SilverTrinity Rants About Video Game Music - BlazBlue

I've been playing BlazBlue a lot recently, and can tell you that there is more depth to this than there is to a lot of other fighting games. Whether SFIV is one of those, I'm not sure, but regardless, this ranks among my top 3 fighting games ever. If anybody's played and liked Guilty Gear, don't shy away from picking this up; it's awesome.

And so is the game's music. Much like Guilty Gear before it, the soundtrack in this game is heavily rock-inspired , yet still somehow strongly diverse among the 12 character's themes. Except for Taokaka's and Tager's themes, all the character tracks have an electric guitar accompanied by whatever fits the character (Rachel's theme has an organ and Hakumen' s sounds Asian, for example).

Now, usually, I don't approve of the game's music being too rock-heavy, or too biased into one any one genre, for that matter. but the action gets intense during play, and it fits that so well. As for the remainder of the tracks, they take on a much less bring-the-pain role. The intro has Japanese lyrics (joy of all joys -_-), and the main menu is actually pretty good and catchy, unlike a certain recent fighting game that I won't be playing for a while.

The song I'm most pleased with in the game is actually a lyrical piece that only plays when my favorite character (Bang) activates his Distortion Drive. This song right here can motivate a paraplegic to run a marathon, it's so good. It can motivate you to run outside in a snowstorm and DODGE SNOWFLAKES, it's so good. It can make you want to die, come back from the dead, and AVENGE YOURSELF, it's so good.

But I digress. Though it may not work for some anti-rockers, it's actually really good in terms of production and arrangement.

SilverTrinity's Score: 8.0 / 10.

SilverTrinity Rants About Video Game Music - Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Now, before Oblivion was released, I had never played an Elder Scrolls, and had never planned on it, either. For that matter, I wasn't even aware of Bethesda Softwork's existence and to this day can't think of anything they've made besides this, Fallout 3, and WET. I wasn't going to buy Oblivion until my friend had brought it over and showed me what I had been missing out on. So, just to pass the message on- yeah, go and get this game, if you haven't.

As for the soundtrack, I'm going to make myself perfectly clear on this. I STRONGLY DISLIKE AMBIANCE. Apart from the title theme (which sounds a bit like it's from Pirates of the Caribbean, does it not?), the majority of the music in Oblivion is soft, quiet, and submissive to the sounds and dialog that overlap it. The tracks really don't stand out on their own at all, they just set the mood, which, although it's not a bad thing by any means, it just doesn't work for me.

Now, to provide an opposing argument, the music really does fit in the game. What right do I have to demand action-packed music when the game itself has more dialogue and running around than anything? The dungeons and caves in the game have appropriately creepy ambiance that give you that "maybe I'd better not go in here" feeling, and the town and overworld tracks seamlessly transition from one to the other; honestly, do you ever notice when the song changes? Nope.

And although I don't really like the music itself, I can't deny the quality of the production. I just love the orchestration used here, blending the violin and flute together in a way that more games really ought to do. The battle themes are a little lackluster in terms of making it more fun to fight, but at least it makes you aware that an enemy's nearby. Of course I never notice, because I have other music playing.

To summarize, it's not that the music is bad- because I assure you it's not -but it's that this kind of lack of presence and character just doesn't cut it for my tastes.

SilverTrinity's score: 7.5/10.

SilverTrinity Rants About Video Game Music - Final Fantasy X

Ah, yes. I gotta love Square Enix. Although their more recent forays into the gaming medium (Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Infinite Undiscovery, Last Remnant) haven't been quite of the caliber I've grown to expect, I have to hand it to em; it's a rare thing to see a single company synonymize itself with the entire genre in its area of expertise. I have the utmost hope that with Final Fantasy XIII the recently slumping Square Enix will put itself back on the map and redefine its entire flagship series. Because I have a hunch that Final Fantasy XIV won't.

Famed composer Nobuo Uematsu had worked with Squaresoft-now-Square Enix since 1985, working on the starting his career in game music on the Sega Genesis. Both he and then-Squaresoft President Hironobu Sakaguchi have since resigned from the company to work collaboratively on such games as Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

But anyway: the soundtrack! Uematsu has always made memorable soundtracks in his works, particularly in the Final Fantasy series, and FFX is no exception. However, this game's music so beautifully goes above and beyond that of his previous endeavors. Sure, FFVII's is the more well-known of the two, but in terms of sheer quality and mastery of the art, there is no competition.

The music is everything it needs to be: be it dramatic, powerful, ambient, calm, jovial, sad- and it's implemented wonderfully throughout. A majority of the tracks are of the orchestrative sort, incorporating use of the piano and violin to give it that beautiful "we're going all out to produce a fine piece of work" feel. The battle themes are both dramatic and catchy, but not to the point of getting irritating after hearing it over and over. The often-heard "Hymn of the Fayth" and its numerous versions appropritately throw lyrics into the mix, and the theme from the various "Cloisters of Trials" throughout the game convey that puzzle-solving, deep-thinking atmosphere.

There are a couple tracks really worth mentioning all by themselves, for better or worse. The first I'd like to call out is heard during the first CGI sequence, and later heard just before the final boss battle. The track "Other World" stands out mostly because it in no way whatsoever fits it the game. It's a heavy rock, in-your-face, bring-the-pain kinda song that just baffles me as to why it's in the game. It's like Uematsu just went, "Okay, if Rob Zombie can do it, I'm gonna give it a shot, too"! So, yeah, I'm not in approval here.

I'm not a big fan of lyrics in any language, but for some reason I find myself drawn to the track "Suteki Da Ne", sung in Japanese. The way it reflects the tone for that part of the game is amazing to behold and so beautifully done it deserves mention.

And the last one I'd like to bring up is without a doubt the most emotional, expertly crafted and well-known song in the game, "To Zanarkand". Its been played at numerous gaming concerts worldwide, many of which it actually moved the crowd to tears. This entirely piano track is truly the musical masterpiece of this game, and certainly one of the best gaming tracks I've ever heard, bar none. I can just listen to it again and again in awe of such a piece. This song makes the game, right here.

In conclusion, Final Fantasy X has some of the best I've heard to date, one track that isn't so hot, but all in all, in my top 3. Kudos to it, and to Nobuo Uematsu for composing it.

SilverTrinity's score: 9.5 / 10

SilverTrinity Rants About Video Game Music - Street Fighter IV

As there is not much else to do at this time of day but listen to music and chat with my buddies on MSN/AIM/what-have-you, I was doing just that when all of a sudden fellow Psychotic Gaming member Scykoh sends me an IM telling me that he sent me an invitation to be an author on his new blog. So, thinking about what I could blog about from one bad idea to another it occurred to me that I should express my opinions about something I'm knowledgable about.

Right off the bat, the first thing I thought of was my taste in music, for I prefer (In contrast to Scykoh's incoherent drivel) to hear the tunes of my favorite videogames over that of "real" music. As that's all I really listen to anyway, and as not many people favor VGM over other genres of music, I decided to have an episodic blog about various games, past and present, in which I critique their soundtracks.

The first installment of this frequent rant is about one of my favorite games of all time, for sure: Street Fighter IV. After a long hiatus since its last numbered entry in the series, it easily proved that this old series still has it, easily making my Top Game of '09 (Take that, Modern Warfare 2!) and redefining itself as a series. I can't wait until Super Street Fighter IV comes out; it's all Dee Jay, man, watch out.

HOWEVER!

As much as I enjoy the game and the series as a whole, I am displeased to say that the soundtrack in this game is somewhat lackluster. The majority of the stages (Except for the Training Stage, which is awesome) have these generic kind of synth-heavy tunes that are largely forgettable the instant you put the game down. There are 4 pairs of stages that actually use extremely slightly tweaked versions of the same song. C'mon, now.

The tracks in this game are a nausea-inducing, half-techno, half-crap hybrid that make me want to play (thanks to the beauty of the Custom Soundtrack feature) my good ol' Third Strike soundtrack over that of the game's. And I do. Because it's bad.

Now, that's not to say that every single track in this game is bad. There are indeed a few tracks that stand above the rest of the pack for me, and most of them are in the form of the remixed versions of the existing tracks in previous installments.

Ryu, Sakura, Guile, Chun-Li, Cammy, and Zangief all have wonderfully done renditions of their past theme songs. 4 of the fresh new faces in the games- Abel, Viper, El Fuerte, and Seth - have nice, fresh stuff to bring to the table. Akuma and Gouken basically have 2 halves of the same theme, but they're nice nonetheless.

The only problem is that these tracks only play during Rival Battles or the online lobby. Bad move.

Now, I have one more beef I have to address before I give a score. Everybody knows what it is, everybody has their own opinion towards it, and I repect that. But, I must be honest. THE INTRO/MAIN MENU THEME in this game makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. It's a completely and utterly terrible piece of music. In English and Japanese, the beat is grating, the lyrics are irritating, and it doesn't fit. If this load of crap taints the sanctity of my main menu on Super Street Fighter IV, you can count me out, Capcom. Ugh.

All in all, I don't think it really fits with the game too well, it's forgettable, and while it has its high spots, it has far more numerous bad spots.

SilverTrinity's score: 6.0 / 10.