Rush 'N Attack (NES) - Stage 1 Theme (All Instrument Cover)

Here's a cover of the stage 1 theme from Rush 'N Attack, released on the NES in 1987, based on an arcade game of the same name released in 1985! It's also known as Green Beret in other locales and on other platforms. Rush 'N Attack is one of the earliest hack and slash, side scrolling type games, which probably is the biggest reason for it's relative fame. The gameplay is pretty good although overall it's kind of an average game, however, it does feature this absolutely rockin' tune which has gotta kick it up a couple of notches!

The main melodies of the song often feature harmonies that are below the pitch of the main melody. Not sure if this is negative harmony, but it is a technique found on a few NES games. The bass line feature several major and minor triad arpeggios which creates alot of melodic movement under the melodies. The whole tune is uptempo in a triplet 4/4 and really conveys action, overall, a great tune!

For tracking, I thought the bass line was going to be the hardest thing, as the tempo of the tune is so fast that I had to play the arpeggios via tapping, and everything that wasn't an arpeggio as double thumb thumps. I was almost able to hold the tempo with traditional normal right hand bass, but the tempo was just too manic to reliably play it that way (for me!). The main guitar part was pretty tricky to not have my fingers tripping over each other in the intro and the turnaround, but the harmony part was super tough! The intro is almost like playing a rapid wholetone line with all four fingers, and the turnaround has a vertical three string element to it that was rather tough to get up to tempo. Overall, manic tracking! I added strings, choir ah's, a contrabass, and a synth lead on keyboard to enhance my arrangement, but I didn't feel the performance of any of those parts were interesting enough to film!

Anyway, this one was a real manic steamroller of an arrangement, I hope you remember this tune and enjoyed this arrangement!

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