MIDI Week Singles: "Title Screen" - Anticipation (NES)

"Title Screen" from Anticipation on the Nintendo Entertainment System (1988)
Composer: David Wise
Album: No Official Release
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo

When I was going through #AllTheNESMusic, the music immediately brought back feelings of nostalgia.  When I looked, I thought the box was familiar, and then I watched a gameplay video of Anticipation and it all clicked.  Kind of.  I know I played this game a lot, probably over summer vacation while at the house my Grandparents would rent that had an NES, and the video store only had a limited stock, so I think that is where this memory originates.

The other thing that surprised me, was that this was developed by Rare and that David (Dave) Wise wrote the music.  There might be hints of Diddy Kong Racing or Battletoads, although this music is probably more closely related to Snake Rattle 'n' Roll.  But maybe that is just hindsight working?

But for me, this song, as bouncy and catchy as I find it to be, is based heavily in nostalgia, although the rest of the music in the game did not quite strike the same chord.  For me, it is all about this title track, that sadly ends up getting skipped over faster than most of the other songs.  And there really is not more to this song than the memories it brought up before being able to fully recall the game, and just look at that cover!  Sure I used the Korean cover, but the only difference between that and the North American cover, is that there is Korean on the Korean cover.  Don't we all wish NES games were that much fun?  And aren't we all thankful that, for the most part, playing video games at home is nothing like that cover.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental