That Old School Feeling

Freeform: Sounds like a video game?

It may be my jaded upbringing on Japanese console games talking, but I have a theory: Western game developers are afraid of their games being identified as games. Now I don't mean that they're consciously shivering in their corner telling the bad pixels to go away, but judging from the latest slew of games one can recognize this trend and how it's developed alongside technology.

The emergence of games as a cinematic experience and the lust for interactive movies stemmed from the early days of SEGA CD schlock and the beginning of CD-based games on PC. Pre-rendered video and redbook audio began the technological explosion that eventually led to where we are today.

All of this leads into the audio-centric portion of what I've been setting up. In the drive for interactive film, the Western game developer has no more need for the video game composer. This was extremely apparent to me at my semi-recent visit to the Game Developers Conference back in March. While there was much discussion about technology and interactivity with audio stems and other things only possible in games, everything related to the creative side of music composition was based around one mantra: Diversity is dead, conform to the Hollywood sound.

Okay, I over exaggerated that last part, but it couldn't be helped as I heard the efforts of both newcomers wanting to show their stuff as well as the showcases of industry big-names. To be honest, I don't place much fault on the composers themselves. Rather, it all boils down to what kinds of games are being created and what they call for in their presence. With games becoming the interactive cinema that they are, equally cinematic approaches tend to be the easy fallback way to score them. As a bit of an anecdote, I found myself writing up a demo for a recent horror-themed game last year. As a treatment of a main theme, I did something more akin to a Castlevania tune. It came as no surprise that the developers decided to side with a more gritty and typically "horror" sound, filled with guitars and no recognizable theme. Fine by me, really. All the better to get scared by, and no bitterness on my end.

But there's the catch. What was this horror game modeled after? A horror movie. Yet you take something like Silent Hill, which has a very cleverly designed sound that is distinctive as a game soundtrack, and its movie models the soundtrack after the game... Which leads to the movie feeling like a game, turning off audiences and getting poor reviews. The things we do for authenticity.

All tangents aside, I tend to listen exclusively to Japanese game soundtracks. One reason is obvious in that they always release a soundtrack for a game. The other reason is because they're so clearly game soundtracks and are intentionally written with the aim to be listened to over and over again. One of the big reasons why Western game composers are so obsessive with interactivity in their scores is that film music is linear, has a beginning and an end, and is intended to be heard once in the course of a 2 hour film.

Game music is cyclical. A good track written for a game is like a good piece of African music. (As obscure as that may sound.) The whole basis of African music comes from the concept of taking a "loop", developing it, riffing off it, and coming around to the same thing over and over and over. Yet it never gets old, it doesn't need to end. It can continue going until the sun sets and the dancers get tired.

Game music is also distinctly memorable. Partly because of its cyclical nature, and also because of its strong melodic importance. Strong melodies repeating endlessly. In the push for cinematic experiences, we now have games that play a main melody once in the course of a gameplay session. Usually on the main title screen. Any recent game player can probably hum you a strain from the menu music of Halo, but I highly doubt anyone would be able to recite a track from the in-game score.

In the end, since this ramble is drawing on a bit long, I don't really have some big thesis about my stance on all of this. A lot of it is observation, and noticing the trend that game music takes in its progression alongside technology. I can only hope for a meeting point between the two dire opposites of cinematic and game music. They both have their advantages and disadvantages when it comes to modern games, but the diversity can also be a positive one.

Weekly Music: A Deluge of Audio

In the wake of last week's strictly game-oriented entry, I'm going to forego my usual Weekly Gaming section in favor of a longer one focused on Music. Mainly because there were so many new releases and older albums that I got around to checking out. (Another reason would be that I'm still playing through most of the games I mentioned last week, with the slight addition of Warhawk in little bursts.)

Burn my Dread -Reincarnation Persona 3-

I should mention, since I didn't talk about the P3 soundtrack before this blog started up, that I'm a huge fan of what Shoji Meguro created for the latest entry in the Persona series. While Atlus composer Kenichi Tsuchiya has headed up the previous Persona games, Meguro came from his involvement with previous MegaTen projects including the original Persona, Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga along with the Trauma Center series to create this very unique soundtrack. So after playing the game for around 20 hours so far, I was really pleased to hear an arranged album complete with the full version of opening theme "Burn my Dread". The whole CD gives more of an alternative take on the game's tracks, since they aren't remixed or arranged by anyone other than the original composer. I'll definitely find myself revisiting this CD often as a good compilation of P3 tracks without having to skip some of the down-tempo tracks for casual listening.

Growlanser VI OST

While Shoji Meguro was busy staging his Persona coup, Kenichi Tsuchiya lent his efforts to this somewhat generic soundtrack. He wasn't the only composer, as other Atlus in-housers lent their talents to it: Eisuke Seki and Atsushi Kitajoh, whom I can't exactly say I'm familiar with at all. As a whole, the soundtrack isn't very memorable to my ears, but it has some strong themes sprinkled throughout. Such as "Submerged in Darkness", which has a good combination of tinkling bells, bass synth and bongos that remind me a lot of Mitsuda's "Shevat" theme from Xenogears. It's all very midi orchestral for the rest however, reminiscent of some PSX RPGs like Brave Fencer Musashi. It's also rather short, just spanning one disc and 23 tracks. What mainly killed the soundtrack for me was the total lack of quality in synths used, lacking any sort of dynamic range other than extreme mids for the most part. While it picks up towards the end, I probably won't be going back for another listen.

Dragon Quest Swords ~ The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors

As with any Dragon Quest game, its identity is extremely apparent from the onset with Koichi Sugiyama's "Overture" blasting away with its classically orchestral fanfare. While only certain themes of his are used (the usual mainstays), Manami Matsumae returns from the shadows of freelancing to write the majority of the soundtrack. If you're familiar with Mega Man 1 and 2, you know her music. She contributed to both titles under the nicknames Yuukichan's Papa and Manami Ietel. The resulting soundtrack is one that's clearly classically inspired and tries to remain within the sound that Sugiyama has established for the series, featuring some absolutely beautiful trumpet melodies (especially in the track "Come on, let's be off!"). While it's somewhat disappointing that a lot of it tries to hold (and succeeds) to the DQ sound, there are some tracks that break free of the formula briefly to catch my attention with their creativity. One such track is "Time of Mirror", which features sweeping synths similar to the infamous THX intro forming into chords periodically throughout the piece. "The Spiral Staircase" also has a very cool sound to it that reminds distinctively of Masashi Hamauzu's combination of piano and breathy synth pads. Overall, I think the soundtrack is a bit short (just 1 CD at 27 tracks), but it probably suits the length of this DQ side-game rather nicely. Matsumae has definitely proven that she can still contribute to the industry that's changed so much since her original offerings.

Minna no Golf 5

There's a lot of sub-genres within game soundtracks. One that always surprises and amuses me is: golf games. I have no idea why, but if I were to hear this soundtrack without an introduction, I would know right off the bat that it's the soundtrack for a golf game. There's just something about it, though I can't put my finger on it exactly. (A likely answer is that this composer does them all, but that may be too easy.) The game definitely caught my ear from the get-go with its awesome Stomp-inspired opening theme by Junji Kamatsuka comprised almost exclusively of sound effects from the game. The rest of it is written by Gon Ohtsuji who has been the Hot Shots composer for years, lending that sort of casual every-day feel to the games that sets the mood perfectly. I never thought I'd be praising a golf soundtrack, but it's diverse and is just fun to listen to.

Subarashi Kono Sekai (It's a Wonderful World)

I was extremely disappointed by this soundtrack. It's Takeharu Ishimoto's first major emergence from the job of synthesizer programmer and into the field of composition. His origins are from programming the outstanding soundtracks for Legend of Mana and Vagrant Story back in '99 and '00 respectively, but then went on to completely screw up Kingdom Hearts II's otherwise great soundtrack with some of the worst synth programming I've heard in a AAA RPG. Likewise, he comes into this project with some of the worst use of canned samples, trying to go for a hip from-the-streets sound that ultimately sounds like a teenage kid playing with Acid instead of doing his homework. If that's what he was going for, great job, but I don't think that's the case. There's also a handful of licensed Japanese electronica and hip-hop artists peppering the soundtrack that make it almost bearable, but for the most part it's actually pretty bad music compared to the better stuff out there. When you boil it down, it just sounds like a poor attempt to capture the spirit of Jet Set Radio's style of soundtrack without living up to it. Considering that he's being credited as writing for upcoming games FFVII: Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Agito XIII, and Final Fantasy Dissida, I fear for the integrity of the Final Fantasy name in regards to its musical quality. Hopefully they'll be much better than this.

King of Fighters Maximum Impact Regulation "A"

Toshikazu Tanaka has been pretty much a mainstay of solid SNK game soundtracks for so long, that it's not really necessary to mention that this game's music rocks. However, I'll mention it anyway. The soundtrack plays out a whole lot like an "electronica around the world" collection, with inspirations taken from Japanese, Indian, European, Eastern European, Native American, and Chinese traditional music. (Hey, like Street Fighter II!) Unlike Subarashi, this is how you handle samples well. There's some heavy usage of library samples and live recordings that all fuse together with the music well and create something that you can groove to rather than cringe at the stereotypical qualities of the tracks. It also contains one of the most hilarious song titles ever: "Giving a Manicure to the Fingernails of Darkness". Seriously, how can you beat that?

Phew! That's enough out of me for this week. 'Till next time!