Victory March

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Victory March
Composer Bobby Prince
Released 1992-05-05
Title Origin File Name
Loops Yes
This page is for the Wolfenstein 3D song, for more titles see Victory.

Victory March is one of the four unused songs in Wolfenstein 3D (DOS). It is a full-length track, probably meant for mission music.

John Romero said that there wasn't a particular reason why this song was excluded from the game. However, if you look how the music is utilized, each background song is used in four times--only the secret levels don't follow this pattern. This track could have been written to fill one of the secret levels that used repeated music, but was just never assigned. The song may have also been intended as the game's ending music, as the upbeat nature of the song would support this theory. The song may have also acted as a boss theme, as it sounds similar to The March to War.

Composition

As stated above, the song, musically speaking, is similar to The March to War. It is in the key of G major, in the 4/4 time signature (with 16th-triplet snare rolls throughout) and plays at approximately 117 beats per minute. The song starts out identically to the outro of The March to War with it's quarter-note footsteps and the snare drum solo (which plays identically throughout the song). It is on the seventh measure of the song at approximately 0:12, a tuba comes in playing quarter notes of G, D, E, and F♯. After doing this twice, at 0:16, the lead trumpet comes in, accompanied by harmonizing horns in the background. The motif played at this part is actually a major-keyed version of Roster. After playing one and a half times, the chords switch to F, then D before the second half of the song (0:33). The trumpet continues to solo while the horns and tuba harmonize with it. After the D7, G, D7, and G chord progressions close the song out, it repeats from the beginning.

Games

Wolfenstein 3D (DOS)

Platform - DOS.png
Wolfenstein 3D (DOS)
Output - OPL2.svg
Released 1992-05-05
Length 1:06
Format WLF

Victory March is track 26 in the game's data files, and the IMF meta tag title is "VICMARCH".

Bobby Prince composed the song using Sequencer Plus Gold.

Wolfenstein 3D (GBA)

Platform - GBA.png
Wolfenstein 3D (GBA)
Output - GBA.svg
Arranger Bobby Prince
Released 2002-04-02
Length 1:03
BPM 128
Format GSF

Like the others, this track is left unused in GBA version. Interestingly, they decided to port the tune left unused in original version, but also scrapped it.

Possibly it was meant for level BGM, because the Game Boy Advance port lost some actual level tracks. Maybe, they wanted to replace one of them with Victory March.

The conversion is slighty faster than MS-DOS version.


Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (W64)

Platform - W64.png
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (W64)
Output - PCM.svg
Wolfenstein 2 - W64 - Victory March.png
Arranger Bobby Prince
Released 2017-10-26
Length 1:06
Format UNK

Finally, this song makes an appearance in the arcade game "Wolfstone 3D", which parodies Wolfenstein 3D. It can be found during the actual gameplay of the "New Colossus". It is heard on the boss levels E1M9 and E2M9, replacing The March to War.

This track was just rendered from AdLib MS-DOS original version, so the only difference is the PCM output.


Links