Twenty minutes into the future -
November 3, 2000 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. I asked for pork lo mein, they gave me rice and forgot my
egg roll. What a world.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Isn't it amazing how weekends seem to fill up? You work your
butt off each time so that you'll finally have next weekend free to
play some Zelda, go see Drunken Master, whatever, and by the time
you get there you've just got more stuff to do. Someday I'll figure
out how to make these damn term papers write themselves, and then
we'll see who has to study on Saturday, ha!
Onward.
| More music |
| Hey Chris,
This could get long, so bear with it.
Maybe you’re right that gamers do over-rate game music, but if you compare
game music with some non-game music, it doesn’t stack up too badly. Here’s
a few examples.
Pop music. I’ve been living in university dorms for almost a year now, and
I’ve been subjected to a fair bit a of pop. Sometimes when it’s annoying me
when I’m trying to study, I stop what I’m doing and listen to it for a
while. Now, you can spout whatever you want about taste in music being a
personal preference, but this music is BAD. The lyrics, which are dominant
over the instruments, are sappy, derivate and predictable – even if you
haven’t heard the song, you can often tell what the next line is going to
be. The majority of game music that I’ve heard is better than this
schlock.
Next, perhaps a more meaningful comparison – movie soundtracks. The name
that springs to mind is John Williams. Everyone knows Williams’ music, from
Star Wars to Jaws, from Indy Jones to Jurassic Park. But compare his best
to the best stuff from Uematsu, Mitsuda, and Sakimoto. Williams’ best known
compositions are by and large under a minute long, then just looped with
minor variations – his pieces generally don’t develop as the others’ do.
One final comparison: musicals. I haven’t seen Les Miserables in person,
but I’ve heard the compositions several times each. They’re mostly songs,
but there are a few instrumental pieces too. The instrumental pieces don’t
even begin to compare to anything from FFT for dramatic intensity and
compositional complexity. Same goes for other works like Cats and The
Phantom of the Opera, both of which I have seen in person and heard dozens
of times. Phantom’s sole good piece is the one that everyone’s heard, and
most of its power, it seems to me, comes from its volume.
I won’t try to stack the best game music against classical, but I will say
this: my favourite piece of music used to be Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto
No. 2. Now, it is Liberi Fatali.
One more thing – about gamers over-rating game music because of emotional
attachment – is it any different for soundtracks for musicals, movies or TV
shows? Is it any different than liking a particular band after going to a
concert?
-CS-
PS Why do people hate synth so much? |
Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of anything is junk,
which is certainly the case with pop music. But the remaining 10% goes
a long way towards making up for the rest. I think it's simply the
case that the people in your dorm listen to a lot of junk - I
certainly wouldn't say that most game music is better than most pop
music. Although there is a certain auto filtering process that occurs
because only the best game music tends to get bought in the US, so
perhaps that's colored your judgement against on most of the categories
you're placing it against.
And there is a substantial difference between the emotional
attachment to game music and other forms of music. Pop music stands
on its own, so any attachment someone might have to it is likely to
be entirely personal. Movie music tends to be fairly low key a large
amount of the time, whereas when you listen to the same battle theme
200 times, it tends to stand out at least as much as the individual
battles. Musicals probably come closest to having the associative
impact that game music does, but even then it's a little unfair since
a musical doesn't have to put out music over so nearly as long a time
as a game does.
| More Definition
Wars™! |
| Dear Chris,
I would have sent you this letter about what I claim constitutes
an RPG yesterday, but, um... my... dog ate it?
Anyway, you gotta remember that the first so-called RPG video
games to appear on PC and consoles, including Dragon Warrior and
Final Fantasy, were based directly off of the principles of
paper-and-pencil games such as Dungeons and Dragons and the like.
You rolled your character's stats using dice, decided whether you
were a thief, wizard, or whatever, and fought arbitrary battles at
the Dungeon Master's whim. Your character had no predetermined personality
beyond what you gave him, and the game had no story
besides what you and the DM carved out as you went along. The folks
who came up with this game called it "Role Playing" because the
point of the game was to step into your made-up character's shoes
and decide how he or she should act out his or her life.
And that was fine, and the early video game RPGs followed roughly
the same pattern, within the tight creative constraints under which
a computer can act as a DM. But, see, now what we're calling RPGs
are really called that only as a matter of tradition, because we
aren't really roleplaying squat anymore. For example, say you're
playing Final Fantasy 8. Can you get Squall to hook up with Quistis
and ignore Rinoa (face it, Quistis is prettier, no two ways about
it)? No, you have to do what the story says you should do instead. Despite
all the vestigial trappings (random encounters, character
stats, etc.), the last several Final Fantasies and their cousins
have been largely what you might call "Interactive Movies." Don't
think I'm complaining -- as a film school student myself, I'm all
for these types of games. But I do think they should be called what
they are, in order that people should know what they're getting.
I suspect that all the bickering between the "Old School" and "New
School" console RPG fans would evaporate once it becomes plain that
they are fans of quite separate genres of games. You don't see
fighting-game fans bitching out FPS fans, do you?
In any case, I hope someone reads this, whether it's printed or not...
Yours,
Maroon Lemming |
Well, there's definitely a lot of truth in what you're saying - in
fact, 90% of it's already been said in this column before, by me or
someone else. The real difference here is that by and large old school
fans really aren't after the kind of "role playing" games you
describe, they're really after the games that came in the middle of
console RPGs' evolutionary sequence, like FF VI or Chrono Trigger. Every once in a while
I will get someone upset that Square betrayed their legacy with FF4,
but by and large it's FF7's switch to 3D graphics and FMV that ticks
people off.
And I'm certainly not gonna tackle that issue here, but I would
like to point out that I consider "Interactive Movies" an unfair name
for modern RPGs. Yeah, RPG doesn't mean what it literally used to for
console gams, but schizophrenia doesn't either in psychology
terminology. Look it up. Meanwhile, it's true that recent RPGs have
stolen a few cinemagraphic tricks, but that doesn't make them any less
a game. In the 80's comic books started having much better art and
stories, but no one called them "Static Movies". (Ok, we did get the
term "graphic novel" for a while, but fortunately that didn't stick.)
| That wacky Yamauchi! He
cracks me up! |
| Take a look at
this interview:
This appears to be Nintendo Company Ltd. President Hiroshi Yamauchi's great
plan to garner the 3rd party support for the "gamecube" that never existed
for the N64:
1. Insult Square and Enix.
2. Insult all the other 3rd party developers who worked with
Nintendo.
3. Insult all the companies that mainly target the Japanese market (as if
the N64 hadn't caused Nintendo enough problems in Japan), and hardcore
Japanese gamers.
4. Indicate you will have no RPGs for the system (i.e. they must "change"
and cannot be "large scale" games like the last 3 FF or the latest DQ).
"Large scale" games are bad and will cause bankruptcy? Nothing like letting
everyone know you will not even TRY to woo or compete with Square.
This is a GREAT plan. Now all they need is William Shatner to do their
commercials and the Cube will be BIG - REALLY BIG. Coleco Adam computer
big.
And I thought they were going to actually try and change ...
-the District Attorney |
Mr. Yamauchi's said a lot of this in previous interviews, but it's
certainly an eye opener to see it all assembled like this. Good lord,
the word "crotchety" must have been coined just for this guy. On
the one hand, I'm tempted to blow him off since he seems overly
fixated on the good old (S)NES days when all the good little
developers were properly respectful to Nintendo, instead of
concentrating on the modern era where console companies try their
damnedest to get as many good developers as they can. But on the other
hand, we should at least give him a chance to see if he's learned
anything from the N64 before we completely dismiss the guy... and if
the Game Cube tanks, believe me, Nintendo's shareholders will rip the
guy to shreds long before any of us can get a shot in.
Hee hee... Coleco.
| Uematsu defended |
| Greetings, Agent;
Ok, I know the "what's wrong with Uematsu lately" topic has probably
been done to death, but one of today's letters inspired me to write
up some recent observations on the issue, so bear with me...
A lot of people have been griping lately about how lots of Uematsu's
recent work sounds too "synth"-ish or artificial, especially compared
to Mitsuda's recent work. However, it occurs to me that it's not
just an issue of artificial versus symphonic arrangements. This was
brought home to me when I recently picked up the arranged albums for
both FF5 and FF6. The FF6 album is completely orchestral, performed
with a full symphonic orchestra. The FF5 one has some acoustic
elements, but also has a _lot_ of good quality synth. And you know
what? I like the FF5 album better. A lot of the FF6 album sounds to
me like fairly generic classical music; not bad at all, but not too
special, whereas the FF5 has some great original and inspiring things
on it.
So what does this tell me? That Uematsu can do great things with
synth, on a par even with Mitsuda's recent excellent work. So why
don't we see more of this side of Uematsu in, say, the FF8 OST? My
personal theory is just that he's been spreading himself a bit too
thin... Look at the FF9 soundtrack, which doesn't fit on four CDs.
The difference is especially obvious looking at the sheet music; the
FF8 music book is many, many times as thick as the FF4 and FF5 books.
It seems to me that with FF7 and FF8, Uematsu has been putting most
of his effort into a few great, well-orchestrated songs (generally
the world theme, the vocal theme, and the end boss theme, along with
a few others) while the rest of the soundtrack suffers. I think the
FF9 soundtrack fares a little better largely because he freed up some
time by re-using older melodies in several places (which I don't
think is a bad idea, especially considering the overall nostalgic
feel of the game).
Now, all that said, I don't really know what the solution will be
from here... But perhaps letting more than one person work on a
soundtrack is an idea. I know you don't want to get problems with
sound continuity. But, for example, Uematsu and Mitsuda have
collaborated on a soundtrack before (Chrono Trigger, no less).
Imagine an entire FF soundtrack the uses the talents of both Uematsu
and Mitsuda...
--
// Ben Elgin |
That's definitely a legit theory. I don't feel I can really pass
judgement on what Uematsu's done lately until I hear the FF9 soundtrack,
since I thought there was a good bit of improvement between 7 and 8 and
hope we get something similar with 9. Also, I think we have to take into
consideration that even while Uematsu's music may not stand on its own so
well anymore, it does integrate very well into the rest of the game. The
"Breezy" tune matched the mood of Fisherman's Rest far better than I can
remember any SNES era tune doing, even if I wouldn't want to listen to
"Breezy" very much by itself.
| John's 2000-inch TV |
|
In the past couple years, I was a staunch PC gamer. Quake 3 was the
game of choice. Now, I've always liked FPS from the old days, back when
Marathon had me enthralled in the exploits of the lone survivor battling
against the Pfhor, and Durandal playing with you like a pawn in a grand
game of chess. But my roots are in console gaming.I grew up on Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. I remember playing
through both those titles, and after finishing them, getting my
characters up to lv50, something to do while I was waiting for new games
to come out. (By the way, in DW1, even if you are at the max level,
some enemies can still kill you, a feature which I think is gravely
missing from recent RPG's). But I'm getting sidetracked on all this
nostalgia.
Recently I purchased a 65" widescreen HDTV with a 700w receiver, and a
DVD player that supports DTS and Dolby 5.1 audio, along with the 5.1
speaker arrangement. I've watched many a DVD on this system, and with
every 5.1 encoded disc I've watched, it greatly enhanced my enjoyment of
the movie. It could have been a movie which I have seen many times,
like Terminator 2, or The Abyss, but watching it with 5.1 audio really
makes me feel like I'm in the movie.
Back to my main point. I've been playing Diablo II and UT recently on
my PC, with 5.1 audio (albiet a greatly downgraded setup from my home
theater). I don't know if the games were made to take advantage of 5.1
audio, but even using simulated surround sound with these games made it
an even greater experience playing these games.
Now that the PS2 supports 5.1 and component video, do you think that
game programmers will take advantage of the available audio channels
(and video clarity, which is another letter in and of itself), and make
a wholly immersible experience for the player? If FF10 took advantage
of 5.1 audio, as soon as it came out, a PS2 would be on my list of cool
stuff to buy (as long as the Xbox wasn't slated for a release also).
When do you think that music designers will realize the potential that
they have with 5.1, as opposed to 2.0? I have a couple of the DTS audio
cd's of Bach and Schubert compositions, and they sound remarkably better
than there regular cd counterparts.
On the video side, I have a little qualm that I have to address. I
bought a PSX S-Video cable about a year ago, expecting great results.
When I got it, I couldn't belive what I was seeing. The video was
actually worse with the S-Video connection. It seems that the
programmers made the video so that the games would look and run good
using composite cabling, but with S-Video, it shows all the flaws in the
games, and you get "blockiness" and dithering around text and all
pictures in MDEC recordings. Is this a flaw with the PSX architecture,
and will this be fixed with PS2, now that they are supporting component
video?
John Rademan |
I've got a decent 5.1 system for DVDs myself, and while I won't say
it completely changes how I watch movies, it does make certain things
a lot more interesting. For example, I'm a big fan of Teotihuacan, the
song at the end of the X-Files movie, but good as it sounds on CD, it
sounds much, much better in full 5.1 mode.
But the punch line is that yes, sooner or later Square games will
almost certainly take advantage of 5.1. Given the dearth of info on
FFX at the moment, it's hard to say what will or won't be on any given
game, but given that Square's always pushed the technical envelope, I
can't imagine that it'd take them long to take advantage of 5.1. On
the video side, I think you're simply seeing how basically lousy the
PSX 3D graphics have always been, without the smoothing that lower
quality video cables provide. I can say that I've run my Dreamcast over
VGA and S-Video on good quality monitors, and it looks fantastic. The
PS2 should be the same, although the anti-aliasing problem that some
early games have might be more apparent with better cabling.
| You missed it! Ha! |
| There was indeed a soundtrack to Donkey Kong Country
released in the U.S. It was offered only by catalog to
those subscribing to Nintendo Power, and if it makes
your reader feel any worse, included an exclusive
arranged version of the level one theme.
---Anthony James Larrea |
To the person who was interested in tracking down the US version of
said soundtrack: well, I guess there's always Ebay...
| Like you haven't heard
me say it enough, time for someone else to... |
| Chris,
This is somewhat related to a topic from a few days ago but I never had a
chance to send it in before. I don't see why developers making RPGs feel
they need to include a seperate battle screen with boring menus always
containing "Fight, *Blank*, Magic (Or equivalent), Item" It seems that every
RPG that comes out (Especially from oldschool companies like Enix and
Square) have this set-up as if to pay homage to the NES/SNES era. I
personally don't believe that the menu driven battles is what defines an RPG
at all, it's how immersed the player is within the characters' fate or
feelings. Hence "Role Playing Game", you play the role of a character or
characters. People typically use the superficial qualities of a game to
determine whether its an RPG and therefore worth playing.
Technology has come so far since the day of FF1 yet the same basic
principles that were implemented for lack of resources at the time are being
used in the next installment, something like 10 years later. I believe that
many RPG players dismiss any attempts of changing the genre as treacherous
to the games' heritage only because most of those path-clearing games do
indeed suck. The question to be asked, however, is whether this is because
any departing from the norm is horrible, or is it because big companies
(like Square) never put enough resources into these offshoot titles?
Your thoughts?
FLIGHT |
By and large this letter matches up so well with my own opinions that I
really don't need to say anything... except that I do think experimental
games have been given room to develop by Square, and that they're often
quite good. Vagrant Story, for example, is the best game I've played this
year, and I'd be surprised if even FF9 could change that assessment.
Closing Comments:
Time to go to work for the weekend, but I think I can get some
Zelda in as well, at least tonight. Meantime, don't give AK too much
crap or I'll have to come bust yo' fool heads. See you Monday.
-Chris Jones, has an off
switch on his TV |
