Character Generation - Eye of the Beholder
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Character Generation is the song that plays while you are creating your party members in some ports of Eye of the Beholder. The song is a quiet but ominous tune, preparing your party members for the long adventure that awaits.
This song also serves as an ending theme to the DOS and SNES versions, except the DOS version does not loop. It also glitches out a channel.
The song was written by Paul S. Mudra using AdLib Visual Composer.
Contents
Composition
The song is in the key of D minor, is in the 4/4 time signature, and plays at approximately 120 beats per minute. starts out with a strings section accompanied by a low-pitched bass. The strings play minor chords for two measures each; Dm B♭m Dm G♭m Gm Bm Gm Bm. The entire sequence repeats again, but this time, two clarinets lead the song, accompanied by a glockenspiel that plays in eighth notes. The sequence with the clarinet + glockenspiel repeat again, before the instruments fade out. Then, there are a few seconds of silence before the song repeats from the beginning with the strings + bass.
The Amiga and SNES versions have different arrangements of the song when it comes to when the song loops and which parts are present. They are detailed below.
Games
Eye of the Beholder (DOS)
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The song plays while you are creating your characters in the Character Generation screen. The song will end, but after a brief pause, the song will loop. Paul Mudra composed the song in AdLib Visual Composer using his own custom BNK file. The song also plays during the ending, where a wall of text is displayed. However, this version of the song does not loop, leaving the listener to a dead silence after it has concluded. After the player views the final message of the ending and proceeds, they are kicked back to the MS-DOS prompt.
Like Introduction Part 2, this song will only play on an Ad Lib Music Synthesizer Card, Sound Blaster card or compatible.
Eye of the Beholder (AMI)
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This version of the song skips the strings in the introduction and loops the clarinet and bells part. However, the song loops immediately after it is done.
Eye of the Beholder (SNES)
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Like the other versions, this song plays during the character generation screen, and also plays during the game's ending cutscene. Unfortunately, instead of showing a staff roll, the game stays at the end of the cutscene until the player either resets or turns of the SNES. The SNES version has better fidelity than the DOS version due to using instrument samples as opposed to the DOS version's FM synthesis, and is arguably better than the Amiga version due to its support for eight sound channels as opposed to the Amiga's four.
This version of the song was ported to the SNES by Tatsuya Nishimura. The song is shorter than the DOS version in that it skips the repetition of the strings intro, but will loop as soon as the song is done, rather than pause for a short moment. The SPC file is titled Birth of Heroes. Also, the string section was replaced with an organ.
More than likely, Nishimura had to learn Paul's music by ear and adapt it to the SNES accordingly.
Ending
Sheet Music
Page 1.
Page 2.
Page 3.
Page 4.
Page 5.
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Page 7.
Trivia
- YouTube gamer ProJared used the SNES version of the song as background music during his playthrough of Dungeon Hack.
