Overview

On April 2004, Scitron released the Game Sound Museum ~Famicom Edition~ series. It comprised a set of 21 mini CDs containing music from Nintendo games developed for the Famicom (aka Nintendo Entertainment System) and the Famicom Disk System. It features complete scores from a variety of popular and historically significant games, spanning classics such as Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda to relative obscurities such as Wrecking Crew, Shin Onigashima, and Kid Icarus. A secret disc of the series was dedicated to the music of the NES port of Donkey Kong 3.

Body

Like most entries to the Game Sound Museum ~Famicom Edition~ series, the Donkey Kong soundtrack features an extremely short soundtrack, mainly compromised of jingles and sound effects. Nevertheless, those jingles have the significance of being the first composed by game music legend Hirokazu Tanaka. It's already clear from material such as "Super Spray" and "Clear BGM A" that Tanaka is capable of producing more memorable and individualistic music than his predecessor Yukio Kaneoka. Though these jingles are short and choppy, they are still filled with the youthful exuberance and personality that characterises Nintendo's most loved scores.

As an interactive experience, Donkey Kong 3 is not an improvement upon Donkey Kong Jr. The number of music tracks have been reduced, such that there is only two background tracks and two stage clear jingles. Furthermore, there is generally less adaptability with the gameplay, despite higher quality quality samples and sound effects overall. These features only enhanced the repetitiveness of the game — criticised for its departure from platform elements to a simple shooter style.

Among the most interesting highlights of the score is "BGM A". This track is reminiscent of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" with its frantic and uninterrupted synth runs. "BGM B" is much closer to conventional game music and fortunately has a little more bounce to it than Kaneoka's equivalents. Surprisingly, no game audio recording is included in this secret disc, which reduces the potential for nostalgia and an analysis of the interactive elements.

Summary

Donkey Kong 3's score is a considerable departure from its predecessors, due to both the change of composer and change of gameplay. The music is generally more memorable than its predecessors and closer to what listeners would expect from conventional game music. While there is occasional experimentation, the score is however less intricate and varied in the game. The result is an interesting but averaging compositional debut from Hirokazu Tanaka. At just 152 seconds long, only the most hardcore of collectors will want to buy this single and it is especially disappointing that the gameplay recording was omitted.