Is it too early to talk about "Best of 20XX" stuff yet? Probably. But we're going to discuss the best soundtracks anyway, under the assumption that there's not going to be much better. The rest of the 2010 release seems to include mostly Western games, who are largely focused on bombastic Hollywood-style film soundtracks than legitimate game music, and I don't think there's too many big Japanese releases left. If something comes out and surprises is - it definitely could! - we'll append it down the road. So, without further ado, here are the Ten Best Game Soundtracks of 2010 (So Far):
VVVVVV (Featured song: Potential for Anything)
There are only maybe half a dozen proper songs in this soundtrack - fitting, since the game is only about two hours - but each of these tracks is pure SID-inspired chiptune bliss. You can grab MP3s of it the composer's website for a few bucks - unquestionably worth it.
Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game (Featured song: Another Winter)
Anamanaguchi was band I had only half paid attention to, because while their unique of guitar and NES chiptunes were kinda cool, their songs always felt long and meandering. When concentrated into the context of a 1-2 minute video game song, though, their talent for composition really shows through, resulting in a retro soundtrack that still has a distinctly modern edge.
Castlevania Harmony of Despair (Featured song: Invitation of the Crazed Moon)
My own big complaint about remixed music in Castlevania games is that they always drew from the 8 and 16-bit games, ignoring practically everything from Symphony of the Night and afterward. Harmony of Despair changes that, and features numerous songs from the portable Metroidvanias, all rearranged. They're all fantastic too, many being done by the same folks who redid the songs for Judgment. The DLC pack adds even more, and the handful of new tracks - including one of my favorites, Invitation of the Crazed Moon from Portrait of Ruin - are outstanding too.
NIER (Featured song: The Lost Forest)
This game kind of came out of nowhere to be really damn cool, and part of that appeal lied on its music, which took the took a tired musical trope - foreign-sounding chanting - and gave it new life. The dramatic strings and percussion pieces are even more outstanding, breezy and melodic, constrasting to the comparatively dull orchestrations that permeate stuff like Castlevania Lords of Shadows and God of War.
Ys The Oath in Felghana (Featured song: A Searing Struggle)
Is it fair to include this game? This was released in the US in 2010, but released in 2009 in Japan, which in turn was based on a 2005 release (again) in Japan only, which was a remake of Ys III, a game from fifteen years earlier. So, the music in The Oath of Felghana is hardly "new". But that's okay, because Ys III had one of the best soundtracks in existence, and remixes in The Oath of Felghana only improves them with live instrumentation. Props to the PSP version for including alternate versions from the old computer releases.
Ys Seven (Featured song: Mother Earth Altago)
The music in Ys Seven isn't QUITE as good as Felghana, but it's also the best original soundtrack in the series since Ys IV. Parts of it sounds remarkably like an upgraded PC Engine redbook track, which has always been part of the Ys appeal (at least, to the English speaking audience.)
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label (Featured song: Vertex)
The soundtrack to DDP Daifukkatsu was kinda lousy, but the Black Label version doesn't rearrange it, it created a whole new soundtrack from scratch. It's much better, with some damn catchy electronica, and while it's not quite as trance-y as Espgaluda, it further establishes the parallel that Cave-brand danmaku shooters are the video game equivalent of an ecstasy fueled rave.
Dark Void (Featured song: Main Theme)
Usually we rag on Western game soundtracks for totally missing what we love about video game music. But we'll overlook that when it comes to Bear McCreary, the incredibly talented composer behind the reimagined Battlestar Galatica and its (now cancelled) spin-off Caprica. As a result, the soundtrack to this under-appreciated action game sounds much like his other work - which is to say, filled with fantastic orchestrations and lots of percussion. Bonus points for the Dark Void Zero soundtrack, which takes these turns and turns them into Mega Man-style NES music.
Final Fantasy XIII (Featured song: Blinded By Light)
On the Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest divide, I am usually staunchly on the side of Final Fantasy. FFXIII screwed up so much though, from the storytelling to the dialogue to the character development to the level design that it really did come up short. The only two areas where it excelled was its utterly fantastic battle system and its magnificent soundtrack. Styistcally Masashi Hamauzu is quite a bit different from series mainstray composer Nobuo Uematsu, as well as FFXII composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, but the man can use the violin like no other game musician out there.
Etrian Odyssey III (Featured song: Unrest - The End of the Raging Waves)
Even if you don't like grindy masochistic first person dungeon crawlers, everyone should appreciate these games for continuing to employ Yuzo Koshiro, one of the few prominent musicians from the 80s music scene that's still got it. This PC88 FM inspired sountrack is the best of the series, offering a wider variety of dungeon themes that alter between serene and foreboding, and numerous outstanding battle themes. The arranged album also borrows some instrumentation styles from Falcom, also making it essential for Ys fans.
Runners-up
Death Smiles (Featured song: Burning Halloween Town)
Not one of Cave's better soundtracks (better than Daifakkutsu though), at least the first level theme is pretty excellent, as are the boss and level select themes.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Featured song: Throwback Galaxy)
Catchy and eminently likable, with a handful of arranged songs from previous Mario and Yoshi games. Not enough of it really stands out to make the Top 10 though.
No More Heroes Desperate Struggle (Featured song: Philistine)
The "A Goddamned Philistine Since 2004" header on the main HG101 page is a reference to Margaret's song, a darkly silly little bit sung by the boss in question about how our hero, Travis Touchdown, is a goddamned pussy. Like the first game, the music selection is eclectic and ultimately not as consistently strong, some of the boss tracks are still outstanding.
Showing posts with label etrian odyssey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label etrian odyssey. Show all posts
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Psychology of Grinding
Etrian Odyssey III came out this past week, and once again, it's another game that will probably sit on my shelf for months until I get the time to really play it. Years after the fact, I'm still not sure if I like Etrian Odyssey. I like the feeling, conceptually, of getting lost in a maze and beating up stuff to awesome Yuzo Koshiro music, but then I realize it will require hours of dedication I just don't have, and then I'll go off to pursue something more immediately gratifying. At least, contrary to this completely wrong RPGamer review, it's got an outstanding soundtrack, easily next to NIER and Scott Pilgrim for Best Video Game OST of 2010.
I still read threads about Etrian Odyssey though, and there's a recurring sentiment that I also see about any old-school type RPG. There's a lot of resentment towards reviewers that claim that there's too much focus on grinding. No, the fans say, you absolutely don't need to grind in Dragon Quest or Etrian Odyssey or any of these games! If you fully explore the map and do all of the subquests and farm all of the supply points, you'll never need to sit around and build levels! Well...that's kind of grinding right there.
The disconnect, it seems, that people can't agree about what constitutes "grinding". Its general definition is mostly "any repetitive aspect which I find tedious", but that bar is completely different for every player. Me, I like the feeling of constant progression. I don't like doing subquests, or anything that strays away from the main goal - I never have and probably never will. But these sort of RPGs aren't built for that mindset, and are definitely for the people who like to explore and take their time.
The concept of leveling up is such an integral part of an RPG that to remove it completely feels like ripping out a spinal cord, but I think there are a few ways to, psychologically, get the player to enjoy this concept, so it doesn't feel like "grinding". (1) Provide more content that's part of the "main" game, and (2) deliver better player progression feedback.
The reason why I'm talking about this is because I'm still embroiled in Ys Seven at the moment. The only real criticism I can dish against the game is that there's almost too much of it. The previous Ys games were pretty short, with minimal weaponry and fairly small areas. Ys Seven is a much, much larger game in every regard, and that includes level design.
All prior Ys games have had copious amounts of grinding, because they're all based on a game that came out in like 1987. Most fans never really minded, because Falcom made it fun, but it's still a valid criticism towards them. In Ys Seven, they tried to fix that. If you break it down to percentages, you probably spend as much time killing enemies in Ys Seven as the previous games, but instead of simply running back and forth between the same few screens, it's spread out over the course of much longer levels, giving a more natural sense of progression.
For this to work, the "checkpoints", the boss battles, need to be well balanced, which Ys Seven is pretty good at. Although there are a handful of difficulty spikes (that stupid bird on the tower), for the most part, if you fight every enemy along the way and don't run past them, then you'll be sufficiently leveled up to take on the boss at a reasonable difficulty. There's no need to branch off and do anything else.
In the cases of Etrian Odyssey there's enough content there so the player just isn't running around in circles, but it's all presented as "optional". It isn't, really, but to people who like to play their games in a straightforward manner, they feel more like roadblocks than anything else.
Dragon Quest always felt the same way to me. If you charge through a dungeon and get to a boss, even if you've fought every random battle along the way and maybe returned to town once or twice to get new equipment, it doesn't always feel like you're QUITE ready for it.
This may actually not be true, which brings me to my second point - random-battle, turn-based RPGs do a TERRIBLE job of communicating to the player how powerful they actually are. Maybe you are well equipped to defeat that boss, but he pulled off that really powerful attack twice in a row on the same character and set you on a course to defeat. When the player dies, they are left to wonder - did I screw up, or am I simply underleveled? Luck plays a reasonable part in the proceedings, and players are aware of this, so I think the general assumption is that they aren't strong enough, which leads them to believe they need to grind some more. Maybe they don't though? But the game isn't making this message clear. One could argue that this feeling of uncertainity is a central aspect of an RPG, especially given how easy it is to liken Dragon Quest to gambling, but it's also not one I'm a fan of.
Ys Seven (and most other Ys games) don't really have this problem, because they're action-based, and it's clearer that you failed because your strategy is flawed or your reflexes aren't up to snuff. Or, if you're only doind single digit damage against a box with 10,000 HP, there's probably a character development issue. Whatever it is, the player has a better idea of what they're doing wrong.
There are numerous other examples of things done right or wrong. Nippon Ichi games, for example, everyone complains those are grindfests. I'm not sure I agree, but given how many options there are for character development, combined with their generally poor balance, makes it easy for them to come off that way. Again, it's all about perception and how it's presented, and these things go a long way towards improving player enjoyment. Maybe they should hire some actual psychologists to look at these things.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Song of the Moment - Sekaiju no MeiQ³ - Battlefield - The First Campaign
The Etrian Odyssey series (or Sekaiju no MeiQ) have always drawn heavily from the minds of 80s and 90s Japanese PC gaming, so it was appropriate that composer Yuzo Koshiro rely heavily on the FM synth used in the PC-8801. The third entry in the series, just released a few weeks ago in Japan, travels the same lines. While I've always dug Falcom soundtracks of the era, for some reason, these always left me a bit cold. Maybe it was because the exploration music was just a bit too laid back, and the battle themes just weren't exciting enough. This entry, though, has a completely bad ass battle song as evidenced above.
It actually reminds me a lot of the 7th Dragon theme, both in general style and structure, which you can listen to below:
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