Tag Archives: rpg

VGM Entry 59: Street Fighter II and SNES domination

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 59: Street Fighter II and SNES domination
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

An enormous disparity had emerged between the Super Nintendo and competing platforms by the early to mid-90s. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, released two years sooner, still didn’t have much to offer, and the arcade was fading fast. The former simply couldn’t compete with the SNES’s ability to simulate real instrumentation, and the latter, I suspect, was no longer funded the way it used to be. This lends itself to a number of comparisons, but in consideration of the fact that my available time for writing these articles is rapidly coming to an end, let’s just jump straight to the point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR38veZ3JrM

The Street Fighter II series is a massive and confusing string of titles through which Capcom managed to milk a great deal of money releasing minor updates and new characters over a short period of time. The original Street Fighter II came out for the arcade in 1991. This was followed (in the arcade) by Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (April 1992), Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting (December 1992), Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (October 1993), and Super Street Fighter II Turbo (March 1994).

If that were all, it would be fairly easy to sort out, but each of these games was given a different title based on region and platform. Street Fighter II Turbo for the SNES, for instance, was a port of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, not Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive was not a port of Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, but rather of Hyper Fighting. The additions made in the original Champion Edition were carried over into most future versions of the game and ports, such that the original Sega Master System Street Fighter II (released in Brazil, where there was inexplicably still an SMS market, in 1997) was actually Street Fighter II: Champion Edition.

I would love to sort all this in a nice coherent list, but it would take me all day, and as I said, my time for writing these articles is starting to run short. So let’s just look at the version currently playing: Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. This one was released for the Super Nintendo in 1994 as simply Super Street Fighter II. Skip ahead to 5:12 and you’ll hear a delicious little oriental arrangement reminiscent of Miki Higashino’s Yie Ar Kung-Fu. (Again, time restricts me from actually finding the name of the song.)

Wikipedia credits Isao Abe and Syun Nishigaki with composing the Super Street Fighter II soundtrack. This is a little confusing as well, since Isao Abe and Yoko Shimomura get credited for the original Street Fighter II and a lot of the music is the same, but whoever wrote it, you’ve now heard the arcade version of the song, and I think we can all agree that at least in the 80s sound quality (not necessarily composition and arrangement) was substantially better in the arcade than on any home system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkEQyIDdA-I

The same song appears in the SNES Super Street Fighter II song compilation at 4:29, and I don’t think I need to point out how it’s better. Here’s a game released for a 1990 system, and the quality of sound is decisively better than Capcom’s 1993 arcade release. Forget about state of the art technology in the arcade; I think at this point companies were cutting costs, and high-end sound systems had to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo9bgGbK_lA

Here’s another case in point. Shining Force (Sega, 1992) was a tactical RPG released for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. Composed by Masahiko Yoshimura, it is one of the most highly regarded soundtracks on the system. Aside from a ton of spin-off titles, Shining Force as a series only saw three installments, and each of these featured a different composer. Motoaki Takenouchi, for all his talents, didn’t do such a hot job with Shining Force II (Sega, 1993), and the third was released on the Saturn, so we’ll just focus on the original.

Masahiko Yoshimura did a really outstanding job here with the limited resources available to him, especially when the gameplay situation called for intensity. The tracks beginning at 1:47 and 2:34 especially impress me in this regard. Yoshimura’s militant snare carries the day, and there’s also something interesting going on in company with the bass. The deep piano tones on this second track play tricks on my ears, projecting a piano vibration onto the bass when I listen to the song as a whole which clearly isn’t there when I focus on the bass specifically. Both at the start of the 1:47 track and mid-way into the next, around 3:19, he musically employs a tone that sounds more like a jumping sound effect in order to simulate an instrument sample that probably wasn’t available on the system, and it works. You can catch some more of this in the track that kicks off at 7:23.

Packed with catchy songs creatively arranged to artificially simulate a higher degree of orchestration than the system allowed, Shining Force was a great success.

But what it took a lot of creativity to pull off on the Genesis the SNES made easy. Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando (both of Kirby series fame) composed Arcana (HAL Laboratory, 1992) the same year Shining Force came out, and the improvement in sound quality was staggering. RPGs to a large extent defined the SNES. I have no statistics to back this up, but I have to imagine more popular games outside of Japan fell into the RPG/adventure/tactics spectrum on the SNES than on any other system, to such an extent that NOA even incorporated an “Epic Center” column into Nintendo Power for two years (March 1995-November 1996).

An end date of late 1996 roughly coincides with the North American launch of the Nintendo 64, when Nintendo Power subscribers began to feel the effects of the cartridge gaming fallout. RPGs were big games, calling for big capacity, and the Playstation rapidly became developers’ new system of choice.

But this was 1992, and even little known, quickly forgotten titles like Arcana were blowing Sega and arcade gaming out of the water.

Video Game Review: Borderlands 2 (by Gearbox Software / 2K Games)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

2K Games and Gearbox Software have finally unleashed the sequel to it’s successful IP, Borderlands on game consoles, and wow, it’s wonderful to return to this universe. Some of my friends on Xbox Live introduced me to the original game and we had quite a bit of fun making our way through it. It was easy to have the sequel on our must play lists.

Here’s what you need to know about Borderlands. The game exists within a barren wasteland known as Pandora. In this place, we have The Vault. If found and opened, it will yield an unimaginable treasure, and as a result, Vault Hunters come from far and wide to seek it out. Along the way, you end meeting some strange characters and fighting against weirder ones. What set Borderlands apart was that it was something of a shooter / Role Playing Game and that it also contained a massive amount of weaponry. Working off of an XP system, you can upgrade your character by killing any enemies you find on the landscape, which is normal for any RPG, but the amount of different weapons in the game was massive.

It was rare to run into the same gun twice.

Borderlands 2 basically picks up where the last game left off in terms of development. Gearbox has introduced four new types of characters to work with, new landscapes and guns. Since the graphics engine is more akin to games like XIII and maybe even The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the game moves very fast and there’s little lag online when playing with 3 other players in a Co-Op battle.

The guns in the game all have attributes of their own, such a reload factors, damage strength and scope strength (if they have them). Some guns can be used as grenades when they use up a clip. Others have Elemental qualities (which I love), in that they can set enemies on fire, shock them with lightning or shoot corrosive acid. As you level up in the game, so the available weapons, so you’ll find yourself selling or discarding the ones you’ve carried along for more powerful upgrades – unless of course you happen to own one revolver or two that you just can’t part with. Trust me, that happens.

The four characters in Borderlands 2 are the Siren (my personal favorite), who has a focus on Elemental Ability and healing factors on the battlefield. The Gunzerker is pure brute force, can duel wield weapons and can beat an animal senseless with his melee tactics. The Commando can send out a sentry turret as a backup in battle. The Assassin, new to Borderlands, has tactics similar to Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, where he can blend in with the background and send out a decoy to confuse the enemy. His sword allows for massive melee damage when he’s out of ammo.

The skill tree system in Borderlands 2 has been upgraded from the first game as well. There are upgrade paths for every character with a limited amount of points to use, which help ensure that once you fully fill a skill tree – say one that allows you to cause elemental damage to everyone in the environment when using a Siren’s Phaselock ability – you’ll want to play the game over again to work on another path. It helps to shape just how you want your character to go, and is really fun when working in a team environment. One character can focus on healing the team, while another can be pure attack. If you have communication between your players, there’s no limit to how well you can do in a battle.

If Borderlands has any limitations, it’s that you can’t benefit from having your Single Player character work in a Co-Op environment. For example, if you have a level 20 Gunzerker, he can jump into a friend’s game who is only at the start and be a major effect on the battlefield, but it gives that high level character next to nothing in XP as they’re only fighting characters that are far weaker than them. Additionally, the high level character won’t benefit from any of the missions in the game (after all, they’ve already gone through them in their own game) In a way, it’s very smart, because it helps newer players level up, but the best way to go through a Co-Op game is to start from the very beginning together. This way, you all can level up around the same time and move forward as a group.

Overall, Borderlands 2 is a fantastic game to play if you have a team to work with, moves very quick and has no shortage of ammo or enemies to blast away to your heart’s content.

VGM Entry 39: End of the NES era (part 1)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 39: End of the NES era (part 1)
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

Games would continue to be made for the NES long after the release of the Super Nintendo, but its glory days had come and gone. Already by 1990, the system was starting to sound a little stale, and even the most impressive compositions faced an enormous burden in keeping pace with video game music at large on a hopelessly outdated system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhZwE1IPqkw

Koichi Sugiyama certainly didn’t produce much of interest. The improved rendition of the main theme aside, Dragon Quest IV (Enix, 1990) was not a particularly memorable soundtrack. It has no faults per se. It certainly had nothing approaching the annoyance of the original Dragon Quest‘s combat theme. But no amount of listening to the tracks beyond the main theme here has revealed the slightest hint of anything special. It’s a soundtrack secure in its simplicity. The music is wholly appropriate for an RPG, never clashing with the style of gameplay, but it also adds nothing to the experience save pleasant background music. I’ve heard plenty worse by RPG composers with much more diverse sound systems to work with, but it definitely feels to me as though this one stands out more for the fact that “Dragon Quest” and “Koichi Sugiyama” are attached to it than for its own worth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksme4TBFmMg

Final Fantasy III (Square, 1990) was a somewhat different situation. It’s got a lot more emotion to it, and frankly it might constitute Nobuo Uematsu’s finest compositions on the NES, but in the context of its place in time it can be pretty hard to appreciate. Here’s a track list for the video:

(0:00) Prelude
(0:56) Crystal Cave
(1:54) Jinn the Fire
(2:43) Chocobo Theme
(3:20) The Invincible
(4:11) Battle
(5:06) Last Battle
(5:59) The Boundless Ocean
(6:59) Fanfare

Nobuo Uematsu definitely climaxed as a specifically NES composer on Final Fantasy III. “Battle” and “Last Battle” express a full appreciation for the NES as an instrument, and the rapid-fire accompaniments in both, but especially the latter, are some of the most powerful on the system. The SID-like sound on “Crystal Cave” and “Last Battle” adds a new dimension to the songs which would have been unthinkable for Uematsu a mere three years prior, while “The Invincible” is a practically perfect arrangement. If Final Fantasy might best be defined as lovely compositions poorly arranged, Final Fantasy III was definitely the full package.

The problem, and the reason it took me setting the game aside and coming back to it weeks later to be able to really appreciate it, is that this was 1990. Amidst the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, the Commodore Amiga 500, and the NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16, the NES just sounded terrible; it was no longer novel and it was way behind the times. Nintendo’s lengthy development paid off, as things turned out, but a lot of early 1990 releases better suited for the SNES suffered from the delay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1l4ourOqtY

Resting somewhere between these two in quality was Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (Konami, 1989). I have seen no less than five musicians credited with the composition. Hashing out who all among Hidenori Maezawa, Kenichi Matsubara (Castlevania II), Yoshinori Sasaki, Jun Funahashi, and Yukie Morimoto were really responsible for the music might be a fun task, but I only have the time for so many such projects. For whatever it’s worth, Hidenori Maezawa, Jun Funahashi and Yukie Morimoto are the three most frequently credited names. Consisting of a long list of virtual unknowns, this is one of those scores for which “Konami Kukeiha Club” might be the most appropriate accreditation.

One thing that strikes me as interesting here is how the drums and bass feel like they’ve borrowed from Batman (Sunsoft, 1989) by Nobuyuki Hara and Naoki Kodaka, especially considering I felt Hara an Kodaka themselves might have been inspired in part by the Castlevania series before I ever heard Castlevania III specifically. This connection, or at least the possibility of Batman‘s drum and bass influencing Castlevania III, is virtually impossible. As it turns out both games were actually released on the exact same day: December 22, 1989. (I had originally thought Castlevania III was released in 1990, hence my placing it in this post, but it’s close enough.)

The game has some pretty impressive original tracks, especially “Beginning” (0:00) and “Mad Forest” (1:10), not to mention a new rendition of “Vampire Killer” (5:49). The overall sound is a lot less classical and a lot more peppy than previous Castlevania titles, though I think that can be forgiven in light of the good, consistent job they did with it. Again, the soundtrack only took a while to grow on me due to its historical context. It was most certainly technologically behind the times, but there wasn’t much the Konami sound team could do about that.

VGM Entry 35: Forgotten Worlds

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 35: Forgotten Worlds
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

I mentioned that musicians had yet to properly exploit the capabilities of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1989. There were nevertheless some fairly decent efforts. I wouldn’t place most of them on par with Altered Beast, but they are still worth noting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2TUDR3RcVA

I have seen Herzog Zwei (TechnoSoft, 1989) mentioned from time to time on ‘best of the Genesis’ type lists. It was composed by Naosuke Arai and Tomomi Ootani, and it was one of the earlier games to be released exclusively for the Genesis/Mega Drive. As a pretty standard action soundtrack, it was a definite improvement over Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade, and it’s got a few memorable moments, especially towards the beginning of this mix. But it sort of feels, to me at least, as though it could have functioned on just about any system. It seems backwards-compatible I guess, as if it could be transposed to the NES or SMS without any real alterations beyond the difference in tone quality. There weren’t too many Genesis titles against which to compete in the 80s, and I suppose it comes out near the top of its small field, but the quintessential sound of the system still remained to be defined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXZOkCGo2qA

Phantasy Star II (Sega, 1989) I am a bit more fond of. The Genesis was never well known for its RPGs and adventure games, but it did have them. Phantasy Star was Sega’s own attempt at an RPG series, and its second installment was the first to appear on the Genesis/Mega Drive. Like Herzog Zwei, it was released exclusively for one system. It was composed by Tokuhiko Uwabo, or “Bo” as he’s credited–that same Bo who contributed to the rather poor Ys I SMS port I mentioned earlier. But whatever went wrong there, Phantasy Star II turned out alright.

I’d hardly call it typical RPG music. It ranges from relaxed jazz to pretty hoaky pop. It’s got some awful tracks, and there’s no getting around that. Parts of it are better off in outdated infomercials (0:44). But when it’s not bad it’s pretty enjoyable and wholly appropriate. You don’t need to see any video to know that this is not your typical wizards and knights in shining armor game, but rather something futuristic or space-oriented. It wasn’t the first game to musically break with RPG tradition. Ys II certainly did the previous year. But Phantasy Star II exhibits a great degree of stylistic consistency, despite its frequent shortcomings. All of the music is closely related through a fairly unique sound. And since that sound was definitely impossible to attain on the SMS or NES, as you can easily tell, it can be regarded as one of the first games to really put the Genesis’s capabilities to proper use. It is mainly Tokuhiko Uwabo’s hesitancy to can the cheesier tracks, not featured in this sample, which prevent it from leaving a very noteworthy mark on the development of video game music. I would also argue that the style is just a little too restricting to reflect the inherent diversity of an RPG, but it’s a solid effort in creatively applying new technology. My personal favorite is “Over” (4:13).

Capcom’s Forgotten Worlds, credited to Tamayo Kawamoto and Yukichan no Papa (Yoshihiro Sakaguchi), is a pretty interesting case. You may remember Tamayo Kawamoto from the original arcade versions of both Commando and Ghouls’n Ghosts. I have reason to believe that Tamayo Kawamoto actually wrote the music, while Yoshihiro Sakaguchi may have been responsible for the finished product and port. But I am not certain of this. At any rate, it is one of the most eclectic and bizarre game soundtracks I have ever heard, and while it’s just a little too weird to be brilliant, it cannot be wholly ignored. As with the vast majority of early Genesis/Mega Drive titles, it was released on a wide variety of platforms. The version you are hearing right now is from the 1988 arcade original. Make what you will of it. What I would like to emphasize is the differences in the Genesis port.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXYkz1kpBDc

This version, released in 1989, is an exact replica of the original in structure. Only the tones have changed. The first thing you’re bound to notice is that the opening organ on the Genesis sounds downright sinister. The arcade version has no such effect. As the song progresses, the Genesis version remains decisively sharper and more pronounced until around the break at 47 seconds. Here the composition demands a degree of clarity that the Genesis just fails to pull off. The flute is too raspy, and both the pulse tone and the sporadic deep note lack the depth of the original. It’s only as the main melody starts to run wild ten or so seconds later that the merits of the Genesis return, giving it a much more disturbing sort of feel.

I trust that both versions of the song were prepared with care. Such a peculiar song could be easily butchered, and that the Genesis version sounds, to me at least, slightly better, says something about the mindfulness with which they prepared it. It also makes the these two versions of the score a fruitful means to assess the differences between the sounds of the Genesis and the ‘arcade standard’ of the time. The Genesis seems to have lacked a little bit of the depth of arcade sound systems, but it compensated with a greater distinction of tones. Everything is a lot more pronounced in the Genesis take, and it’s only when the original calls for subtlety that the Genesis comes up a little short. I think you can hear much more vividly Tamayo Kawamoto and Yoshihiro Sakaguchi’s juxtaposition of peaceful and deranged tones in the port version, because it forcefully distinguishes the latter.

If you want a really interesting experience, try and sync up the two songs and play them simultaneously. The effect is pretty cool–better than either version individually–and you may observe that the arcade version is capable of much deeper bass tones. As I’ve always regarded Genesis music as being heavily bass-driven, at least in comparison to the Super Nintendo, this came as a bit of a surprise.

VGM Entry 12: Zelda and Dragon Quest

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 12: Zelda and Dragon Quest
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

Two fantasy-style games in 1986 achieved massive retail success and thereby brought the genre to the attention of the masses. These, it should be fairly obvious, were The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo) and Dragon Quest (Enix). Both games are likewise frequently cited among the most important soundtracks for the Famicom/NES. I think this can be a bit misleading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jElFHhfIrY

The Legend of Zelda had a truly epic main theme, with which Koji Kondo almost certainly surpassed his work in Super Mario Bros. Whether it was the best video game song written up to that point is really a matter of personal preference; it is not as though it had no competition. Regardless, this was the first installment of Nintendo’s second major franchise gaming series, and the sort of anthem Koji Kondo was able to craft for Link had enormous marketing benefits. It’s not as though lead characters in Nintendo’s games became popular out of the shear force of the company’s good name. No one really remembers say, Professor Hector (Gyromite and Stack-Up) or Mr. Stevenson (Gumshoe). If Link was going to become a franchise character, he was going to need a theme song, and in that regard Koji Kondo pulled through once again.

What else did The Legend of Zelda have going for it musically? Well… very little. I mean, the Underground Level theme (3:18) is pretty cool–all 18 seconds of it. It reminds me of some of Uematsu and Mitsuda’s later works. But there just isn’t much else to this game. The title screen and overworld theme are variations on the same (awesome) melody. Death Mountain (3:48) sounds like it was thrown together in five minutes, and the ending theme (1:42), while catchy, is simply in the wrong game. It is Mario music.

Koji Kondo is one of the most important figures in the history of video game music, no doubt about it, but the bar had not been raised quite so high on the NES in 1986 as it had been in the home computing world. Thus The Legend of Zelda sounds great within the context of its system, but a little primitive in the larger scope of things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntmk5aHaPQ4

The interesting thing about Dragon Quest to my western ears is that the game series was never all that hot here. I seem to recall reading at the time of Dragon Quest VIII‘s Japanese release–and we’re talking 2004 so I may be very much mistaken–that the game franchise had sold more copies than Final Fantasy. At any rate, it is important to recognize that this series was huge in Japan. The original Dragon Quest formalized nearly every stereotype of traditional RPGs. This video should make that fairly clear, and it’s pretty significant to note that this was not a product of Eastern adventure/RPG traditions. Yuji Horii took his inspiration from the Ultima and Wizardy series on the Apple II, and it’s at this point that the two genres really diverge. Japan would become the centerpoint of both Eastern and Western traditions, and just a Legend of Zelda served as the quintessential starting point for the modern adventure game, Dragon Quest permanently defined the RPG.

Like The Legend of Zelda‘s overworld theme, Dragon Quest‘s title theme became a series staple, but “Overture March” took quite a while to grow on me. A good many other ears might hear delicious nostalgia, but its quality does not immediately jump out at me. It’s really how Koichi Sugiyama continually developed and improved upon it in future games that makes the original fun to revisit. The rest of the soundtrack was, like Ultima III and Ultima IV, perfectly well suited for the RPG experience, and wider distribution meant that Sugiyama would be much more influential in standardizing this approach. I would be shocked if “Unknown World” (1:40) did not heavily influence Nobuo Uematsu. It could be a chiptune take on a Final Fantasy VII track, and it’s quite pleasant. Still, and unlike Kenneth W. Arnold’s works, the original soundtrack does have its flaws. The combat music (2:22) is terrible, grating on the ears on the first listen let alone after the constant encounters one expects in an RPG.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOrfzFPZLAs

But in setting the standards for the series he would faithfully continue to compose for the next twenty five years (the man is now 81 years old and still making music), Koichi Sugiyama also set the standard for what RPGs should sound like. The standard was already in practice, as I hope I have shown, but the enormous influence that the Dragon Quest series would have on video games in Japan probably prevented a lot of deviation from this norm in the future. And much to Koichi Sugiyama’s credit, the music definitely improved over time. Dragon Quest II, released by Enix in January 1987, less than a year after the series debut, would retain the original’s best tracks while replacing the obvious duds with significant improvements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afXJfo-7XRM

By Dragon Quest III (Enix, 1988), Koichi Sugiyama had firmly established himself as one of the best RPG composers of the 1980s. His emphasis on continuity and improvement of past works rather than wholly original soundtracks allowed each game to feel both refreshing and entirely familiar. In the cases of the best tracks, the changes are barely even noticeable. “Overture March” in Dragon Quest III begins almost identically to the original for instance. The melody is a little more staccato, and that’s it. If it’s not broke, why fix it?

I don’t know that I would call either The Legend of Zelda or Dragon Quest great soundtracks. The Legend of Zelda contained an especially great song, but I feel like allowing one song to carry a game was beginning to be a cop-out by 1986. Dragon Quest formed a more complex whole, and it’s definitely closer to excellence, but I feel like it still lets the shortcoming of the NES get the better of it at times in sound selection for what were certainly wonderful melodies. It’s also got the Combat theme to deal with, and such a reoccurring flaw is hard to ignore. Koichi Sugiyama would continually improve, and Koji Kondo too would be stepping up his game before the Famicom expired, particularly with Super Mario Bros. 2 in 1988.

VGM Entry 11: Ultima

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 11: Ultima
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

Ultima I, Wizardry, Bokosuka Wars, and Dragon Slayer–if we ignore this last title’s half-hearted attempt–all lacked my topic of interest here: music. When music first came to Eastern-style adventure/RPGs is as difficult to pinpoint as a precise definition of the type of game itself. The NES port of Bokosuka Wars had continuous music, albeit much to its detriment, but a December 14, 1985, release date renders this historically insignificant; Koji Kondo’s work in The Legend of Zelda would take the Japanese gaming world by storm only two months later. There may have been others with some music of worth, but they have evaded my notice. Western RPGs are an entirely different matter.

Kenneth W. Arnold’s work experience summary on LinkedIn claims that “Ultima III was the first game for personal computers (Apple II originally) with a musical score.” I have found no reason to doubt this claim. If I have overlooked an earlier RPG with music, it should nevertheless stand that Arnold’s work on Ultima III: Exodus (Origin Systems, 1983) is among the very first.

Much more importantly, it’s amazing. The songs are exquisitely attuned to the properties of the Mockingboard A sound chip. The deep tones carry a real sense of depth into the gameplay, and the natural distortion is wholeheartedly embraced to create a sense of something hinged between danger and mystery–this idea of an old world that is never entirely safe or wholly understood. The style of each song is ideal. It’s got everything you could expect in an RPG soundtrack: an adventurous overworld theme, a peaceful tune for towns, a haunting dungeon, and an especially noteworthy tense combat melody. In what is quite possibly the first RPG soundtrack ever written, one finds style-scenario associations which are pretty much the same today. Kenneth W. Arnold deserves a lot more credit for Ultima III than the history books grant him, not because he invented RPG music–I am inclined to believe such games naturally lend themselves to particular musical styles–but because he did everything right the first shot out the gate, without any previous standard having been set. And he did it so well that his works still stand among the finest today. Cheers to that.

It just got better from there. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (Origin Systems) was released on September 16, 1985, and with it Kenneth W. Arnold achieved a level of quality in RPG music that even Nobuo Uematsu would not be topping any time soon. The Castle theme especially (3:09) is one of the most commanding of its kind for any RPG. Shopping (1:34) presents an audio vision of some medieval market place filled with crooked old cranks peddling dubious potions. The combat theme (5:27) is a mere 12 seconds long, yet its exciting, adventurous spirit lends itself to continuous repetition better than nearly any other RPG non-boss battle music I’ve heard.

Credit goes to Apple Vault for actually reproducing this music. It wasn’t easy to come by. Ultima must be one of the most heavily ported series in history, with Ultima III appearing on the Atari 800, Commodore 64, IBM PC, Amiga, Atari ST, Mac, PC-8801, PC-9801, FM-7, NES, and MSX2, and Ultima IV appearing on the Atari 800, Commodore 64, IBM PC, Amiga, Atari ST, PC-8801, PC-9801, FM-7, FM Towns, Sharp X1, Sharp X68000, NES, MSX2, and SMS. Most of these ports contained the original music adapted for different sound chips, and you can see how the original Apple II Mockingboard take might get lost in the clutter. Some of these ports are pretty good approximations. Others, like the NES version, inexplicably toss out Arnold’s soundtrack altogether. But the game was originally intended to be heard on an Apple II Mockingboard, and I believe this is the most accurate version you’re going to find. Accuracy does matter here, I think. Given the amount of attention to tone quality I think Arnold put into this, preserving the medium is just as important as preserving the melodies themselves.

It’s no matter of chance that many of the best game soundtracks were RPGs. By nature among the most diverse games in setting, they naturally demand a diverse score. Thus it was the case that Ultima III, possibly the first RPG soundtrack ever, might also have been the longest soundtrack up to that time, clocking in at about six and a half minutes in 1983. But it’s the shear quality that deserves most of the attention. Kenneth W. Arnold was brilliant. These are the first truly great RPG soundtracks, and it’s a shame that they have been largely forgotten.

VGM Entry 10: The RPG

Posted on by necromoonyeti

VGM Entry 10: The RPG
(Thanks to Tish at FFShrine for the banner)

The music of Super Mario Bros. was also somewhat unique in that it merged flawlessly with a game which had nothing to do with sports or space aliens. The electronic nature of early video game music generated futuristic sounds, and a whole ton of early games being space shooters, the music naturally lent itself to synthesis. Konami’s 1983 space shooter Gyruss is a perfect example of a harmonized audiovisual experience of this sort. But good synthesis also meant stylistic relativity. Not every game on the market involved shooting down space invaders, outrunning enemies through a maze, or bashing in faces with a pixilated club. Many innovative new ideas were in the works which would require a very different sort of soundtrack.

The style of most lasting consequence for video game music was the adventure/role playing game, and it has an extensive history. Link did not spring forth from the head of Shigeru Miyamoto clad in shining armor, and someone somewhere out there still goes around telling people that he was larping as Legolas years before this fancy shmancy new “Dungeons & Dragons” game came along. I think it correct to say that The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest, both released in 1986, were respectively the first adventure game and the first RPG to have massive market success, but both distinct styles emerged from long-standing traditions, and their music was a sort of natural consequence of the nature of the games, not a single individual’s revolutionary new idea.

All joking aside, if you want to go all the way back, you really do have to look at D&D. The first computer RPGs were under construction less than a year after the pen and paper game’s initial publication (TSR, 1974), and they were directly inspired by it and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. These were private affairs, designed by programmers in their spare time, and there were quite a few of them. Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood’s dnd, Rusty Rutherford’s pedit5, and Don Daglow’s Dungeon seem to be the most frequently cited surviving 1974-1976 creations, and there are plenty of rumors of slightly earlier lost works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFh0ILCeWos

A lot of the features of “traditional” video RPGs are direct descendents of tabletop games. They evolved fairly linearly, reaching a proto-modern format by the time of Richard Garriott’s Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (California Pacific) and Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead’s Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Sir-tech Software), both released for the Apple II in 1981.

RPG-esque evolutions in Japan were far more diverse, but perhaps a bit less exciting. With no D&D tradition rendering particular game features canonical from the very beginning, developers were more experimental, merging all sorts of features from western RPGs, simulations, strategy games, and standard action types. The earliest examples are quite difficult to find samples of, perhaps in part because of the language barrier, but the tradition does appear to have begun a bit later than in the west. Koji Sumii’s Bokosuka Wars, released by ASCII for the Sharp X1 home computer in 1983, is an interesting example of a strategy game set in a Zelda-esque overworld of forests, mountains, and castle walls.

Yoshio Kiya’s Dragon Slayer, released for the PC-8801 by Nihon Falcom in 1984, is a more obvious inspiration for The Legend of Zelda, with its strong emphasis on puzzle solving, though the graphics are deplorable for its time and the sound a travesty. (Scott Joplin? Really?) But whatever their flaws, these games were the prototypes. They set the stage for great things to come. And at least in the west, RPG music would appear on the stage in fairly perfected form in the first instance.

E3 Trailer: South Park: The Stick of Truth

Posted on by Arleigh

Another title which caught my attention during Microsoft’s pre-E3 press conference is the latest game for South Park which also happens to have both Matt Stone and Trey Parker (creators of the show) working hand-in-hand with the developers of the game, Obsidian Entertainment, to get the look and feel of the show translated to the game.

The game is South Park: The Stick of Truth and it’s a role-playing game which makes use of the four boys dressed up as fantasy role-play characters from the episode “The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers”. This time around instead of controlling one of the four boys the player will actually be the hero hat Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny turn “to undo what has been did” as Cartman mentions in the trailer.

Just from the trailer alone it looks like Obsidian has been doing it’s best to replicate the look, feel and sound of the tv series. It helps that both Matt Stone and Trey Parker are doing the voices to the game’s characters and also writing the game’s story. From snippets heard in the trailer it looks like the game will have crab people, hippies, vampire kids and underpants gnomes as enemies just to name a few. We even get glimpses of gun-toting Jesus and Mr. Slave.

What I’ll be interested in finding out is whether the game will be rated T for teens or get rated M for Mature. I hope it’s the latter because if there’s anything about South Park it’s that it definitely pushes the boundaries of mature audience entertainment.

South Park: The Stick of Truth is set for a March 5, 2013 release date.

Trailer: Mass Effect 3 “Take Earth Back” (Live-Action Trailer)

Posted on by Arleigh

Last week we saw the cinematic “Take Earth Back” trailer for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 rpg title from BioWare and EA. During tonight’s latest episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead we got to see another trailer for this upcoming game. This time around we get a live-action trailer about Earth being visited upon by the main antagonists of the series and that’s the giant, extragalactic biomechanical alien race who call themselves “The Reapers”.

For a live-action trailer this one does a great job at emphasizing the fact that Earth is royally screwed and that the player in the guise of Cmdr. Shepard must lead an army to take it back from the brink of destruction. I like how even in this future Earth once the proverbial crap hits the fan everyone will begin to riot instead of actually trying to band together to fight the invaders.

Mass Effect 3 is set for a March 6, 2012 North American release date.

Trailer: Mass Effect 3 – N7 Collector’s Edition Details

Posted on by Arleigh

BioWare’s Mass Effect scifi rpg series has been a hit right from the start. The first two titles in the planned trilogy for the series (some have been calling it the Cmdr. Shepard Trilogy) have been received with a near universal acclaim for gameplay and it’s unique way of storytelling. In my opinion, this series has been one of the few which has begun to bridge the gap between gaming and storytelling where both have become integral part in making the series a success.

The third game has been one of the most-anticipated titles by gaming fans everywhere and just months away from release. The trailer above shows all the cool extras for those who pre-order the very limited N7 Collector’s Edition which will ship with the regular version of Mass Effect 3. Some of the extras mentioned seem more like fun fluff, but the classified extra character and the mission attached to them will be one of the highlights not to mention the robotic Geth-looking dog and the extra exclusive weapons.

Mass Effect 3: N7 Collector’s Edition is set for a March 9, 2012 release date with a price of $80.00.

You can be damned skippy sure that I’ve gotten my pre-order all confirmed and paid off.