[archagon]

I think it's no accident that one of the most renown and influential works of classical music ever made — the Well-Tempered Klavier — was mostly written for 3-4 voices, for an instrument with very limited expressiveness, and under the incredibly strict rules of counterpoint. To echo what Mark is saying, this is probably one of the reasons we find classical video game music so memorable. When you only have access to a sine wave, a saw wave, and a noise channel, you get really, really good at inventively utilizing these resources to their fullest. I can't remember most of the over-orchestrated, insipid soundtracks in AAA games today, but music from my favorite NES, SNES, and DOS games has never left my mind.

As an aside, I think Disasterpeace is doing for chiptune-style music today what Mark Ferrari has done for 8-bit graphics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB-pG7wEnzM