I've been listening to some retro videogame OSTs lately (the shmups are my favorites - Hellfire (arcade) and Thunder Force III (Genesis) are two of my favorites. I realized that I only recognized about 1/3 of the tracks from actually playing the games - I simply never made it very far into most games. Because of that, I associate the one or two starting tracks with the entire game. Yet most of the game's audio and visual stuff I've never seen. 

This got me to wondering how many awesome bits are deep in these games that the vast majority of players, especially in the arcade era, never got to see. I also found that the music tracks were less appealing to me for many games as they got further in. Maybe it's just what I'm used to hearing but I wonder if the game programmers "frontloaded" their best content? Seems almost sad how much effort went into these games, and how little of it the average player ever saw or is going to see. 

Thoughts?

I consider the hard bits the best bits, but aside from that needless bragging I'd tend to agree. The most memorable stuff is often at the start. I'd say it's not always the case, but it's certainly common.

I'm strange, I'll listen to a soundtrack but never play a game or even know where it's from sometimes. Then I'll play a game and go "Hey! That the song that's on my playlist!" lol

In my opinion a good game has most of its elements and mechanics it has to offer at least in the first half of the game, with the last half being just being the progressive exploration of the limits of those mechanics, where the limit is not measured in difficulty but rather a combination of difficulty and fun.

There are exceptions to that, for example a game like kingdom hearts or devil may cry introduces new mechanics right up until the end of the game yet still remains enjoyable.

Any story based game you will automatically be missing a great deal of content. Imagine Chrono Trigger being only judged by the millennial fair and 600AD, or Final Fantasy 7 only off of Midgar.

Games not based upon story like Super Mario Bros., or Sonic the Hedgehog you're certainly missing out on stuff, but not the most memorable parts of the game. Everyone I know can beat level 1-1 though 1-2 of Super Mario Bros 1...but I've had a few people shocked to see the tall platforms in 1-3. Maybe it's because most people warp from 1-2 to 4-1 or maybe it's because most people just remember the initial bits.

I think very few people have ever beaten more than a handful of games past their childhood. So you're probably not alone in missing out on good content.

Here's the final say though. Ask someone to hum "The Mario Song"...it's always going to be 1-1 overworld. Yet there are 9 tracks in the game (Overworld, Underworld, Underwater, Castle, Starman, Level Finish, Castle Finish, Game Over, End Credits)

"Here's the final say though. Ask someone to hum "The Mario Song"...it's always going to be 1-1 overworld. Yet there are 9 tracks in the game (Overworld, Underworld, Underwater, Castle, Starman, Level Finish, Castle Finish, Game Over, End Credits)."

Yep, my thought exactly. So I wonder how many gems are buried deep in these games..

When I first played FF7 my disc 1 was scratched such that I couldn't get past the cutscenes when you approach Shinra Tower. I played through the first few hours of ff7 many times.

In the original Legend of Zelda the best music by far is Gannons dungeon and I remember being pissed I had to get all the way there just to hear it! It's like the best weapons in the game are always at the end but getting them makes everything before that worth it.

edit: this was long before the interwebz and YouTube lol

I've wondered the same thing from time to time. I've always chalked it up to a familiarity and nostalgia thing. We think those are the best parts because we experienced them the most frequently. When saves were uncommon or nonexistent, most of us were just playing the first couple levels quite often. I'm rather fond of whole entire soundtracks to games that I used to actually play all the way or most of the way through every time (Double Dragon springs to mind).

Agreed, I think the best bit is most often the very end. So often I get to the end of the game, where all of the mechanics finally come together at once for like one 5 minute challenging level and it's just like... why wouldn't the entire game have been this good? Even games I think are crap like Kirby's Epic Yarn, I got to the last level and said "Oh the game is going to be fun NOW, for one single level?".

The early Mario 1-1 stuff is iconic because you can pick up on just putting a cart in once, or playing it your friends house, or just social osmosis. Everyone can band together can complain about the Turbo Tunnel because everyone gets there, but only Battletoads nerds can reminisce about how stupid Clinger-Winger or whatever is.

Explain that with Mega Man tapes.

Every level has the potential to be the beginning thus they are all the best.

Pretty much man, pretty friggen much.

 

But Dr Wily’s castle has the best music

 

I was testing out first samurai on snes which is a hidden gem fun by the way. I had never played it. Holy crap some good music. Intro narration and level 1 was all i heard but i was pleasantly surprised

That's funny this was brought up. My son and I were just arguing about game soundtracks. I had mentioned NHL 14 and he mentioned something else. Then I just played Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 and we both started bobbing our heads like jackasses. My favorite was Mario Bros 1-4 at the beginning, you just know it's about to get real.

I'm not sure if it's to do with game design, or rather the way I personally approach playing games, but I tend to enjoy the final levels of most games way more than the opening ones. Certainly this is true for me playing N64 games especially, might not hold so true for older 2D games.

Whenever I start a new game, apart from rare cases it usually takes me a good couple of hours to really find my groove with it. In fact, there are many many games I own where I've played the first 2 to 3 hours and then put them aside, knowing I want to play more but just not being ready to really get into them and enjoy them yet.

However, by the time I reach some of the later levels I am fully on board and totally clicked with the game, so I enjoy them way more. A significant example of this for me is Armorines, which for most of the game I found totally average, but the final levels in the alien mothership were freaking fantastic. Also, Turok 2 just got better and better imo. I was almost ready to give up on level 2, but every level after that just got me more and more into it, until the final level which I consider a masterpiece.

Then there are whole new genres to consider, for example puzzle games. No one can say with a straight face that the early levels of puzzle games are the best, it's when they get DEVIOUS that they are the most satisfying.

Then again, as I said above this might not hold true for some games, especially NES, SNES and Megadrive. We all know that chemical plant zone is the best level in Sonic 2, for example, and that's only level 2!