David Wise is a famous British video game music composer that has done work for many famous titles including “Battletoads” and the “Donkey Kong Country” franchise. He worked with Rare creating the music for many Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Nintendo 64 classics. He now creates his melodies for the new Playtonic Games which was created by a former team of Rare developers.
This genius of an electronic maestro is one of my favorite solo music composers of all time, so to celebrate his involvement in so many nostalgic Nintendo games, recent ones like “Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze” for Wii U and future titles like “Yooka-Laylee,” here is my top 10 list of Wise’s most legendary tunes.
- “Stickerbush Symphony” A haunting and melancholic melody, “Stickerbush” is a track that could play in the back of my mind forever. An underlying set of beats drive home the synthetic, otherworldly feeling of exploration.
- “Seashore War” This is Wise’s modern take on the feeling of being transported into another world. Something about how the chords are played in this song just sounds so sad and wonderfully so.
- “Gang-Plank Galleon” What starts out as a good, old pirate sea shanty turns up the rock n’ roll quite a bit for a console that worked its hardest in 1994 to make this sound as awesome as possible.
- “Jungle Challenge” This tune is not even officially out or finished yet, and its magnificence still graces this list! It is impossible to not feel the urge to dance to these good-feel tropical beats.
- “Darkmoon Caverns” From the tropical jungles to the space disco, there are no places David Wise cannot take you. All college kids should be clubbin’ to this fine beat instead of anything else!
- “Dark Ice Mines (Night)” With an exotic type of flair, this piece relaxes and mystifies. Wise is always spot-on when creating songs for certain environments, and without playing the game this song is featured in, I still feel like an adventurer exploring the frozen caverns.
- “Punch Bowl” Donkey Kong meets hard metal? Yes, more please. This is very unlike most of what Wise composes as this boss fight ballad seriously shows his range.
- “Forest Interlude” Do you feel like you are wading through the fog in a haunted forest yet? While you should be scared, this piece really just does more to entrance and hypnotize than anything.
- “Aquatic Ambience” Nothing fits an underwater tour of a coral reef more than this masterpiece. In its time of release, reviewers were impressed that the SNES even had the capability to produce such a song with its layered sounds.
- “Grassland Groove” Donkey Kong meets the Lion King.This does not really happen in the famous ape’s latest game, but it might as well had with this as a level backdrop. Do I hear cartoon animals singing? My life is now complete!
