Game Music

Japan Pays $20 For Metal Slug 7 Soundtrack, Everyone Else Gets it for Free

September 1, 2008 | | 25 Comments Share thison Facebook Japan Pays $20 For Metal Slug 7 Soundtrack, Everyone Else Gets it for Freeon Twitter

It’s happening again! Your favorite franchises are being dumped onto Nintendo’s handheld and there’s nothing you can do about it. SNK Playmore’s Metal Slug 7 adds to the bodycount on November 18th, courtesy of Ignition Entertainment. Ignition has a website up for the North American release, and it actually features the entire soundtrack in mp3 format, free of charge. Score one for us as Japanese fans are currently dishing out 2,000 yen for the same stuff on iTunes.

After a bit of arduous research on YouTube, I discovered that Toshikazu Tanaka of Studio Aqua handled the music for this new handheld incarnation of the classic side-scrolling shooter. He has a few Metal Slug titles to his name, including Metal Slug 4, Metal Slug 5, and Metal Slug 3D, as well as music for the 3D incarnations of the King of Fighters series.

Hit the jump for a short preview of what to excpect from this portable ‘Slug.

If you’ve listened to Tanaka’s previous Metal Slug scores, you’ll feel right at home with Metal Slug 7’s music. That fact isn’t a bad thing, as the music does its job very well, and is a decent listen outside the context of the game. The upbeat and fast-paced stage music and epic sounding boss battle music, it’s all there. Another solid effort from Tanaka!

The “Stage 7” track stands out as something I could see myself really getting into whilst playing this on my DS, not in public mind you. It’s got that sense of urgency that you’d expect from a later stage in a game like Metal Slug. I actually prefer Tanaka’s work on the KOF series, and I have to admit that nothing here comes close to the awesomeness of “Requiem for 50,000 People” from his KOF Maximum Impact score.

Am I being too hard on handhelds? Do you think having your Dragon Quest and Metal Slug titles on handhelds will mean reduced production values when it comes to music? Does a game like Metal Slug benefit? Grab the soundtrack and let us know!

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