I had Returns SNES, I liked it and played it quite a bit. I think it was a perfectly cromulent beat’em-up, although 1-player only. B&R SNES I rented a couple of times, I think at the time I felt disappointed that it was a flat side-scroller instead of a belt-scrolling beat’em-up like Returns.

In the episode, the hosts mentioned how some early Batman games were barely related to the source material, while B&R was strongly based on the animated series. Returns SNES was also a direct adaptation of the movie, including the music, the cutscenes with digitized stills…

It seems Returns SNES shared some of the team of the later B&R, including the musicians, who did a great job already in Returns of taking the movie themes and also adding new music that fit well with the movie and the game.

Thanks for a great double episode! I also think Braid was very remarkable in 2008, innovating in 2D platformers which had become something of a rarity. About Batman & Robin SNES, I think a relevant predecessor was Batman Returns SNES (Konami, 1993), based on the Tim Burton movie sequel.

(The original Excitebike jingles were by classic Nintendo composer Akito Nakatsuka.)

Soyo Oka would later go on to compose Pilotwings, SimCity SNES, Super Mario Kart. Those are great iconic soundtracks, but there’s another one she did which kind of impresses me even more: Super Mario All-Stars. I mean, imagine having the reponsibility to arrange Mario 1, 2 and 3 for the 16-bit gen!

The Vs tune sounds to me like a cover of the Ice Hockey in-game theme. Btw I just read the Ice Hockey in-game theme is exclusive to the non-Japanese versions, in Japan it was a different theme!

In any case, Vs Excitebike and Ice Hockey have the same composer: Soyo Oka :)

Rings a bell for anyone else?

Well, it sounds a lot like this other Nintendo tune, especially if you listen to the Vs tune from 0:30 :)

youtu.be/o20kOOwXIN8

Then I heard in your episode the second tune you played from the Vs version, coming back from the break, and I though it sounded very familiar:

youtu.be/x-jYlhyc2VA

Thanks HG101 podcast for another great episode! :)

I didn’t know much about Excitebike VS. It’s very interesting that it replaced all the music from the original version.

The original had no in-game music, just a few jingles, but they were very iconic.

youtu.be/30im_ZzhdcM