Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

[Source]
 Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
 Konami/King Record  KICA-7501  Apr 05, 1991
[Generator]
 MAME 0.188 beta (modded by Valley Bell)

"Metal Gear 2", one of the last games
officially released for the MSX2, represented a
quantum leap over the original game and formed
the basis of the PlayStation smash hit "Metal
Gear Solid". This included the music, an
exceptional soundtrack made possible with the
"SCC" hardware found on several of Konami's MSX
cartridges, where it's clear the composers
pulled out all the stops. It manages to convey
action and drama, happiness and sadness, and
more, all equally well with a mix of the MSX's
standard three-channel PSG and the SCC's
five-channel programmable waveforms. Both
"Theme of Solid Snake" and "Zanzibar Breeze"
were memorable enough to virtually everyone who
booted the game for the first time that "Metal
Gear Solid Integral" included secret remixes of
both songs, and "Red Sun" is (IMO) one of the
best ending themes ever. Naturally, this game
was just asking for a VGM pack.

The first problem was how to record it. There
is a secret "Radio Mode" in the game which is
accessed by equipping the cigarettes and
changing your transceiver's frequency to 140.07
(but not calling it). It plays a random song
from the game, which includes two exclusive
songs ("Swing, Swing" and "'A' Jam Blues"). And
that's it. Naturally, I dove in to try to find
a way to accomplish a sound test through a
memory poke, but I didn't get far. The solution
that ultimately came about was to directly
modify the sound data jump table _in the ROM
itself_, a solution that would never have
occurred to me in a million years had
GTheGuardian and ctr not uncovered it when I
asked for help. (Special thanks for that!)

Once the method of logging the songs was
settled, there came another complication.
Namely, that the official soundtrack album is,
shall we say, less than adequate for such an
incredible collection of music. There's lots of
spelling errors, for example ("FREQENCY",
"IMMEDIATECY", "MECANIC", etc.), which are
preserved in the Japanese tags but corrected in
the English ones. There's also strange song
placement, such as Gray Fox's theme "Tears"
listed right after the first boss theme even
though you only meet him a good chunk of the
way through the game. Less obvious oddities,
however, include, but are not limited to:

* Two instances of songs being obviously
  swapped. The song labeled on the album as
  "Escape" (from the base at the end) is
  actually "Spiral" (when you're chased down
  the spiral stairs), and the song labeled
  "Shallow" (the swamp music) is actually
  "Imminent" (one of the standard gameplay
  themes, all in the Alert Mode Level 1
  series). Oh, and the real "Shallow" appears
  as a standard gameplay theme as well. These
  are corrected in this pack.
* Several conversation songs are mislabeled.
  "Nightfall" is labeled "Schneider" but
  actually cues up when you talk to Holly. The
  actual Schneider song is "An Advance", same
  as Dr. Petrovich's. "Wavelet" is labeled
  "Holly" but plays when you talk to Natasha.
  Finally, "Reprieve of the Doctor" is labeled
  "A Conversation Between Three People" but is
  actually heard when you reach the passage to
  Petrovich's cell. These songs are relabeled
  in this pack.
* Several tracks on the album are actually
  multiple song entries combined into one
  without seperate titles. "First Instruction"
  consists of two song entries for the first
  conversation in the game, the second of which
  cues partway through. "Return to Dust" (a
  standard gameplay theme) starts with the
  music for traveling through air ducts. The
  OST track named "Natasha's Death" encompasses
  both the jingle of the initial shock and her
  actual dying scene. Most blatant is "Killers
  (Boss BGM 4)", which features the intro
  jingle, the pre-fight music, _and_ the fight
  music for a boss fight. All of these are
  separated into their own entries in the pack.
* The album completely misses both the Metal
  Gear D's entrance jingle and Night Sight's
  unique boss theme, which is likely why
  there's a "Boss BGM 4" but no "Boss BGM 3".
  These are both included in this pack.

Due to these faults, I decided I would
rearrange the tracklist based on the order the
songs actually play as well as give names to
songs that had none. The new names are marked
"[temp.]" to indicate that they are
placeholders until an official name for that
specific song or sub-song is uncovered, if
there is one. This includes "Natasha's Death",
as not only is the same theme used for another
character's death, but Natasha was renamed
Gustava in all rereleases since. The following
is a reference for my tracklist compared to the
OST:

VGM | OST | OST Entry
----+-----+----------------------
01  | 01  | Theme of Solid Snake
02  | 02  | Zanzibar Breeze
03  | 03  | A Notice
04  | 04  | First Instruction (1st part)
05  | 04  | First Instruction (2nd part)
06  | 05  | Freqency 140.85 [sic]
07  | 06  | Level 3 Warning (alarm sound)
08  | 06  | Level 3 Warning (main song)
09  | 07  | Return to Dust (opening song)
10  | 14  | Advance Immediatecy [sic]
11  | 12  | Shallow [actually Imminent]
12  | 16  | Imminent [actually Shallow]
13  | 08  | Killers (opening jingle)
14  | 08  | Killers (song 1)
15  | 08  | Killers (song 2)
16  | 19  | An Advence [sic]
17  | 18  | Level 1 Warning
18  | 07  | Return to Dust (main song)
19  | 11  | Chasing the Green Beret
20  | 25  | Under the Cloud of Darkness
21  | 13  | Battle Against Time
22  | 15  | Mecanic [sic]
23  | 10  | The Front Line
24  | 28  | In Security [sic]
25  | 17  | Night Fall [sic]
26  | 27  | Infiltration
27  | 20  | Reprieve of the Doctor
28  | 29  | Wavelet
29  | 21  | Natarsha's Death [sic] (song 1)
30  | 21  | Natarsha's Death [sic] (song 2)
31  | --  | (not included)
32  | 22  | Zanzibar Land National Anthem (1)
33  | 24  | Zanzibar Land National Anthem (2)
34  | 32  | Escape [actually Spiral]
35  | 26  | Fight into Enemy Teritory [sic]
36  | --  | (not included)
37  | 09  | Tears
38  | 30  | Big Boss
39  | 31  | Spiral [actually Escape]
40  | 33  | Return
41  | 34  | Red Sun
42  | 35  | Farewell
43  | 36  | Afterimage
44  | 37  | Disposable Life
45  | 23  | Swing, Swing (song 1)
46  | 24  | "A" Jam Blues (song 2)
47  | --  | (not included)
48  | --  | (not included)

In addition, the Notes for each VGM file
include usage notes when it is not immediately
obvious from the title. For instance, the
Zanzibar Land National Anthem is only heard if
you play the cassette tape (which is necessary
to solve a puzzle), and "Part 2" only plays if
you've worn out the cassette tape when you use
it. The Notes also include how they appear
differently on the OST, when applicable.

Enjoy!

— The Golden Horse

Source: VGMRips