How to make sense of the Cave Story+ soundtrack in the Humble Indie Bundle 4 release?

Question

HIB4 has recently added soundtracks for the seven games to the pack. The sound track I opened first was Cave Story's, but... it's... kind of a mess really. I've been trying to match up the filenames with this canonical ordering (kindly suggested by the always awesome Grace Note), but the file names just don't match and the release doesn't come with a playlist with some kind of logical ordering.

So... what's the listening order for this release?

Asked by badp

Answer

4 months late probably counts as a necro, but I only just realized that my HIB4 had the soundtracks and got them myself :P. I wasn't satisfied with the answers present and after much research, I think I've nailed down the information not completely covered in other answers so this should help those who are sticklers like me.

tl;dr explanation

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The Cave Story+ soundtrack included with HIB4 is a 44 track rearrangement by Yann van der Cruyssen.

The original Cave Story Soundtrack has 42 tracks listed + 2 added for +/Wii and 5 unreleased. I wonder about the source of the track titles listed and the order, but as they have been accepted within the fanbase, I'll move forward with them as the accepted titles and order. Unfortunately the tracks do not match 1:1 nor do the extras really fit either with the rearranged version :(

If you check the game data for the steam version, there is a folder of .ogg files which happen to match up very closely to the rearranged soundtrack and have the same names and lengths for the most part, but there are still a few incongruities. There is also a folder of split .ogg tracks which I will comment on at the end of my answer.

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Answer

Here is the matchup of everything as best I can derive using Sebastian Wolff's site which uses the order from Cave Story Music, the steam files and some gameplay for confirmation:

#  HIBST Filename  Steam Filename  Accepted Song Title
1  access.mp3      access.ogg      Access
2  vivi.mp3        vivi.ogg        Gestation
3  mura.mp3        mura.ogg        Mimiga Town
4  plant.mp3       plant.ogg       Plant
5  ginsuke.mp3     ginsuke.ogg     Balrog's Theme
6  gravity.mp3     gravity.ogg     Gravity
7  cemetary.mp3    cemetery.ogg    Cemetery
8  anzen.mp3       anzen.ogg       Safety
9  wanpaku.mp3     wanpaku.ogg     Mischievous Robot
10 kudou.mp3       kudou.ogg       Pulse
11 weed.mp3        weed.ogg        On to Grasstown
12 fireeye.mp3     fireye.ogg      Eyes of Flame
13 mdown2.mp3      mdown2.ogg      Meltdown 2
14 dr.mp3          dr.ogg          Tyrant
15 escape.mp3      escape.ogg      Run!
16 jenka1.mp3      Jenka.ogg       Jenka 1
17 jenka2.mp3      jenka2.ogg      Jenka 2
18 maze.mp3        maze.ogg        Labyrinth Fight
19 grand.mp3       grand.ogg       Geothermal
20 ironh.mp3       ironh.ogg       Oppression
21 marine.mp3      marine.ogg      Living Waterway
22 quiet.mp3       quiet.ogg       Quiet
23 wanpak2.mp3     wanpak2.ogg     Scorching Back
24 oside.mp3       oside.ogg       Moonsong
25 requiem.mp3     requiem.ogg     Hero's End
26 plantation.mp3  curly.ogg       Cave Story
27 lastcave.mp3    lastcave.ogg    Last Cave
28 balcony.mp3     balcony.ogg     Balcony
29 lastbtl.mp3     lastbtl.ogg     Charge
30 zonbie.mp3      zonbie.ogg      Zombie
31 lastbtl3.mp3    lastbt3.ogg     Last Battle
32 bdown.mp3       bdown.ogg       Break Down
33 hell.mp3        hell.ogg        Running Hell
34 ballos.mp3      ballos.ogg      Seal Chamber
35 ending.mp3      ending.ogg      The Way Back Home
36 fanfale1.mp3    fanfale1.ogg    Got Item!
37 fanfale2.mp3    fanfale2.ogg    Get Heart Tank!
38 fanfale3.mp3    fanfale3.ogg    Victory!
39 gameover.mp3    gameover.ogg    Game Over
40 toroko.mp3      toroko.ogg      Toroko's Theme
41 -               white.ogg       White
-- -               -               XXXX
42 credit wii.mp3  -               -
43 ika.mp3         ika.ogg         -
00 intro menu.mp3  -               -
?? jenka1b.mp3     -               -
X  -               kaze_intro.ogg  -
Y  -               kaze_loop.ogg   -

• 40 of them match straight across
• I don't think an extra album for 4 tracks that were included together with the rest is the correct solution. One approach to bonus tracks is to append them all to the end, but I prefer a case by case approach. I think intros are good to open a soundtrack with and that credits music makes sense at the end, followed by other bonus tracks.
• credit wii.mp3 is the credit music so why not call it Wii Credits and list it at the end as would be done with credits?
• ika.mp3 is a musical reference to ika-chan so call it Squid and put it wherever you please, but since it's a bonus track, you could just put it after the credits as that is where bonus tracks are usually placed.
• intro menu.mp3 is the music from the intro menu so I'd just call it Intro Menu and place it first as the intro is the first thing of the game that you hear.
• jenka1b.mp3 is an alternate arrangemet of Jenka 1. Maybe Yann van der Cruyssen made an extra and it was included for the heck of it. I'd call it Jenka 1 Alternate or Jenka 1b. As to the order, that's a tougher call. I'd personally put it after Jenka 1, but as it is a bonus track, tacking it on at the end wouldn't be wrong either.

Extra Information

I'm not sure how much of this applies to the HIB install, but this is what I've found with my Steam install.

• White isn't included with the HIB4ST, but it is in the steam files. Convert the file format if you want a complete soundtrack, I guess.
• The track XXXX is just a 21 second track of silence so you can ignore that.
• Wind Fortress that plays in the game is the one listed on the Cave Story music web site, so you can grab it there and add it to your soundtrack as a bonus if you like.
• Halloween 2 listed there is also in the game files (Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Org) in Pixel's proprietary format .org, but I don't know when/where it plays exactly. You can grab this if you like too as another nice little bonus.
• I'm not sure where the unreleased tracks are from, but I'd guess either Pixel's site (or the original games' files, but then they wouldn't be unreleased :P). You may want to grab them too for good measure and maybe place them as part of a separate Cave Story Unreleased album if it suits you.
• kaze_intro.ogg and kaze_loop.ogg seem out of place in the Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Ogg folder. I assume they are there by accident. The same files are in in Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Ogg11. As kaze is Japanese for wind and the music sounds just like a rearrangement of Wind Fortress, I can only assume that's what it is.
• Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Ogg11 contains 101 files. Every song in this folder is broken into an intro and a loop except for lastbtl, meaning that there are 51 tracks here, but since silence is just that, the 3 fanfale tracks are the same as the 3 fanfare tracks, balcony and balcony2 are the same, credits and ending are the same, and bdown and breakdown are the same, there are actually 44 tracks. The songs in this folder appear to be further rearranged versions of the soundtrack and sound pretty cool. I think I may post combined versions of these tracks somewhere and add the link here when I do. Notably, the new tracks added here are kaze (Wind Fortress), lastcave2 (Last Cave 2), and wanpaku ending (Mischievous Robot Ending?). I'll see if I can get some clarification somewhere on what these are supposed to be and why they are there while I'm at it.

Answered by skovacs1

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