CD Soundtrack: JPN or USA?

The two soundtracks for Sonic CD are vastly different. In many ways. So much that I thought this deserved a separate topic in itself.

So I'm curious. Which do you prefer? Why?

Personally, I'm more fond of the Japanese soundtrack. It's obscure. It's so... funky. And it gets me really hyped up so much. The good future soundtrack is beautiful, and the bad future soundtrack genuinely makes me just... mentally disturbed. It's what the world has become. And it's down to YOU to stop it.

There's something just... great about the japanese soundtrack to me, and the american one just doesn't have the same soul to it in my eyes. Though it does have a few gems, the majority blends in and is just bland in my eyes.

And that boss/game over music. Oh god what were they thinking. Look it up if you dare. You will die.

Well, over here in Europe, we actually got the Japanese soundtrack on original copies of the game (obviously, collections and such since then may've used different songs and such), so I'm more familiar with the Japanese sound than I am the American one.

I have to say... I think the American soundtrack was better thought-out. It feels a lot of the songs were a lot more thematic to the stages, and there was kinda more variance there.
The Japanese soundtrack on the other hand was very... hm. It was a lot of good music, for a good game. But it sorta felt like someone went 'Okay, we need you to make music for a bunch of levels for this game', and then they were like 'Right!' and made a lot of 'level' music without making it particularly thematic for the levels. However, a lot of the music was... well... great.
It's a hard call for me really, but I think American track slightly comes out on top for me - not neccesarily due to the quality of the overall music, but I think Japan had a lot more in the way of annoying samples breaking songs up and making them a lot more... disjointed.

The only way I was able to play it was procuring the sonic gems collection, recently, and I was irritated, to say the least, for not getting the Japanese soundtrack. I mean, I feel it fits so much better, although the USA one has a genuinely screwed up soundtrack for the bad future, but that's about it. One thing that made it worse for me was the fact that they had cut out the best Japanese track of the game (starlight/metal sonic theme) and replaced it with a decent track, but a track that just wasn't as good.

Plus, who can resist the ending theme from the Japanese soundtrack?

English period!

goldenaxe wrote:English period!

Do you... Uh... Care to explain what you mean?

Honestly, I get why people would prefer the English soundtrack. I listened to a lot of it myself, too, and it does fit very well. Though in my eyes I feel like the JP soundtrack fits the levels perfectly. That may just be a bias or something, but things like Stardust Speedway, Palmtree Panic, Wacky Workbench, Metallic Madness, all that stuff. They just fit so well.

Something great that I'm looking forward to personally is the fact that Sonic Mania seems to have a JP CD style soundtrack. :3

The EU/JP soundtrack, in my opinion, is much better in most cases. Although the USA soundtrack has its great songs, and it's definitely more atmospheric, the EU/JP soundtrack is just better. However, none of this really matters because PLAYING Sonic Cd is a god-awful nightmare. No offense to anybody who likes the game, but screw Sonic CD and it's crap level design.

Playing the game is... strange. It's not a nightmare by any means, however. I've done a 100% completion run on the game - all timestones, all metal sonic holograms destroyed, all pods, everything. The time warp gimmick can be REALLY annoying to get to work, but it's part of the challenge I suppose.

CD remains one of my favourite 2D games for a lot of reasons.

CD is ball-bustingly difficult, I'll agree with that, but it's not down to bad level design, it's more down to just needing to 'git gud scrubb', if you catch my drift.

I've 100% the game too, and I STILL don't like it. I am entitled to my opinion guys. I just don't think that CD's emphasis on backtracking, time travelling, and exploration go well with Sonic as a character. Now if the game starred Tails or Knuckles, who have means of vertically scaling structures without extreme frustration, it would be slightly better. However, no matter who you play as, I hate the time travelling mechanic.

Sorry, just to clarify, when we say 'English' soundtrack, what are we referring to here? Since the 'English' track as in 'England' is the Japanese track, whilst the 'American' track is different.
When people are saying 'English' what are they actually meaning? XP

For myself don't care where it's from. if it has a good beat I will listen to it and enjoy it. plus I do love comparing the differences between the two

I think it sounds a lot better and is a lot more catchy. I especially love the trippy sounds from the past side of soundtrack.