Rob Kovacs, also known as 88bit, is a recording artist, composer, pianist, and singer/songwriter. He made it his mission to bring forgotten video game music back to life on the piano. You might know him from his albums Video Game LoFi: Super Mario 64, the Katawa Shoujo Piano Collections, his performances at major conventions like PAX and MAGFest, or from his youtube channel. He also composed the soundtrack for Straylight, an award winning VR game, and has performed concerts worldwide.

In June 2025, he played a video game concert in Munich. We got to talk to him a few days later. Enjoy this interview!

There was a specific moment, but it was also over a long period of time. Even back in high school, I remember a friend of mine downloaded a MIDI transcription of the Super Mario theme. I thought, "This is so cool!" We tried to learn how to play it, and then I arranged a version of the Super Mario theme for my band. We had three different sections, and it was super fun—it was our biggest hit any time we'd play live. And then in college, I would play a solo piano version of that.

About 10 years later, I was looking on YouTube for piano versions of Mega Man music. This was around 2009. I didn't really find any arrangements that I thought were truly good. Some people were playing the melody, but in my opinion, none really captured the energy and excitement of Mega Man music on piano. So, I set out to transcribe and arrange all the notes for the piano myself.

The NES sound chip is pretty limited; you can really only play three pitches at a time. But those composers would cram a lot of notes into those three voices. Playing all those notes on piano was really, really challenging. I couldn't really do it at first, but I kept practicing and eventually put out a video of Air Man's Theme back in 2010. I was really excited about it.

I thought, "Okay, I'm going to do the whole Mega Man 2 soundtrack." But life got in the way. I was living in New York City at the time and trying to make a living. I didn't get around to it until years later when I was teaching music in Cleveland, Ohio. I had a lot of students who wanted to learn pop music or video game music. One student, in particular, wanted to learn "Bloody Tears" from Castlevania 2.

I listened to it and came up with a simple version he could play. I thought, "Man, this is such a cool song. I wonder what it would sound like if I played all the notes?" So, I found a MIDI transcription and made an arrangement for piano that included everything.

It sounded so exciting and was very virtuosic on the piano. At that moment, I thought, "Why don't I just do a bunch of NES games and release the arrangements for piano?" My feeling was that there's so much good music from this early period of video game music, specifically the NES and Famicom, where much of it was buried in the game. You had to be good enough to play the game to even hear the music back then.

Now you can go on YouTube, and everything's been uploaded, thankfully, which helps preserve the music. But I wanted to present it in a way that would be intriguing and interesting to people, regardless of whether they were gamers or not.

Specifically with the NES, there are only five channels, and many of them overlap. If you're trying to transcribe just by ear, it can be almost impossible, depending on the piece, to decipher which notes are actually being played by which voice or channel. As I mentioned, three channels can produce pitches. Another can only do white noise, which creates percussive sounds. The fifth channel is a sampler DPCM channel, rarely used for music, mostly for sound effects if used at all. But occasionally, a composer would use it for music if there was space. Mostly, you just have these three voices and a noise channel.

I want my transcriptions to be as accurate as possible. I learned early on that many things I'd find online weren't necessarily accurate. So, I use a couple of software programs to look at the sound file. You can download the sound file as an NSF file and then import that into another program called Famitracker, which requires an NSF import plugin. Then you can literally look at every channel and every byte of code and see exactly what the notes are and when they're being played, which is really valuable. So, it's like looking at the sheet music of a score, but there was no sheet music; it was just programmed. I use that to transcribe for each channel.

The other big challenge is actually executing it and finding a way to play all the voices. A lot of them are in the same octave, like "Metal Man," and the reason they sound different on the Nintendo is that there are slightly different tone variations. A triangle wave is used to make the bass sound "woofier" and more bassy, but register-wise, it's all in the same range.

So, we have to spread those out, bringing the bass down. But then the problem is you can't reach all the notes. It becomes very difficult not only to play all the notes but to reach them. I use a combination of my thumbs to get the middle voices.

Another thing is with the rhythms: the Nintendo sound chip can play as fast as you want to program it; there's limitless speed and almost limitless notes. It can play as fast or jump around as fast as you want, whereas a human being can't really do that as much. So, you're being asked to play very, very virtuosically.

Yeah, that was one of my favorites. It sounds really challenging, but also really, really fun. It's just a great piece of music written by Brad Fuller and Hal Cannon. When you play it on a real instrument, it helps bring out more life in the piece. Especially on the piano, you can really get some wild sounds from that piece.

I think what inspires me the most are the composers themselves. I get the sense from research and interviews that they put a lot of passion into writing this music. Many of them are Japanese composers, and they were proud of the music they wrote. Then the game would come out, and it would be played by children in the 80s and 90s, and they never got any feedback. They never learned that people actually really liked it until decades later. So, what inspires me is that I want to preserve the music and honor the composers who put a lot of passion into it, and hopefully get it out there while they're still alive.

One of my greatest memories was getting to meet the Mega Man 2 composer, Takashi Tateishi, and play for him. He was at my concert at MAGFest 2019 where I played some of his music, and I also got to give him the sheet music that I wrote out for it. I think that was his first time in the US, and you could tell he'd never experienced this much appreciation for his music up until that point. It was just great to be a part of that.

They all have different meanings. I guess probably Mega Man 2 or Marble Madness are both pieces I love playing every time. I still love playing them, and just knowing what it means to the composer to hear their music preserved means a lot. But it's also a game I grew up with, and my friends and I would just sit and jam out to the music and really, really enjoy it. It's just a privilege to be able to play it live.

I'll also throw in the Final Fantasy 7 Main Theme. I honestly have never played that game. I was just asked to work on a track with another artist, Mega Ran, who was sampling that song. He wanted me to re-record the piano version of it. He wanted more arpeggios and for it to sound bigger than the recording he had. So I made up my own arrangement. I just loved the piece; I thought it was gorgeous without having any personal connection with the game.

It also connected with other people who've never played the game. My aunt, who's in her 80s, heard that, and she said, "Wow, it's such a beautiful piece; it brought me to tears," and she had no idea it was from a video game.

Yes, and I'm not sure... Munich is the only European city that I've played this concert in. I've played some new music and some classical music in other countries, but this was the first and only so far European city that I've done video game music in. It was a little different. A lot of times, I'll play concerts in the US during conventions- video game conventions or anime conventions- where the audience is really excited for video game music, or they already know who I am and a lot of my music, so they're already fans of me or the music.

In Munich, compared to those experiences, I felt like most of the audience didn't know who I was or much of my music yet. They were just there to hear a video game music concert. So, I felt like I had to win the audience over a little bit, but after the third song or so, everybody was really into it, and it felt just like any other concert. I got people to engage and yell out some "wahoos" during some Super Mario music, and it was great. It was really thrilling to play in Munich.

Though there aren't many, there are a few other pianists who are doing solo concerts. Martin Leung, the video game pianist, has done concerts, mostly at conventions, I think. Ryan McGaughey is another one who has started doing some video game music concerts. But yeah, I think the more, the merrier.

Well, if they're reading this blog, they have good taste in music because I know BSR puts out some great vinyl of video game music, and I know some of my albums are distributed by your label too, which is great.

For any musicians out there who want to try playing video game music, I’d say absolutely go for it! There’s an entire community of people across the world who not only love video game music but also love creating covers, remixes, playing it live, and using video game music to express themselves. There are multiple Discord communities like Dwelling of Duels and Pixel Mixers where people participate in monthly or regular challenges to create covers. If you can read music, there’s an incredible resource called VGLeadsheets.com where fans have uploaded over 1000 lead sheets of video game music.

And then there are lots of conventions around the world and especially in the US that feature bands and musicians of video game music. Of course, Germany has their own GamesCom which I would love to attend or play at some day!

I'll also pitch that I did put out a recent album called the “Katawa Shoujo Piano Collections”, which you do distribute. I'm really proud of that album. It's a little different project for me since I didn't compose or arrange any of it; it was all done by the composer himself, Sebastien Skaf. So I just had to learn and practice and interpret all the music, which took a good while, but it displays some of my best piano playing.

I just think it's great that you have this blog, and you are helping spread the word of video game music. And thank you for reaching out and interviewing me!