I enjoyed hearing this soundtrack dearly.

Transcription mockup of The Little Engine That Could (1991) opening and end credits by Ben Heneghan and Ian Lawson.

Virtual Instruments: Kontakt Factory Orchestral Library (percussion, brass), Albion One (strings and woodwinds, The Maverick (piano)

DAW: Logic Pro X (I have since moved to Cubase)

The Little Engine That Could (1991) - Transcription

Nightmare

The entire MIDI-converted soundtrack from the forgotten 1995 PC/DOS game adaptation of the 1993 animated film, Once Upon A Forest.

First published by Sanctuary Woods Multimedia on floppy disks and on CD-ROM as a tie-in for (presumably) the film's VHS reprint, its story follows a slightly loose, tamer route from the original film; where, instead of a chemical spill that poisons both the forest of Dapplewood and the life of Michelle the badger, a wild mushroom poisons Michelle upon eating it next to the three main Furlings, hence why they're on the aid of collecting two herbs to cure their friend.

The gameplay, while nothing technological or challenging (especially with its low resolution graphics and compressed sound), is simple and harmless for an otherwise slow paced point-and-click adventure targeted for children. But the biggest drawback this game differs from the original film (apart from the fact that the original voice actors didn't reprise their roles), was that since Sanctuary Woods couldn't arrange James Horner's score due to licensing issues, they instead settled on an original soundtrack by Darren McGrath (whom later be known for composing Disney's learning games featuring Winnie the Pooh).

As for the soundtrack conversion, I suggested the idea to Hfric's Gaming Backlog (who uploaded a version of the gameplay with General MIDI music) on what tools he used to make the music sound more detailed and orchestrated than from a typical Sound Blaster sound card. In response, his Blogger article displayed a tutorial on how to play DOSBox games on Windows 10, with an all-in-one MIDI synthesizer known as VirtualMIDISynth; a multimedia driver that implements SF2 soundfonts in old DOS games as a MIDI OUT device. With a selection of soundfonts downloaded from various sources, I configured DOSBox's MIDI device by filling the midiconfig= command line with the number 0 (which selects the VirtualMIDISynth) and installed the game by setting the music sound card to General MIDI, the address number to 330, and the MIDI type to MPU-401.

Honestly, for fans of the original film or for old-school gamers in general, the game (as well as its soundtrack) isn't something you're missing out on; especially when it doesn't hold much of a candle to the dark undertoned, yet wholesome charm of the film. Then again, I can't say for certain that its message of environmentalism holds a candle to FernGully and how it portrays humankind as mischievous and harmful, while this contrasts the human portrayal as unintentional and preservative.

But those who have a niche fascination of preserving forgotten DOS games for a modern generation of PC gaming, or even just grew up playing this game from a young age, may find a collective spot for it that rarely gains much care and exposure as the film itself — much like the forests themselves.

Soundfonts:
• Crisis General MIDI V3.01
• FluidR3 GM2-2
• SGM V2.01
• Roland SC-55
• Squidfont Orchestral
• SM64 Soundfont V2
• TTTE RJ6 SFC V2
• IK Berlin Grand Piano
• Merlin Orchestra V1.40
• Merlin Symphony V1.21
• 3MG Symphony Hall Bank
• Orpheus 1.047e
• DSoundFont V4
• WeedsGM3

Software:
• DOSBox
• CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth
• MidiEditor
• Audacity

Visualized Audio Version: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJdxE5L6BgI

Original game ©1995 Sanctuary Woods Multimedia
Original film ©1993 20th Century Studios

Once Upon A Forest - Full PC Game Soundtrack (MIDI Remaster)

My version of the Super Mario 64 ending music. I nabbed the Samba drums pack from WavesFactory for the intro (well worth a purchase) and used other libraries from CineSamples and Cinematic Strings for the rest.

All credit to original composer, Koji Kondo.
RIP Mr. Satoru Iwata.

Once Upon A Forest - Full PC Game Soundtrack (MIDI Remaster)

Cayby Elbourn

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