The Astérix Gaming Guild: xxl

Martyste Tendertail

You can clearly hear instruments doing typical CD-audio reverb

Martyste Tendertail

So the music track has to be a unique file, not a midi sequence

Failentin

yeah, as Spork said, this is the unused Egypt theme from normal XXL1 copy-and-pasted over to the GBA prototype

Martyste Tendertail

Moreover, a second version.

Martyste Tendertail

This is what we originally sourced from Laforest

Download XXL_Egypt1.mp3:

Martyste Tendertail

Filesize wise, yeah, it could fit in the prototype if it only has like one level, no sound effects.

Martyste Tendertail

From 0:43 however, the composition is different.

Martyste Tendertail

How the GBA can play it is beyond me. Velez & Dubail must have found an insane trick again

Martyste Tendertail

The higher quality file must weight at most 2MB...

Martyste Tendertail

I think what happened was that they couldn't get enough unique tracks from console XXL to cram into 8 MB. 16 and 32 MB GBA games existed, but they only appeared later when it was cheaper to produce.

Martyste Tendertail

So they had to hire Brimble to make something that would weight far less. And also take as little CPU power as possible.

Martyste Tendertail

But now, I can't help but imagine what an enhanged XXL GBA would be like. Most definately a port into the console version would be the best approach...

AdrienTD

Even in the final version, the music is made using uncompressed 8-bit PCM parts that are looped and glued together, with few instruments added here and there.

AdrienTD

So I guess that would have tried with some tracks from XXL but must have found out that it would quickly take lots of space

PegPeregoGaucho

wait, so maybe what could be the case is they took the original file we know from Laforest and the new parts are midi instruments? 🧐

PegPeregoGaucho

because these new additions do sound like that

Failentin

I doubt that, since it's not just instruments added to the theme; the melody starting at 0:43 in the old file is entirely replaced

Failentin

I'd think these changes were made by Laforest himself while he was working on the track for XXL

PegPeregoGaucho

makes sense 👍

PegPeregoGaucho

now lets get this running on actual hardware :asterix:

#xxl