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?

Answer 1

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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Cave Story essentially has 3 sound tracks - Original, Remastered and New. All three are selectable to be used during gameplay from the options menu in Cave Story+ or at least they are in my steam install.

The "new" soundtrack for Cave Story is a rearrangement by Yann van der Cruyssen for Wii. The Cave Story+ sound track included with HIB4 is a 44 track selection from this "new" sound track. This sound track is also included in Cave Story+ (Steam) in (Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Ogg) +/- a few songs which I'll cover in the answer.

The "original" Cave Story Soundtrack has 42 tracks listed + 2 added for +/Wii. The site also lists 5 unreleased, but I'll address the added ones in the answer and the unreleased in the extra information. The source of the track titles listed and the order come primarily from the fan-translation of the original game release and have been accepted within the fanbase. The translations are mostly pretty spot on. Most of the tracks in the "original" sound track are part of the other sound tracks. These files can be found in Cave Story+ (Steam) in (Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Org) in Pixel's proprietary .org format.

There is also the "remastered" sound track that was present in Cave Story 3D on the 3DS. It is a rearrangement by Danny Baronowsky with feature arrangements by K-Wix. It includes the same titles as the "original" sound track (including Wind Fortress) with 2 extra remixes. These files can be found in Cave Story+ (Steam) in (Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Ogg11) split into an intro and a loop. I'll address these in the extra information.

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Answer

Here is the matchup of everything file-per-file derived 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 kodou.mp3       kodou.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  Wind Fortress
Y  -               kaze_loop.ogg   Wind Fortress

• 40 of them match straight across
• The track XXXX is just a 21 second track of silence so you can ignore that.
• 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, but it's up to your discretion for these 4.
• credit wii.mp3 is credit music so why not call it Wii Credits and list it at the end as would be done with credits? From what I've been told, this track was rearranged, but was never actually used even on the Wii version. It is a bonus track as part of the "new" sound track.
• ika.mp3 is a musical reference to ika-chan so call it Squid and put it wherever you please, but since it is a bonus track exclusive to the "new" sound track, you could just put it after the credits as that is where bonus tracks are usually placed. Apparently this gets played on the title screen on Pixel's birthday.
• intro menu.mp3 is supposedly 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, but it is a bonus track exclusive to the "new soundtrack", but it seems it was never used so you could put it there or somewhere at the end of the disc. The music actually used in all versions use the given sound track version's track titled Cave Story. On the Wii dashboard, it is not used either as it appears that a clip of tumult's re-arrange of Cave Story from the Cave Story Remix Project (Disc 2) is used.
• jenka1b.mp3 is an alternate arrangemet of Jenka 1. I'd call it Jenka 1 Alternate or Jenka 1b. I'd personally put it after Jenka 1, but as it is a bonus track exclusive to the "new" sound track and was not used so tacking it on at the end wouldn't be wrong either.
• White is actually part of the "new" sound track and plays in my copy of the game, but was not included with the HIB sound track. White may have been omitted from the Wii release even though the track was rearranged so this may explain its omission. The file is in your game files in .ogg format and you can convert/add it if you wish a complete "new" sound track.
• kaze_intro.ogg and kaze_loop.ogg are not technically part of the "new" sound track as they are the same files copied over from the "remastered" sound track, but when you play Wind Fortress, as those files are with the "new" soundtrack files, it should play the "remastered" version of Wind Fortress, but I haven't unlocked Wind Fortress yet and cannot confirm.

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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.

• Wind Fortress and Halloween 2 are present in the game files for the "original" sound track (Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cave story+\data\base\Org) and can be grabbed from the Cave Story music web site. These should play when you have "original" music selected, Wind Fortress will play in the Wind Fortress and Halloween 2 under special conditions. They are a part of the "original" sound track, but were not included in the many earlier releases because Wind Fortress wasn't included and I guess Pixel wanted some cool omake so Halloween 2 may play on Halloween in place of another track (*needs confirmation, but I believe I read this somewhere. Sort of like how on Christmas, all sprites are replaced, I also saw Halloween replacement sprites in the game files so this would make sense).
• The unreleased tracks on the Cave Story music web site are from an old music server sort of deal and were acquired with a bunch of beta tracks. See the beta music page for the full story. 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.
• 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. This is the "remastered" sound track which is a rearrangement by Danny Baronowsky with feature arrangements by K-Wix and found on Cave Story 3D. The tracks need to be combined if you want to really add them to your music collection. I have done so personally, but as they are part of a commercial distribution rather than the free release of the original game, I don not believe I am at liberty to share them. Notably, the new tracks added here are the remastered kaze (Wind Fortress), lastcave2 (Last Cave 2) (either this or lastcave in this sound track was remastered by K-Wix and the other by Danny Baronowsky), and wanpaku ending (Mischievous Ending?) which appears to be a mystery as to who did it or if it is ever used in-game. I don't know how to swap the Last Cave music used in-game aside from file renaming, but there may yet be an in-game way as only one of them is used.

EDIT: Added more information per a discussion on the Cave Story tribute site forums.

Answer 2

Today I set out to answer the same question. Turns out that Sebastian Wolff has a handy list which shows each track on the original soundtrack along with its file name. Using this list, most of them were easy to place. Since we didn't get a file named "curly", I determined that "plantation" is probably "26. Cave Story (Theme Song)". The remaining 8 tracks I tagged as if they were a second disk, in an order that flows pretty well:

1. Intro Menu
2. Fanfare 1
3. Jenka 1b
4. Fanfare 2
5. Squid ***
6. Fanfare 3
7. Wii Credits
8. Game Over

*** The file is called "ika", which means "squid" in Japanese, and seems to be a reference to Pixel's earlier character/game Ikachan. Interestingly, the file for "Oppression" is called "ironh", which similarly appears to be a reference to Ironhead, that game's antagonist. Both Ikachan and Ironhead have cameos in Cave Story. See http://www.cavestory.org/othergames_ikachan.php for more info.