Well, I for one love it. I think it fits the retro-feel of the game very well. It's also nice to have short looping tracks that don't 'feel' looping. i.e., they are subtle enough to not feel repetitive.
In one of the tracks, Undercity (Ruby), I'm not sure about the acoustic piano. Feels a bit seperated, but as I say, I'm not sure.
For the chip based sounds, were any SID-based VSTs used at all? Just my inner music nerd wanting to know. :)
You're not wrong about Ruby's piano, as far as separation is concerned. I struggle when I attempt to replace it, though. Of all the thousands upon thousands of patches I have at my disposal, I haven't been able to find one that quite conveys the feeling. Even making it more lo-fi (to, er, "SNES"-ize it) cheapens the emotional effect to me.
The chips! The secret-sauce is none other than Plogue Chipsounds... and lots of it. I considered using SID stuff (and tried), but once I began on the 2A03 track, the SID's overall richness just overpowered all else. Mixing NES and SID really didn't work for this particular project, as they were too bold together -- something you kinda want to avoid for BGM (background music). So everything* is either 2A03 or DMG (gameboy) chips, with standard waveform channels (and timbre automation within reason) and, in the rare case, the custom waveform capability when using DMG as is possible on the real hardware.
I mostly stayed true to 2-pulse and 1-triangle (plus 2A03 DMC sample playback, and noise channel) [especially manually recreating the noise-based Konami snare by hand in Sapphire's theme] -- but most tracks have an extra pulse or channel or DMG or something which makes the purist in me cry.
Sapphire's lead, for example, is something like a combination of 4 pulses... which you could arguably get away with if using a real VRC6 or MMC5. So that's how I justify it to myself. :)
There are, of course, some things like IK SampleTron, reFX Nexus2, Camel Alchemy, a touch of NI Battery 3, and some EastWest stuff (Symphonic Orchestra, Symphonic Choirs, StormDrum 2, and Pianos). One of the hidden tracks you get with the album [coming soon!] uses EastWest Ministry of Rock and Impact Soundworks Shreddage along with Guitar Rig 4 & Amplitube Metal. :D
It was a bit of a challenge to keep the tracks separate-but-united, especially given the self-imposed limitations, but I think it all worked out. Fun fact: The Inaria theme is based on the first track I ever wrote-and-produced outside of General MIDI, written and released Jan 17 2006.
I personally like the music a lot. The melody is real ear-catcher. Very nice variations in the dance theme and others as well. The only things which give me a little headache are in the first part the beeping tones from the main-theme. The beeping sounds a bit too hysterical and raw for my ears. It gets better in the second part where the whole theme gets volume. Maybe the sustaining is a bit too much for an intro, I would try out a release. hmm, how to explain? instead of beeeeeeeeeeeeeeepbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. making beep. beep. beep.
Sometimes I wish that after the retro-part, there will be a lot of volume from real orchestra sounds, the Inaria-castle-theme really cries out for more. Maybe through it doesen't happen you stay hungry? I don't know... Great work!