Just a heads up: this blog contains several instances of nerding out.
Anyone else have a Final Fantasy soundtrack change their life? For me it was Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy VI in Japan); the only RPG I’ve played through completely 4 times. I can still hear the drum beat and tune that accompanied many hours of walking in circles around the plains in search of new abilities for Gau. I can hear Shadow’s haunting theme song as his 8-bit little sprite walks onto screen from some obscure hiding place. Of course, there’s the unforgettable Chocobo theme, which admittedly is perhaps the only melody that got a little old. My band tried, on several occasions, to recreate a rock version of the opera song… “Oh Maria, so far away now, will I ever see your face?” The music made that game legendary, in my opinion. I even bought the 3-disc soundtrack.
I don’t think people realize how amazing of a feat that music was for composer Nobuo Uematsu. The NES sound board only had the capability for 5 sound channels so it wasn’t like he could import a .wav file and be done with it. No, he had to write parts (melodies, rhythms, note durations, volume levels) for each of those channels individually according the limitations on each given channel. Think of it as giving a painter 5 colors and saying “You can only paint circles with these two, lines with this one, shading with this one and dots with this one… now make something beautiful.”
I think video games have it harder than movies when it comes to developing a soundtrack because they have to deal with looping and coding it so the music triggers at just the right times. However, just like movies, if done right, they can have people whistling the themes as they strut down the sidewalk after hours of gameplay. Super Mario Bros. comes to mind. Also, the Legend of Zelda; my band actually played that theme song every-so-often during sound checks.
Let’s bring things to the 21st century though. Games have claimed so much ground in the media market now that we’ve got fully orchestrated scores. Take for example The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Halo 3. They both had superb composers contracted for their soundtracks and could easily pass for a film score. Also, bands having songs featured on games stand to increase their popularity/fan-base drastically. That was the way a bunch of my buddies and I discovered a band called Cage the Elephant, from their song featured during the intro cinema of Borderlands. You’ve also got the Guitar Hero craze now, which sparked a whole line of musical instrument game controllers and has infiltrated practically every gaming device known to man. As a result, I think the technological line between casual musicians and casual gamers is slowly blurring.
I really like the direction music is heading in gaming. It is getting more recognition and playing more of an integral role in the overall experience of a game. I have always secretly dreaded that reviewers would take the Music/Audio category out of their ratings but now I think it is safe and secure.
Weird, I have this strange desire to play Mega Man 2…
Karina-BBY
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