Music to my eyes -
August 18, 2001 - Nich Maragos
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.
Buy me.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
I'm too tired after a long and arduous moving process to say anything here, sorry.
| Package deal |
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I have quite a few game soundtracks, but the only one that
is at all striking, packaging-wise, is SaGa Frontier II.
Each of the three discs comes in its own little
CD-single-style case, and they all fit in a neat cardboard
box, which also features a cool mini-artbook jobbie
featuring many of the characters--but not Johan of Sargon
(or Gustaf, so we can determine once and for all whether
he's wearing a strange hat, or he just has really, really
peculiar hair). Bastards! But I like it anyway, and the
music is pretty damn good too. Hint, though: avoid the
arranged SFII CD. It's really amazingly bad.
-Geo, whose fave game CD musicwise is still Suikoden II: Orrizonte
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I've never played SaGa Frontier II, and never heard any of its music, but even I'm aware of the OST's reputation for quality packaging.
| Just imagine |
|
I'm going to throw my two cents in for Tamayo Kawamoto's (Zuntata) arranged album for Raycrisis. I say this, if for only the mood it projects. Picture an all cardboard case (no plastic jewel case) with the line notes attached to the inside of the case. The case itself is black with minimal lettering in white. On the case are crude line drawings of some kind of flower done only in a thick white line (a bonnet, perhaps?). This flower carries over to the disc itself, but insted of a black, it's purple with a spare flower on the face. Attached to the case is a long liner note, folded to make several pages. On the pages itself besides the standard indecipheral japanese, are photos of the most beautiful open field full of pink flowers. I'm not exactly sure of the relevance of these images to a standard space shooter, but they always leave at ease, thinking of better more profound games then one where I move ship accross the screen and kill things... Perhaps what I should be thinking of, is what posessed me drop $30+ on this (admittedly good, but...) cd. Of course you can't beat that little folded poster that came with the Final Fantasy Tactics OST and it noseless knights and maidens.
-protmind
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I looked all over for an image of this to show people what you were talking about, because it sounds intriguing, but this was the best I could come up with. I trust the music lived up to the packaging?
| Historical perspective |
| Nich-
My music collection consists mostly of game music, so this was something of a difficult topic for me. But I've narrowed it down after much hemming and hawing, and I'd have to say my favorite OST (actually, I'm bending the rules a bit; it's really an AST) would be "Zelda: Hyrule Symphony." Although at a first glance, it might not appear to be something special.
The cover (an ocarina set against a forest backdrop with the title in red Japanese letters) is kinda classy, but overall nothing special or grabbing. The CD itself has link on his horse, charging, sword in the air, which I thought was a cool picture to use. Inside the booklet, about half of it contains your standard stuff (linear notes, notes from the arranger, etc.) but it has some really fancy bells and whistles, like linear notes NOT for just all the songs in general, but linear notes for EACH SONG individually! Each section is also adorned with pictures that tell the whole story progressively. And of course, an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto. The map of the overworld is in there too, for some reason, as is sheet music for all the ocarina songs. A great, great package.
But here's the best part: the last few pages are in a section called "Memorial of Zelda." This section alone is worth the price, if you're a Zelda fan. It has notes from ALL the Zelda games released before Ocarina of Time, screenshots for them, some character art, and the box art for EVERY ZELDA GAME! Both English AND Japanese versions! Even the game and watch is in there! Oh, and did I mention it's all in full color? A great presentation, all in all.
(I know this isn't what we were supposed to write home about, but the music is great, too!)
-Irvine Kinneas, who has the Limited Edition Final Fantasy X OST upstairs in his parents closet, in it's US postal service packaging, but can't open it until his birthday in a couple weeks. >_<
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Very, very nice. I'm pretty interested in it myself after you described it; I've always liked Zelda's music, and what GIA staffer could resist a box art retrospective? Still, I've tended to stay away from game soundtracks for quite some time now. I've developed this worrisome inability to remember any game music, no matter how good, ever since Final Fantasy VII or VIII. (I'm not saying it's due to anything about those games, that's just about when it started to happen.) People will tell me how much they love the music for a game I've played all the way through, and I don't have the slightest recollection of what they're talking about. The only OSTs I've bought in the past two years, come to think of it, are Silent Hill and Gitaroo-Man--and that latter one was just on Thursday.
| Perfectly centered...? |
| I'm tempted to say FFVI's soundtrack, but music aside, it wasn't so great. I
guess my vote would go to Final Fantasy Tactics, since it had all that
fold-out job class stuff and all... and on recycled-looking paper, too! Gee!
-Nefarious Nisty
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A key thing people seem to have missed on the topic is that Chris was talking about the soundtrack as a whole--music is just as important as the packaging. So if you like FFVI's music enough to trump nice packaging somewhere else, go with it.
| In the far off future |
| In response to Chris' topic suggestion, my favorite OST would have to
be the Phantasy Star Online OST. Yeah, it may be lacking in both
liner notes and tracks (the entire soundtrack is not on the 1 disc
set), but everything is forgiven thanks to the most outstanding audio
I've heard...ever.
Yeah, Yasunori Mitsuda has a lot of talent to show in titles like
Chrono Cross and Xenogears, but the PSO sound team pulled through with
a full orchestra that sounds like they are actually enjoying the game
while playing their instruments.
-KZ
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This makes me wonder if "arranged" albums will eventually be phased out, as sample and sound quality on the OSTs themselves becomes advanced enough to pass for "real." Come to think of it, Mitsuda's employing the London Philharmonic for Xenosaga. If they can't produce the sounds he hears in his head when composing, who can? Will we even need a Xenosaga equivalent of Creid if the real orchestrated stuff is right there in the game?
| Sins of omission |
| Nich,
Since I enjoy beating the living hell out of long departed equestrians, here's a letter that I was too lazy to write for Thursday!
I personally value someone with humor over someone with encyclopedic gaming knowledge. It's not particularly entertaining for me to read a column about the differences between Old Skool EA Sports Game #5 and New Skool EA Sports Game #36034760. Of course, on the flip side of that, there are people who can let a column deteriorate into well thought out letters receiving tasteless and too-crazy responses. So, in summary: someone who can let loose, but isn't always that way.
Also, on the subject of OSTs: I don't buy them. Why? My favorite scores are never there! In FF9, the hands-down best piece of music there is the Beatrix theme (I have a save on the Red Rose cabin just so I can load it and listen to the music!), and it isn't on the OST! And though it doesn't count as an OST, right when I bought Final Fantasy Anthologies I tried listening to the music. I actually like some FF6 music, but good god, that stuff on the soundtrack sucks. That basically turned me off OSTs forever (Although I would of bought the FF9 one if it had the Beatrix theme! Viva la Beatrix!)
-Griffin13
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Ahem. "Equestrian" is an adjective, not a noun. The word you're looking for there is "equine." Sorry, just had to bring that up.
As for the exclusion of music on OSTs, you happened to pick two of the only instances where you'll find that, but my guess is that it'll become more common as games get bigger and are able to hold more sound data. There'll come a point where composers will get overworked, of course, and the number of songs will probably level off then, but it's not uncommon for OSTs to require 3 or 4 discs now if they're looking to hold all the music.
Closing Comments:
Short column, but I actually printed virtually every letter I got. For tomorrow, let's hear about the flipside to OSTs: artbooks. Got a favorite artbook? Partial to a particular character designer? Do you think artbooks could do better in the US if they were released here? Write whatever you want on the subject, let's hear it.
-Nich Maragos, torporific
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