This is also the boss music for the game's final battle with Dark Queen, but meh, I could never get that far. I mainly remember this music in the first bonus stage. :3

After I completed Roller Coaster, for the first time in weeks I didn't feel an immediate need to keep chiptuning. Instead, my mind felt tired. But in retrospect, it's probably because I did two chiptunes yesterday and I was just drained.

When I analyzed this music, at first I thought I might not be able to cram it all into 2A03, because it had two layers of percussion. Then I realized...I have this lovely DPCM channel I left unused in all my previous Battlemaniacs chiptunes. (Theoretically, someday, I could go back and resequence them to use DPCM, but I don't feel like doing that in the near future.)

But I've noticed a trend. When it comes to Battlemaniacs music, it's a lot easier to cram it into 2A03. But when it comes to Battletoads Double Dragon music, there's a lot more detail, and it can be a challenge just to cram it into Konami VRC6. Since Battlemaniacs was the first 16-bit Battletoads game, it makes me suspect that David Wise originally composed the music itself with the NES in mind, but then gave it a Super NES upgrade with more percussion, but not necessarily tons more essential detail. Whereas, when he composed Battletoads Double Dragon, it sounds more like he composed from the start with the Super NES in mind, as that game's music is much more complex and detailed. I suppose this was all practice before he did the music that got him really famous - Donkey Kong Country. This is not to say that Battlemaniacs has inferior music - it's definitely very enjoyable.

Made in FamiTracker targeting the default Ricoh 2A03 sound chip that comes with the NES. No expansion chips whatsoever, though I did use 11 (!) separate DPCM samples for the various thuds, toms and kicks.

Click here to download the FTM and NSF files.