Another AdLib track. This one has lyrics, as yet incomplete. It came to me, you see, when I found myself repeating a phrase to myself as I went about my housework. One has little control over these things.
So. There you go. If I finish the lyrics, I may post them. Or not!
I have been toying with AdLib Visual Composer, a 1987 tool from the makers of the AdLib sound card, the first widely supported sound card for the IBM-compatible home PC. The Ad Lib had a Yamaha OPL2 sound chip, an FM synthesizer roughly similar to the OPN2 chip in the Sega Genesis. FM Synthesis has a distinctive sort of metallic, twangy sound to it. If you’re looking to replicate a real-life instrument you’re probably out of luck, but if used sensitively (for instance by Sega composer Yuzo Koshiro) one of these chips becomes an instrument in itself.
As I wrote earlier, Dan Froelich did a splendid job with the FM chip grandfathered into Creative’s Sound Blaster cards. His work was long my mental benchmark for PC-based game music. Earlier this month I visited his site and learned what he used all those decades ago. I then sent him a hello-and-thank-you note, and went to exploring the software.
It’s pretty easy to use, if you have a head for turn-of-the-’90s DOS programs. It lacks some obvious features like Undo, or the ability to automatically stretch or compress notes. It does support now-standard hotkeys like CTRL-X and CTRL-V, and even the Shift-click selection that some modern sound programs mysteriously lack. It really comes off like a Deluxe Paint for sound, complete with the odd native file format and blanket industry support.
Indeed Visual Composer was so widely used that I wonder why I only heard of it recently — especially since for 20 years I was actively looking for something like it. Now that I know of it, I seem to be tripping over references to it.
Here are some of my early experiments with the program. Mind you, I’m hardly Béla Bartók. I’m also unsure that I’ve learned all of the program’s facets. Still, I rather like the results so far.
(Now updated with higher resolution recordings, plus one new track.)
If I were smart, years ago I would have tracked down Dan Froelich and asked him what he used to write his funky CMF soundtracks for Jill of the Jungle, Solar Winds, Xargon, and other early Epic MegaGames stuff. Turns out I no longer need to, as he has written about his experience on his website. It seems he tracked his early game music in AdLib Visual Composer, a program that spoke to AdLib’s Yamaha FM chip (not dissimilar from the Sega Genesis chip) using a combination of piano rolls and FM instrument banks. Those elements were later crunched together into .CMF files for use with early Sound Blaster cards. To give a rare peek at the raw AdLib sound, Froelich has included clips of his Jill of the Jungle score, exported into ProTools. Cool beans!
So for anyone who wants to write early 1990s shareware music, that’s how the experts do it. Or rather, how an expert did it. I’m sure there are other methods.
by [name redacted]
One of the final panels this year discussed the nature of game music; video games, being their own mode of expression with their own demands, require a different scoring approach from other forms. Over the years, this has resulted in game music becoming something of its own super genre; as different as one game score might be from the next, nearly all are linked by some quality that makes their sound and purpose unique to videogames. In this panel, a sequence of five game music professionals explores the nature of this distinction, each in their own way.
by [name redacted]
“The main Bungie approach to games,” O’Donnell said, “is this is entertainment. When someone sits down, you want to keep him entertained the whole time.” This starts from the moment the console is powered up; over the corporate logos, a custom piece by Steve Vai leads into the game’s opening theme. “The music at the beginning of the game,” O’Donnell continued, “is the overture.” It establishes a theme, to be used throughout the game. From the title screen, O’Donnell pressed “start;” as the game loaded, a motivated piece of music began to play against the Halo 2 logo.
O’Donnell explained he never wants to see the word “Loading”: It’s not entertaining. You always want the player to feel like something exciting is about to happen. “I never want an excuse for someone to get up and leave the game, if possible.” The key to that is flow. O’Donnell prefers to think of audio as a cohesive whole; he would rather not have any one piece stand out.
Game:
A few days ago, having recently acquired my very own copy of Truxton I uncloaked my Genesis — for the playing thereof.
Truxton, I found to be almost identical to Fire Shark — only… not as much fun. I can’t get past the beginning of level two without some dumb ship popping out of nowhere and running into my back before I know what’s up.
Still. It’s there. And now so is my Genesis. Being it that I’m on this Castlevania kick — again — I pulled out my Majesco-republished (and thereby terribly-boxed) copy of Bloodlines. As not entirely bad as this game is, I’ve rarely bothered to play it past the second level or so. The game is difficult — but in a more floaty way than I expect from Castlevania. It lacks some charm. As applaudable as Michiru Yamane‘s music might be, her sound effects are entirely loathsome. All in all, the game is just kind of… well, again — it’s there.
On one default set of two continues, I managed to get to… what I think should be Dracula’s final form: a big, fake Mode-7 demon with a face in his crotch. I might even have beaten him; I had the pattern down and everything. He didn’t have much life left. And yet: I didn’t dodge when I should’ve.
Still. Bloodlines. Last form (?) of last boss. Not bad, I say. Dare I suppose, better than you.
If you’ve actually beaten the game, don’t tell me. Let me feel special for the moment.
Movie:
The Italian Job: Sure.
It’s got energy. It’s certainly nothing special in its own right; all I could think of, from the premise on out, were the observations of Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation. Still, it’s very well-made. It has a great sense of momentum. The plot doesn’t follow through on any of the stupid possibilities that it coudl have; it manages to dodge away — fairly — every time it approaches a potentially-unsatisfying easy answer. Not once did I feel insulted or cheated. I felt tense when I was supposed to feel tense. I cared when I was supposed to care.
I think the whole Napster bit could have been minimized. The movie also acted as a rather obvious commercial for those mini cars (which I don’t believe are real Minis, as such — not that I know anything of, or much care about, cars). Still, not enough to overly stretch my patience.
So. Yeah. For what it is, it’s certainly worthwhile. There’s not much to study, but it’s enjoyable just in the fact that it’s so unusually competent. It feels more European than American — which might explain the previous observation.
UPDATE:
According to Ebert: “This is just the movie for two hours of mindless escapism on a relatively skilled professional level.”
Didn’t I just say that?
Music (and… Game, again):
Harmony of Dissonance: seriously, this game has to possess the most powerful soundtrack in the whole series. Most Castlevanias have really impressive power-melodies. The NES trilogy: if Bach (not J.S.; perhaps a lesser Bach) were aware of 20th century music, this might be what he’d have come up with. Circle of the Moon has some of the most lush, layered, driving, just plain fun music in the series.
However: the HoD score is the only one to really make me feel anything in particular. The more closely I listen, the more impressed I become. This isn’t just videogame music. There’s something else going on here; a certain kind of genius, or at least wild inspiration. The contrasting melodies swirl into madness, creating a dark updraft for the player — instilling an unsettled momentum into his musculature.
The bass takes up the central melody role, holding the piece together while the lead stutters incoherently. The entire piece pulls in its legs, rotating more and more tightly, getting all the stronger — until it snaps; it lets go, carrying the player to sanity with one key breeze. There’s but one escape, and the music finds it — yet it doesn’t stop. It must keep going while the player remains dazed from the last bit of overstimulation. It has places to go. It can’t let the player loose to drift away. It can’t break the atmosphere.
All of the parts speak to each other. They’re not just there to fill out the orchestration, as in so many other soundtracks in this series. They argue. They trade off. They team up. They go in their own disparate directions, then crtash back together again. They listen. They respond.
This soundtrack knows what it’s doing. It has an intelligence to it. It has a personality unto itself. It would be worth talking to.
Again, I can’t say that about the Aria of Sorrow score. That music is just… nice. And appropriate. It’s… there. It has no personality of its own — and I imagine that’s probably the whole intent. People screamed so much about the HoD score that Igarashi must’ve told Yamane to give him something more typical this time around. It looks like it’s worked, given the popular reaction.
Sigh.
See, this is where informed feedback could do a developer well. I’ve slowly been poring my way through the free magazines that I got at E3 — and, man. I’ve yet to see one thoughtful critique. One interesting, well-considered argument. The obviously lousy games get bad scores. The high-profile games get good scores. The ones in between are gernally analyzed on the basis of a few random observations which might or might not have anything to do with the intent of the game in question. It’s hard to tell.
HoD gets a 9.5, because it must — although note is made of the terrible soundtrack. In this case, the reviewer doesn’t even bother to explain that it sounds like NES music (!). Then, neither does he vaguely brush off its composition, as in so many web reviews. Not enough space to explain. Must conserve words.
Metroid Fusion gets a 9.5. Why? Because it must. Show some respect for the Gameboy game of the year, people. Everyone knows that Metroid is flawless. Reword the press release, and perpetuate the consumer cycle. Even if it’s not perfect, so what. It’s one of the best games ever. Must show the proper respect. Mustn’t question the publishers (aside from Acclaim; they’re okay to bash at will), or they might complain. Can’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Since E3, I’ve come to the realization that the game industry — at least over here — seems to be made up of a million frat boys, all in it for the ride. And I’m not just talking about the “journalists”.
Let’s talk about the journalists, though. Brandon asks two or three well-informed questions. He listens to the responses, and asks follow-up questions. PR guy, astonished, comments that Brandon “should work for CNN”. So: how has everyone else been acting? Brandon was only being professional.
Then I remember the reviews I see on IGN and — particularly — Gamespot: the big sites. Then I remember the way news travels — rarely credited or researched with so much as a phone call. Then I overhear Tim’s experiences with a particular site to which he contributed for… about two or three weeks. Then I come home and I read the fucking press releases.Then I read the magazines.
…
I… was going to say more, but I’m beginning to tire — both of this subject, and in a more general sense. Maybe I’ll pick up this thread later.
For now: EGM continues to be not-all-that-bad.
Aria of Sorrow is good, yes?
It gets much better, once one gets past the first, false ending — although that final arrangement of souls isn’t exactly intuitive (at least, not until they’re all slotted into place). This is the third game in a row where Igarashi’s pulled an obscure trick like that. I wish he’d quit it.
I had noticed that the Flame Demon’s power looked sort of familiar — as did Soma’s item-use pose…
I’ve still a final boss to beat (and I’m out of potions!), and there’s still another whole hunk of the main map which remains mysteriously inaccessible. And yet… yes.
The “bad” ending is… interesting, as is the manner in which it is accomplished.
I think this counts as the first major Castlevania game since SotN. HoD, it seems to me, was intended as a smaller, bridge game — both in terms of plot and development. It exists in order to fill in some gaps in the larger series. AoS is something rather new and creative, in a manner not unlike SotN.
I do wish that its music were more interesting, though. While it really shouldn’t, it does baffle me that all of the reviews I’ve seen for the game have complimented it on the drastic improvement in both its sound quality and the compositoin, over HoD. Uih? Sound quality, perhaps — although I think the low-res samples in HoD are actually quite a bit clearer and more resonant than what one tends to find here.
Amd yet: composition? The hell?
HoD has perhaps the most intelligent, well-written score in the series. The AoS soundtrack is… good, but largely unremarkable. It’s one of the most conservative scores in the series; it doesn’t attempt anything new. Its main melodies are tired, simplistic, unimaginative. The structure is as straightforward as it can get. There are a few good pieces later in the game, but in comparison to either HoD or Circle of the Moon (each of which had its own strengths) it’s… really kind of mediocre.
Less evolved, less energetic, less adventurous. It’s just… there. It sounds pleasant and Castlevania-ish.
I’ve gone into this before, rather vocally. It’s perhaps my fault for reading the mainstream reviews. It’s perhaps even more my fault for reading the somewhat more hardcore fan reviews.
Since I’m on the subject, I’ll paste here a bit of something that I recently blathered (and then subsequently forwarded, in part, to Tim).
I just noticed something with the Japanese naming schemes. None of the games in the series — not one so far (aside from Circle of the Moon — which makes… one, I suppose) — have had the same title in the US and in Japan. Even recently, they’ve changed seemingly for no reason. Aria of Sorrow was made for the US, for instance — and yet it’s getting a different name in Japan.
But if you look at the names — the US titles have rather arbitrary musical names. Most of them are just [musical form] of [something bleak] or something otherwise rather negative-sounding.
In Japan, though — well, look at the pattern.
Keep in mind that Castlevania Legends is originally called “Dark Night Prelude“.
With the exception of Rondo of Blood, these all have to do with time of day or other related astronomical phenomena. Further, they tend to make a bit of sense in terms of the plots of the games in question.
Minuet of Dawn (AoS) takes place about thirty years in the future, at the dawn of a new era. Dark Night Prelude — it was, indeed, a prelude to the rest of the series (even if Igarashi ignores the game now).A “Midnight Sun” or a “White Night” is a kind of a surreal experience. It’s not really night, although it should be. Things aren’t really what they seem. And indeed, in that game things are not what they seem at all. It’s night, as such, but the darkness is gone; Simon defeated it fifty years earlier.
So. The names are much more meaningful and consistent in the Japanese releases, even now. This is kind of bizarre.
To go back to Circle of the Moon, I only notice that it has perhaps the most pithy title of all, even if it doesn’t necessarily have much to do with the game’s plot. Yet another example, it seems, of something that sounds good, which Kobe just thew in for the heck of it.
It’s really a shame that they had to mess up on so many tiny details within and about this game. A game this enjoyable should certainly be part of the main continuity, rather than a weird non-canon side story. It wouldn’t have been difficult to have changed a handful of superficial details. Maybe have reworked a few of the more arbitrary abilities, in the process. Put in some more thought.
Ah well. It is what it is. At least it doesn’t take itself any more seriously than it takes the series as a whole.
…
So. Yeah. I’m curious to see where Lament of Innocence goes. I also wonder whatever happened to that intended port of Rondo of Blood to the PSX. A while back, Igarashi said that some Konami higher-ups were nixing the project on him. He asked fans to send in mail and show their support if they wanted the game to be released. Looks like they must not have gotten enough.
A shame; I’ve never even gotten a chance to play the thing. It’s become one of those things like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Radiant Silvergun.
It seems I am more or less rested now. I shall set out to writing, momentarily.
The Metroid 2 score really gets a bad rap. Actually, Metroid 2 seems to be the whipping child of the series in general.
I think it’s worth pointing out that when the music is good, it’s really good in this game. The main tunnel theme, the Metroid battle theme, the revamped Samus and Item themes.
Where it begins to get a little controversial is in the various ruins. Once the player wanders out of the central tunnel and into any of the larger playfields, the music switches to an atmospheric pattern of bleeps. Not a lot of melody. Not a lot of rhythm in particular.
If you’re looking for Hip Tanaka’s tuneful power-ballads, I can see how it should be easy to feel let down. But the music serves a different purpose here.
Metroid 2 is by far the creepiest, most clautrophobic game in the series. It’s lonely, unnerving, frustrating, almost trance-inducing. It has a tangible atmosphere which I think is wholly fitting to the game’s setting and general purpose. (This atmosphere is most obvious when the game is played in full black-and-white, as originally intended, rather than with the upgraded Gameboy Color palette.)
The music is an important element of that formula. It exists to create and sustain a particular mood. I feel it was composed very deliberately; Ryohji Yoshitomi could have written anything, after all. But he chose to go the avant garde route.
There is a method to the music, as you can tell if you listen closely enough. It’s not random, and it’s not careless. It’s an attempt at an unsettling ambient soundscape.
The problem that Yoshitomi faces in this instance is the limited sound capacity of the original Gameboy. Melodic fare is easy. More experimental music is a bit tricker to pull off convincingly with only a few triangle and square waves at a person’s disposal.
Whether Yoshitomi succeeds in his goal or not is up to the listener. But for what it is, I think his score works very well.
Combined with the excellent quality of the more melodic portions of the soundtrack, I’d easily rank the Metroid 2 score up there amongst my favourite original Gameboy soundtracks — somewhere in the neighborhood of Gargoyle’s Quest.
On the other hand, it’s worth noting that Yoshitomi was never asked back for the future games.
The music in Prime does something odd to my head.
It all began with the theme which plays behind the game-select screen. For whatever reason it might be, that theme moves me pretty strongly.
The last time I felt this way about a videogame theme was in 1986, when I first slotted my copy of Legend of Zelda into my NES. At the time, I was struck with a profound awe and wonder. I knew that I was seeing and hearing something important. And my whole body reacted.
The Metroid Prime theme (from it’s use later in the game, I’m assuming that this is intended as the main theme to the game) has a similar, if somewhat more muted, effect on me. And the deeper I crawl into the game proper, the more impressed I am with the music in general.
In the case of the main theme, I think a large part of it is the uncommonly synchopated rhythmic pattern. Short-long, short-long, long, long, long. Another part of it is the weird, theramin-like lead instrument. But it’s just the overall weight of decisions made in the tune’s composition, arrangement, and production that make it so strange and so captivating to me.
The rest of the score seems a bit more tame — although there are more touches of experimentation, the deeper I crawl.
In my view, Kenji Yamamoto makes some very tasteful and wise decisions in terms of references to earlier themes. I particularly like his restructured Metroid and Brinstar themes.
Some of the earlier, more traditional soundtrack fare (particularly during the pre-Tallon introduction sequence) isn’t altogether interesting. And the planet-side music does take a while to build up to anything. But I’m beginning to sense a sort of a method behind the score’s evolution.
If it keeps going where it looks to me like it’s headed, this is going to be a pretty darned sensitive and impressive work. I don’t really know that it has much comparison in terms of what else is out there at the moment.
The Prime soundtrack is, so far, perhaps the most original and generally satisfying one for my tastes.
However: as for the soundtrack which I find the most memorable, well-written for its time, and which I personally enjoy the most — I’d have to go with Hip Tanaka’s original Metroid soundtrack.
There’s not a dud in the bunch. It consists of some of the best themes ever written for any videogame. And it made the game far more interesting to play than it really should have been.
I do quite like the Metroid 2 score, for what it is. Super Metroid’s music was… functional, to my mind. It was very Metroidy. To my mind Yamamoto has improved greatly since 1994, however. I don’t have much comment on the Fusion score. It, too, was Metroidy — though in a way which fit Fusion.
Return of Samus is really what comes to mind when I think of Metroid.
The first game was a bit of a fluke; the elements which make up the game don’t really cohere as well as they might. There doesn’t seem to be much of an overall vision. It was done on a pretty low budget. It seems rather random to me that it turned out to be as memorable as it was.
Metroid II was the first game where all of the elements really came together. Samus was retooled to look more or less as she does now. Her ship was introduced. The game upped the creepiness level several notches, along with a deep sense of disorientation and paranoia.
It’s perhaps the loneliest game in the series. The grainiest. And also the most wonderful.
More so than in any of the recent games, there is a sense of nigh-unlimited possibility in Return of Samus. You just don’t know what’s out there. Anything could be important. Anything could be a threat or a relief. You just don’t know where a new item will turn up. Or where the end is. Or where you’ll unexpectedly blunder into another Metroid.
I think the most important factor in so establishing RoS in my mind has to be the spider ball. The way it’s been retooled in Prime is interesting, but the item was far more flexible in RoS. (It was also probably a nightmare for the level designers, so I can see why it’s mostly been left out since then.) The way it was implemented in that game opened up a wealth of possibilities for exploration.
Super Metroid was certainly enjoyable. But it was a bit over-polished and conservative for my tastes. It was engineered to please as wide an audience as possible, while feeding fans exactly what they wanted (rather than what they didn’t *know* they wanted). Sort of like Phantasy Star: End of the Millennium. It didn’t really do very much new; all it did was take the best of the first two games and make it all a lot more palatable.
Basically — the first game establishes the concept of Metroid. The second game begins with that template, and then goes on an introspective search for identity. The third game takes most of the new ground blazed in the second game, combines it with the charm and trappings of the first game, and puts as much shine on it as the SNES can muster.
Fusion tries to be a very different kind of a game, and I respect it for that. What’s more, I think it succeeds quite well in its attempts to reinvent Metroid as a tense action-oriented game. I feel the level design is severely lacking, though; I’m not all that fond of some of its lazy logistical constructs. The game comes off almost feeling like Super Mario World in terms of how special moves and blocks are used.
Prime, I really like a lot so far. I didn’t honestly expect it to be as good as it is. I can’t comment very well on it until I’ve finished the game, though — as it seems there’s still a lot of odd stuff coming up that could effect my evaluation.
I think it could be interesting if the next game were set somewhere after Fusion. That game sets up a ton of change for the Metroid universe, and it would be intersting to see how Retro might follow through on it.
On the other hand, I tend to see the main linear series as Intelligent Systems’ duty. If there’s to be an out-and-out Metroid 5, it would make more sense to me if it came from the original Metroid team.
What seems to be Retro’s duty is to fill in the cracks and to attempt to explain all of the peculiarities introduced in the main series. To dig deeper into the groundwork set by Intelligent Systems.
And on that note, I think a Metroid Zero of sorts (as someone mentioned above) would make a lot of sense.
In early interviews, it was suggested that Prime was going to be set before the original Metroid. I think they chose wisely, in their decision to instead make it a direct follow-up to the first game — but that still leaves the backstory concept to fulfill.
In terms of bonuses, I agree that it would be keen to include Super Metroid — and for exactly this reason:
That way, every single Metroid game would be playable on the Gamecube.
Metroid 1 is included with Prime.
Metroid 2, you can play with the Gamecube Gameboy Player.
Metroid 3 would be included with this sequel to Prime.
Metroid 4 would again work with the Gameboy Player.
Kind of keen to have everything in one place, y’know?
I would also like to see the ability to turn power-ups on and off, as in Super Metroid.
Honestly, I’d just like to be able to take the Varia suit off every now and then. Those oversized shoulderpads just keey getting more ridiculous with every game; I much prefer how her raw Power Suit looks.
Also, it would be nice to be able to combine the various beam weapons (as in the third and fourth games).
I’d like to see young Samus, somehow. As a child, in a flashback, perhaps.
I want those Chozo statues back again, for holding power-ups.
And I want Retro to feel free to try out some more radical, experimental ideas that I would probably never think of on my own. I want to be surprised, above all else.
Regarding the spiky, butch hairdo from the concept art: Yes. That impressed the hell out of me. And it seems to match my interpretation of Samus’ personality, really well.
And honestly, doesn’t it make a lot more sense to have short hair if you’re going to be wearing a suit like that? Imagine it getting caught in the helmet. Yowtch.
I’ve concluded that a large part of the power of Metroid Prime’s main theme comes from its use of its time signature. It took a while for me to lock into what it was doing, rhythmically, as it works perfectly well when jammed into a 2/4 meter.
For those of you who’re following me out there, you probably know where I’m going next with this.
That’s right. In reality, it’s set to 6/8. This explains a large part of everything, as far as I’m concerned.
Allow me to illustrate.
Time signatures of a multiple of three (waltz time) are inherently circular. Unlike even beats (2/2, 4/4), which can be considered “square”, there is a constant, swirly, forward motion to threes. (You can ponder the logistics as to why, on your own. It can get pretty deep.)
The thing is about 6/8 — which, incidentally, is not one of the most common signatures out there (although it’s not all that odd either; it’s just underused) — is that it’s a hybrid of sorts. You’ve got the circular motion from its 3/4 element, and you’ve got an even-sided, comprehensible measure with its 2/4 qualities.
It’s the best of both worlds, to a certain extent — and if it’s used well.
The inherent possibilities of this meter are as follows.
You have a square measure which is split down the middle, into two round halves. Intuitively, in order to create forward motion, you need the halves to roll into each other in a balanced way.
One roll to set up; one roll to conclude. And it goes on like this. Pressure, release, pressure, release. Like an inchworm, or a heartbeat. The music seems to live. And it yanks the listener forward in an unusually powerful way.
And what’s more — because of the circular nature of the music, it has the potential to loop pretty seamlessly. Heh.
I have to go.
Legally, I must comment that Metroid Prime has the best music in the world.
Something weird comes over me, just sitting and listening to the theme which plays behind the game options menu (one button-press past the title screen).
Game music has done odd things with my emotions on numerous previous occasions. It has ever since the original Legend of Zelda, where the first time I placed the game into my NES I simply stared at the TV for what might have been half an hour for all I know, listening to Kondo’s lilting title theme and watching the item scroll. It does when I watch the opening FMV to the first Sonic Adventure. The Phantasy Star II score has done mountains for me.
But even in the best game scores — Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Ninja Gaiden II — generally the best that happens is that they impress the hell out of me and then that’s that. And even in the cases where I’ve been struck more deeply (for one reason or another), generally it’s been a single blow — often a manipulative one — in an otherwise so-so score.
Frankly, the reason the intro to Sonic Adventure does a weird job with my chest lies more in the direction of the intro sequence and my own personal share of nostalgia than anything about the music on its own. Heck, I’m not even very fond of half of the music in that game for its own merit. What music I do like well is mostly from Kumatani Fumie’s end of the stick rather than that of Jun Senoue.
Kenji Yamamoto has done something different here. I can’t explain it rationally. But it fucks with my head. The more I listen to it, the more this becomes true.
I’m afraid I’m going to develop a nervous condition, playing this game.
A bigger one, I mean.
I find this interesting, as I’ve honestly never been as impressed with the Super Metroid score as just about everyone else on the planet. It didn’t come near to Hip Tanaka’s original vision, or even the chirpy B-ambience of Return of Samus (a soundtrack which I still contend has never gotten its proper due). Super Metroid‘s music was appropriate, well-written, and… there. It suited the game, and sounded Metroidy.
But this? Ye god.
…
Again, I feel more or less exactly as I felt when I was eight and Zelda was new. And this fact is all the more peculiar just because I’m no longer eight years old. Zelda isn’t new. Metroid isn’t new. I’ve played so many games. I’ve seen so many conventions. Cleverness and skill and joy and wonder are about the best I can expect. That anyone can expect who has been around as long as I have.
There just isn’t a lot out there which feels new anymore. There aren’t any more revelations. There’s no new life to discover.
But perhaps there is.
And perhaps it’s not in Japan?
Who would have thought.
It’s not that this game is anything so totally original that it should — taken as a mass of parts — be as much of a breakthrough as Zelda. We’ve seen most of the elements here in at least some form before, for years on end. Some of the incarnations perhaps aren’t even all that different.
Half-Life was a step away from its FPS roots, and toward a more evolved gaming sensibility — and look at where that got it. Metroid Prime, I suppose, a person could consider the next logical step in this direction. Except that when you pull its laces, this is something else entirely.
I guess the way one could put it is that what this game feels like is something close to a culmination of what we’ve learned over the past thirty years of game design. Someone managed to boil it down and make The Game — or something like it. After all of the struggling since the last checkpoint, suddenly we’ve got progress. And we’re allowed to move on.
I’ve not played Eternal Darkness yet, but it’s worth noting again that this game was developed by an American studio, with aid from Nintendo. I imagine it’s got its flaws, but it still sounds like that game did a hell of a lot more right than most games have been doing lately. And like it had a solid vision to it.
Edit:
Nintendo has been doing a lot for the industry lately. They’ve gone through some pretty huge changes in attitude since the glory days of the NES, and now seem to be pretty much content to be Nintendo. I keep harping on that Q-fund thing of Yamauchi’s, but I feel it’s a lot more important than it looks. It fits right in with the recent “apprenticeship” system of game design that Miyamoto’s been pioneering, and what Nintendo’s been doing with second and third parties.
They’ve got the money and the expertise, so they’re investing it in the next generation. They won’t have it forever. Miyamoto won’t be around forever. Nintendo won’t be. But the art will remain, the skills will flourish. And maybe someone else will march on to victory, birthed from the seeds of that knowledge and support.
Sure, Nintendo is acting in Nintendo’s best interest — but they don’t have to do it in such an enlightened way. The fact that they are, says mountains to me and sets a tremendous example for the rest of the industry.
I think we’re closing in on a new era here. And it’s not going to come from where we expect. The old guard is starting to break down. The entire old infrastructure.
Just look at all of the shit happening in the industry right now. If you’re clinging to the old ways, it’s bad news. And it’s pretty scary. But there’s a new wind in the air, and just about everyone is clueless about it so far. If there’s any time to block one’s sails, I think this is it.
And dammit, I want a copy of this soundtrack.
Without a doubt, the most meaningful moment of Phantasy Star: End of the Millennium, in my eyes: the opening sequence.
Wow. I mean, just… the power. The timing. The music. The choice of words (translation aside). The frankness, and yet the subtlety.
Especially after coming off of Phantasy Star II, and knowing what happened in that game, and the note on which it ended. We were… really left in a cliffhanger there. And now it’s shown what the results were of the catastrophes we all witnessed five years earlier.
Just… shit, quite frankly. How lucid and matter-of-fact it all is.
Every time I watch that intro, I get a chill up and down my spine. Sometimes my eyes begin to get a little bleary.
The game itself, I feel is in some respects the least interesting out of the entire series. It’s certainly the best made, but there’s almost nothing new in it. It’s not about new things; it’s about old ones; about reframing, about bringing everything together, and about closure on the most satisfying note possible. The game definitely has charm to it, and I don’t think there’s ever been a better gift given to a series’ fans than EotM — but in some ways it feels so much like every other RPG out there that it loses my attention rather quickly.
Also, in terms of the story and surrounding details, EotM has so much to say that it never really gives the player time to rest and to get to know the world again. It’s too busy throwing things out, one after the other. Twenty to thirty hours straight of exposition, in comparison to only brief glimpses at overt explanation or reference in the previous games. Maybe for someone with the energy, and who doesn’t mind being yanked around by the arm for an entire game, it’s a little more enjoyable.
Of course, I’m just being a sourpuss here. There’s really nothing wrong with EotM that I can see. But maybe that’s another part of why it bores me so much.
Still, it has its moments…
gah.
Ken Burns’ Civil War series is showing on PBS this week, two episodes every night. I watched another chapter a few moments ago, but I just don’t have the patience to stick around for the second one. It’s interesting stuff, but this miniseries has perhaps the most soporific presentation I’ve ever seen. Must escape before I lapse into a coma. Sorry, Grant.
Onto other things.
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance has a very nice tone to it. It’s… a little harder to immediately get into and enjoy than was Circle of the Moon. It’s not as instantly agreeable, and it feels kind of… cold. But now that I’ve played a little bit, it’s opened up a lot and it’s become clear how much more well-made this game is in general than KCEK’s last effort. The control is much tighter. The level design is more interesting. And the entire thing is much more Castlevania-ey than CotM ever managed to be. It’s got that same slightly… uneasy tone that most of the main chapters have had, and which I’ve not felt for quite a while. All of the edges of the screen are crammed full of minute and curious gothic detail.
The game also has a constant sense of forward motion that was lacking in CotM. It feels like I’m going somewhere when I’m playing — like there’s a goal — rather than like I’m just puttering around randomly in an adventure game world. CotM was fun, but that was about it. A fun, Metroid-style platformer with Castlevania trimmings. HoD feels like Castlevania. You know how that map popped up between levels in the first game? You know how in level three you could see the final tower in the background as a goal? It always felt like you were making progress. And that sensation is back.
What’s more, and what is interesting — something I’ve not felt for a very long time with this series is that… old movie sensation. The first few games in the series were spattered with spoke holes in all of the title screens and menus, as if you were playing through a silent horror movie. And the games had an aesthetic and an atmosphere to match. HoD seems to bring this general feeling back. It’s not just going through the motions, it’s doing its best to do things right. Igarashi seems to really understand the heart of the series, in a way that KCEK just can’t handle.
As for the music: you’ve heard how awful it’s supposed to be. This is both entirely true and false.
To be sure, compared to what KCEK achieved with CotM just a year ago, the sound quality is a obviously lacking. A few months ago I spent an hour, one night, simply lying in bed and listening to the Catacombs theme from Circle of the Moon in a pair of headphones. Much of the music in CotM was borrowed and remixed from other games (mostly Bloodlines and Dracula’s Curse), but the music quality was higher than anything I’d heard on a handheld system before. And indeed, it was some of the best Castlevania music I’d ever heard. What’s more, the original compositions were absolutely perfect and memorable additions to the growing roster of Castlevania anthems.
This comparison is, I think, the greatest factor which initially makes the music in Hod so very startling, and for a while even a little grating. Although it might be interesting on its own right, the music is not of the same almost unreasonably high standard set both by CotM and by Castlevania in general. This just doesn’t sound like what you inevitably going to expect. Beyond its mere quality, the composition is also a bit odd.
That said, it’s not as bad as people say, and it has its own odd personality. Try to picture Darkstalkers music played on an NES. Now mix in the occasional motive from Simon’s Quest, and top it off with a few tunes from the original Gameboy games. That’s the HoD score, in a nutshell. It sounds like NES music, basically. But like Castlevania music. Only… a more recent kind of Castlevania music, played on an NES. It’s atmospheric and sprawling. As opposed to NES Castlevania music, which is more melodic and clever. Got it?
The thing is, the music here manages to set its own sort of retro tone. If you’ve played the NES games and the original Gameboy trilogy, I think it’s a lot easier to appreciate what’s been done. Try to take the music as a low-fi experiment, rather than a result of ROM budgeting. On its own level, especially in contrast to the high-budget presentation of every other aspect of the game, the music has its own interesting tone going on. If anything, I think it helps just a bit in adding to the “grainy” emotional texture of the game that I was getting at before. If there’s anything that Castlevania needs in order to retain its unsettling ambiance, it’s a certain offputting creakyness — and the music in HoD seems to do a very good job in maintaining this sensation.
Controversial? Certainly. But I think the music succeeds in its own strange way. Perhaps I’m being too forgiving, but I dig.
All of the other sound effects are great, though (further adding to the perplexing aural quality of the game). Something that strikes me: there’s a strange, startled “nAnI?!” whenever Juste is poisoned or cursed. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be Juste’s own squeak — as it doesn’t sound like the same voice who does all of the item crash screaming and the hopping grunts and so forth — or if it’s intended to come out of the monsters which are whapping him. I suppose the latter wouldn’t make much sense, so I suppose it’s kind of amusing to see a Belmont (especially as arrogant a one as Juste) lose his cool when things don’t go as he plans.
The control, again, is so much better and tighter and more… full-seeming than in CotM. Don’t get me wrong; I loved how Nathan felt in that game. But the control was generally pretty loose, and while Nathan always did exactly what he was told to, he didn’t seem to have much… substance to him. The entire game had that weird sort of a sensation for me, so it’s not just the control. But there was no heft. What flexibility he had felt both kind of messy and strangely contrived. Why did he suddenly get certain abilities when he did, for instance? Why was being able to push crates a special power? What the heck is that “rocket jump” special move? Where does it come from? Whenever I learned a new move with him, it felt more like it had merely been arbitrarily unlocked for me so as to allow me to progress.
Juste, in contrast, starts off feeling much more… rigid than Nathan. His dash ability is indescribably helpful, and it’s neat that he’s able to swing his whip around as in Super Castlevania IV. But he’s less of a jumping bean, he doesn’t start with a slide move, he initially can’t automatically twirl his whip as Nathan could. He’s certainly animated a hell of a lot better than Nathan, and his sprite is larger and more visible — but he’s… well, he feels more like a Belmont than a random platforming character with a whip. Just as floaty ol’ Nathan was great for soaring aimlessly around the open structures in his game, Juste has a much more satisfying kind of focus to him. What he loses in out-and-out freedom he gains in precision and, frankly, respectability.
Nothing seems to be wasted on Juste, and nothing seems to be arbitrary. His starting abilities make sense, and (at least so far) every time I’ve gotten a new one it’s been a pretty logical (and balanced) addition. Plus, if you’re missing a particular move from nearly any other Castlevania game — it’s apparently in here somewhere. Now that I’ve got a slide move and can automatically spin my whip around as Nathan did (although I could manually approximate this effect before), I feel like I’ve earned the abilities and like they’re natural extensions to what I started off with. They’re not just there.
I also like how carefully Igarashi has been to make clear the time period in which the game takes place, and exactly who the characters are in relation to the universe we know so far — from the box to the instructions to the game itself, there’s no mystery at all. It’s stated right out that fifty years have passed since Simon’s Quest and that Juste is Simon Belmont’s grandson. It says what he’s doing, what the relation of this task is to the previous game (chronologically speaking), and how uncommonly gifted he is even for a Belmont. And in the (commendably well-made) instructions, it quickly mentions that his magical abilities come from the Fernandez (Belnades) family.
I’m only about two hours in, but — as you’ve likely gathered — my impression is good so far. The game feels — again — more like a true Castlevania game than any I’ve played in a while. And there are elements I’ve seen from a bunch of other Castlevanias, here. The refereces are particularly heavy to the first two Gameboy games, to the NES trilogy, to the Dracula X series (which makes sense, seeing as how HoD can sort of be considered the third game in that subseries), to Bloodlines, even to CotM and Super Castlevania IV. And heck, the N64 games are even referenced slightly (what with the Fernandez name).
I think a few more things probably could have been done with the game, but in general I’m impressed up to this point. And I’m more confident than ever that Igarashi is the guy who should be heading this series; no one else at Konami seems to really get it the way he does. And even if the game does have its flaws, it feels real. It’s not hard to tell how much effort went into the game, and how devoted the man is both to the legacy of the series and to its fans. This isn’t something you get a whole lot in any form of art or entertainment, seemingly least of all videogames and film. And it’s exactly what was missing from Circle of the Moon. He’s got my trust for the future.
A short note: Is Ayami Kojima (Igarashi’s chosen artist since Symphony of the Night) of any relation to Hideo? They both work at Konami, after all.
Hmm…
Circle of the Moon contains perhaps the best remix of “Vampire Killer” I’ve heard anywhere outside of the original Castlevania. I finally realized also why the music at large reminds me so much of Bloodlines: the tune heard the most throughout the game is taken directly from that game. That — would explain some things.
The new main theme to CotM, however — “Catacombs”, I believe, is the title — is a perfect and entirely worthy addition to the trusty archive of classic Castlevania anthems. It goes along very well alongside the likes of “Vampire Killer”, “Bloody Tears”, “Beginning”, and “Theme of Simon”.
It seems years since I’ve heard good chip music. New music, anyway. This is one respect in which games have really gotten worse over the years. Some days, I like to wish the medium had never switched to optical storage. It’s all just gone downhill from there…