Brian the Lion (Amiga) (gamerip) (1994)

This is one of those albums I hate to review. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a good solid album, all the songs are nice, and the composer is clearly skilled. Just look at The Graveyard, where the death toll is cleverly interlaced with the main music, and Bit Nippy, which uses as its backdrop the roaring wind of a winter storm. These nice clever effects, however, are only few and most of the music is just pleasant sounding and that's about it.

But the grueling part of this album is that it's two hours long. And when you're trying to systematically go through all the pc synth music in the late 80s and early 90s, that means you're spending your entire evening on Brian the Lion and probably not finding any songs that night that wow. But maybe it's not all bad. This game is, after all, "[p]robably the best written platform game ever," according to Commodore User Amiga. I do have my doubts about this claim but then again, I haven't played it. Platformers may indeed have pinnacled in this one-off titular swim-trunks laden mascot's masterpiece and been on a slow and steady descent ever since. Perhaps it was the best, or at very least better than Bubsy. Unlike that Bobcat, Brian wears pants.

But I blather. This is a well made album that is quite long. The music in general is quite safe, with some clever bits thrown in. The titled tracks appear to be completed works. The BGM XX(-#) tracks at the end appear to be variants or less polished versions of earlier tracks. Overall, 7.75/10.

In my opinion,
Best Tracks: Bonus Sky High World, The Way Forward, The Graveyard
Also Good:
Title Screen, The Steamy Jungle, Ruins Map, Dodgy Dave´s Bargain Basement, Thank You Very Much, Bit Nippy, Underworld Continue, Geeza
 
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