| Revision as of 19:12, 18 August 2023 editKung Fu Man (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers51,583 editsm →Conception and development← Previous edit | Revision as of 04:23, 19 August 2023 edit undoSalvidrim! (talk | contribs)Edit filter helpers, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, Pending changes reviewers, Template editors28,650 edits Adding short description: "Video game music track", overriding automatically generated descriptionTag: Shortdesc helperNext edit → | ||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Short description|Video game music track}} | |||
| {{under construction}} | {{under construction}} | ||
| {{Infobox song | {{Infobox song | ||
Revision as of 04:23, 19 August 2023
Video game music track | This article or section is in a state of significant expansion or restructuring. You are welcome to assist in its construction by editing it as well. If this article or section has not been edited in several days, please remove this template. If you are the editor who added this template and you are actively editing, please be sure to replace this template with {{in use}} during the active editing session. Click on the link for template parameters to use.
This article was last edited by Salvidrim! (talk | contribs) 16 months ago. (Update timer) |
| "Megalovania" | |
|---|---|
 Screenshot of the boss fight against Dr. Andonuts in the Radiation Halloween Hack, where Megalovania first played. | |
| Song by Toby Fox from the romhack Radiation Halloween Hack | |
| Released | November 2008 (2008-11) |
| Genre | |
| Length | 1:59 |
| Alternate renditions | |
| Audio sample | |
"Megalovania" is a video game song composed by Toby Fox. It was first composed in the "Radiation Halloween Hack" for EarthBound in 2008, and was created by Fox screaming "whatever felt like" into a microphone and copying it down. The song appeared in Homestuck (2011) and was utilized as the boss fight music for Sans in Undertale (2015).
Conception and development
In 2008, starmen.net, a fansite dedicated to the Mother video game series, held its annual "Halloween Funfest" competition for fan works related to the franchise. Toby Fox, going by the online alias "Radiation", submitted an Earthbound romhack simply titled "Radiation Halloween Hack". The romhack featured custom music from other games, and for the final boss Fox originally intended to use the song "Megalomania" from the Super Nintendo game Live A Live. A recurring theme playing at the end of each of the game's chapters, Fox was struck by the simplicity of Megalomania, but also felt its repeated use had created a "Pavlovian" sense of "This is the end" in player's minds due to its repeated use. However, when he attempted to transcribe the music to recreate it he found it too difficult, and after some consideration decided instead to make a completely new song.
To this end he screamed "whatever felt like" into a microphone and then copied it down, which resulted in a lengthy process. Composing the song afterward by comparison was very quick, taking Fox about thirty minutes. According to Fox, despite using similar chords the track took inspiration from Megalomania not in terms of composition but by "TOTALLY attempting to be the kind of a badass song that might be suitable for a similar purpose." After the romhack's release, he noticed people were ripping the music from it directly, however the in-game rendition had a built in delay which carried over to the rips. He chose to release a copy generated directly from the music editor, but then realized he'd never named the song. After consideration he dubbed it "Megalovania", a combination of its original inspiration and "Transylvania", the latter half meant to try and add some "Halloweeniness into it" due to its origin.
Toby Fox later worked as a musician for the internet fiction series Homestuck, and in 2011 Megalovania was remixed for its sixth volume, Heir Transparent with Joren "Tensei" de Bruin providing guitar music to the track. The track was made noticeably longer, and while Fox had used synthesized guitars on his other tracks, he found them sounding "muddy" when shifting them down an octave due to the original Super Nintendo audio, which itself couldn't be altered as in Fox's eyes that would have defeated the purpose of the song. Instead he wrote several extended guitar sections, trying to ensure they didn't "sound screechy and stupid" while still sounding "badass", which was aided by the fact de Bruin's guitar could play a note higher than most can. Due to it being technically the third release of the song, he capitalized various letters to differentiate it, resulting in "MeGaLoVania". After its release, despite both he and de Bruin being happy with the final results he acknowledged some of the criticisms it had received, stating he felt the guitar solo he had added was "uncreative" and would do the track over without the Super Nintendo audio for later renditions.
In 2015, Toby Fox released Undertale, a game he had developed and composed music for. Megalovania also returns as the boss music for the character Sans, who will fight the player near the end of the game's "genocide" route after they have killed nearly every other non-player character in the game. This rendition is closer to the original romhack's, though removes the slow startup that preceded it. It has also served as the basis for subsequent uses of the song, such as an arrangement composed by Fox for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2019 as downloadable content. Additionally, several other games have used the song as part of a cross-promotion with Undertale, including Pop'n Music, Dance Dance Revolution A3, and Gitadora High-Voltage, the last of which utilized a rock and roll arrangement of Megalovania by Yuya Yokoyama.
Reception and legacy
Since its release, Megalovania has become increasingly popular online, namely the Undertale rendition, with Devin Connelly of ScreenRant noting that even many who have never played the game would easily recognize it's beginning notes. The song has been utilized in various memes relating to both Undertale and the character Sans. Ryan Stevens in an article for Cultured Vultures described the same as one of the best boss battle themes of all time, praising it's "understated riff" and "foreboding bass", and further describing it as symbolizing when an "unstoppable force meeting an immovable object." In a paper titled Undertale: A Case Study in Ludomusicology, Matthew Perez noted that while much of its popularity stemmed from its used in the game, he felt it worked against Toby Fox's "confusing message about ethics and decision-making in video games", seemingly rewarding the players with the melody. He however praised the track itself, stating its baseline "gives the track a ferocity throughout its various sections, and its varying instrumentation continually refreshes the sonic atmosphere during the combat scenario."
Several renditions of Megalovania have also been produced by other creators and outlets. The original composer for Live A Live, Yoko Shimomura, noted that after Undertale's release many of her fans asked her about Megalovania, and according to Toby Fox at an official concert she performed a remixed rendition of Megalomania with Megalovania spliced in. The Twitter account for Cult of the Lamb utilized the song in promotional material, with the social media handler using the game's merchandise to sound out Megalovania's notes and encourage sales of it. In 2022, the song was played at the Vatican as part of a presentation for Pope Francis, as part of a papal audience circus act.
Polygon's Palmer Haasch described the song as having "consistent presence in internet game culture of the late 2010s", which he attributed in part due to Undertale's success and it's frequent use in fanmade remixes and "shitposts" persisted for years. He noted in particular the song had a massive presence on the social media website Tiktok, stating that "its repetitive riffs and melodramatic, chiptune-esque palette play out well on TikTok because they make sounds memorable and quirky", and worked well with the various meme cultures already forming on the platform, and adaptions of older memes such as rickrolling to incorporate the song. Haasch closed stating that few songs had left a footprint on 2010s internet culture, and that it made a case for "measuring the success of a song not by its chart history, but by its ability to be continuously reinvented."
References
- ^ "MeGaLoVania". Bandcamp. Archived from the original on 2011-01-08.
- ^ "Undertale". Edge. No. 314. January 2018. p. 95.
- "Halloween Funfest 2008". starment.net. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
- Fox, Toby. "Radiation Halloween Hack (Censored)". starmen.net. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
- ^ "LIVE A LIVE: a conversation between Yoko Shimomura and Toby Fox - part 1". Square Enix. 2023-05-12. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
- Fox, Toby (2008-10-31). The Making Of.html (Text document included amongst the files of the romhack of Earthbound entitled Earthbound Halloween Hack.). Archived from the original (ZIP) on 2009-11-26. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
This is it, the final boss theme. I wanted to put Live A Live's Megalomania in here but I didn't get to so I made my own last boss song. I pretty much just yelled whatever I felt like into a mike and copied it down. Yep. Took forever, but it was superkickass-worth-it. Total embodiment of final bossitude.
- ^ Toby, Fox (2011-01-07). "Homestuck Vol. 6: Heir Transparent". MSPA Forums. p. 28. Archived from the original on 2016-03-15. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
- ^ Diaz, Ana (2022-01-06). "The Pope listening to Undertale's 'Megalovania' is already 2022's weirdest video". Polygon. Retrieved 2023-08-18.
- Fox, Toby (September 4, 2019). "Yes. It's true. You'll be able to buy a Mii Gunner costume of Sans in Smash Brothers Ultimate later today! It'll come with a special arrangement of Megalovania composed by me. It's a huge honor to have something I created in Smash. Thank you so much Mr. Sakurai!!!" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2019-09-05 – via Twitter.
- Calub, Eileen (2022-12-22). "Undertale's Sans Appears In Japanese Rhythm Game As Playable Character". Dualshockers. Retrieved 2023-08-18.
- Stenbuck, Kite (2022-08-10). "Megalovania Appears in Gitadora With a New Rock Arrangement". Siliconera. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
- ^ Connelly, Devin (2022-09-17). "Cult Of The Lamb Uses Merch To Recreate Megalovania". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2023-08-18.
- Stevens, Ryan (2022-08-25). "15 Best Boss Battle Themes of All Time". Cultured Vultures. Retrieved 2023-08-18.
- Perez, Matthew (2017). "Undertale: A Case Study in Ludomusicology". City University of New York.
- Fox, Toby (February 9, 2022). "I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but I went to the official LIVE A LIVE A LIVE concert in Japan once long ago, and during MEGALOMANIA, they mixed in MEGALOVANIA halfway through as a remix of both. I was freaking out. Most surreal moment of my life lol" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-02-10 – via Twitter.
- Haasch, Palmer (2020-02-25). "TikTok users keep reinventing Undertale's 'Megalovania'". Polygon. Retrieved 2023-08-18.
| Toby Fox | |
|---|---|
| Games | |
| Composer | |
| Related | |
| MS Paint Adventures | |
|---|---|
| Mother series | ||
|---|---|---|
| Games |  | |
| People | ||
| Characters | ||
| Related | ||
