokemon Yellow to the fullest - next time we talk about Yellow's philosophy. Don't misjudge me, just wait and see what I have to say.

- Cheryl-Buddy