MIDI Week Singles: "Rebel Base / Imperial Frigate Suprosa" - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (N64)

"Rebel Base" from Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire on the Nintendo 64 (1996)

Composer: John Williams

Arranged By: Peter McConnell

Album: Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire *

Label: Varese Sarabande

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: LucasArts

When I looked at the calendar and I saw that May 4th was going to be on a Wednesday this year, I knew that I was going to pick a track from a Star Wars game, and Shadows of the Empire was the first and only physical Star Wars game I purchased.

I decided on "Rebel Base" which surprisingly only contains a snippet of music from the larger piece, "Rebels at Bay" from The Empire Strikes Back, occurring around the 1:40 mark and around 2:08 , but slightly less intense.  Something else that surprised me was that this track only lasts around 42 seconds before it loops.  That is not a lot of music to have loop in a stage that can take around 12 minutes to beat if you know where you are going and what you have to do, so you are listening to this loop over 17 times, which really is only a problem if you do not like music from Star Wars and/or music in video games.  Or if you do like Star Wars music not spliced to repeat itself every 42 seconds.

This track is used first in the Echo Base section, right after the snow speeder battle, and aboard the Imperial Freighter Suprosa where Dash steals the plans for the second Death Star, presumably before handing them off to the Bothans?  I have fairly strong memories of both locations although Echo Base is the dominant one if only because I played that stage more as I was able to beat that stage on all difficulty levels, with Hard being significantly more difficult for me than Jedi (Jedi felt like realistic mode, where you could take only a few shots before dying, and the same with the enemies whereas Hard where the enemies had more life and you had less);  I never made it to the Suprosa on Jedi.  The Echo Base stage was a blast though, exploring areas that the movie glanced through or hinted at and having this music playing was a big part of enjoying that first stage as Dash Rendar.  Just good feelings all around.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Amen

*P.S.  Albeit leave it to me to pick one of the few songs that has a longer version than what was used in the game, and not used on the "Soundtrack to the book," which is what I have linked above.