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Iconic
Forgotten
Timeless
Innovative
These are the soundtracks that help shape and define what we hear in the video games that we play. I am Nitro, and this is the M Disk Playlist Video Game Music Primer, 2009.
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Flower, composed by Vincent Diamante
The premise of the game is simple. You take control of a flower petal, and you explore the petals dreams. While in the dream, you interact with the petal by controlling the flow of the wind. Simple, relaxing, and emotional. That was the style of thatgamecompany.
Vincent Diamante started playing piano at an early age, and would continue his training and education on piano performance, until he switched to electro-acoustic media when he enrolled in the University of Southern California. After graduating, he enrolled in USC's Interactive Media Division. One of the things he did while enrolled was composing music for Cloud, an indie title developed by USC students, led by Jenova Chen, who would go on to help found thatgamecompany, whose first game was Flow, then this game became Flow's spiritual successor, and then three years later, would become developers of the popular and emoitonal, Journey.
The music in Flower is dynamic in that it would change depending on what actions were performed by the player. The music would be slow if the petal barely moved, but the music would become more lively as the petal flowed through the wind. When describing the development of the game and score, Dimante is quoted as saying "Sometimes I’m thinking about the game experience as it exists in my head while I’m writing and listening to the music. Other times, I’ve got the dev kit running with an early version of the game while I’m doing my music work. Either way, the music always follows the game."
Flower took the unconventional approach to gaming. It was more of an emotional experience than a traditional gaming experience. With Vincent Dimante's experience on Cloud, Jenova Chen's first game before thatgamingcompnay, Dimante knew exactly how to make his music enhance Chen's unique approach to gaming.
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MadWorld, composed by Naoto Tanaka
Naoto Tanaka began his music career with Capcom. He was the sound director for the entire Rockman Complete Works, which were PlayStation One ports of the original six Mega Man games with modernized arrangements of each game's score. He would go on to be the primary composer for the Mega Man X series, starting with X5. He would find success with other Capcom franchises like Viewtiful Joe, and Phoenix Wright before leaving Capcom for PlatinumGames.
MadWorld would be Tanaka's first score for the new company. It was a game heavily rooted in western culture. From the graphic novel style graphics, to the music. Tanaka was so serious about the western influence, he wanted the music to sound as American as it could. So he sought the talents of local artists Ox, Doujah Raze, Sick YG, and Bandy Leggz to help with the vocal performances. One album Tanaka sites as a big influence on his approach to the score was Linkin Park and Jay-Z's 2004 collaboration album, Collision Course.
Tanaka's favorite piece, according to his interview with Original Sound Version, is the final boss theme; Look Pimpin. When he learned of who the final boss would be, he knew that he needed a rap about pimps. Sick-YG helped write and perform Look Pimpin when Tanaka requested one of his performers to write the lyrics.
MadWorld was a violent, over the top game. But Naoto Tanaka still took the music seriously. He wanted to show respect to the music that combined rock and hip-hip. And with the help of the soundtrack's vocalists, he was able to pull off the authentic style of music he sought from the beginning.
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Plants vs. Zombies, composed by Laura Shigihara
Plants vs. Zombies is what would happen if you took a strategy game with cute aesthetics, and added zombies to it. You grew and powered up the plants to stop the zombies from destroying your home. It was a very simple premise; one that would end up being developer PopCap's most popular of their catalog.
Laura Shigihara describes the score for this game as macabre, but goofy. The description is based on her early impressions of the game's artwork. She had fun experimenting with different genre's to make the macabre score sound as goofy as it can. For example, the night level features a minimalist melody at first, but as the songs progress (or rather, as the number of zombies increase), you suddenly hear big band and swing beats on top of that minimalist macabre style of music.
Two of the games pieces; Loonboon and Brainiac Maniac were written near the end of the games production. Shigihara describes those two pieces as an accumulation of her own personal experiences with playing the game as it was being developed, and as she was composing the score. She sites film and television composer Danny Elfman as a composer she tried to emulate with these pieces. She also sites her cat, Metroid, as inspiration for the Loonboon piece, describing the piece as frantic as her own cat. For Brainiac Maniac, she sites the Mega Man series as inspiration for the piece, which was used as the game's final stage music.
The game's one vocal track, Zombies on Your Lawn, is composed and performed by Shigihara in both English and in Japanese as Uraniwa ni Zombies ga. The zombie vocals in the English version were performed by game designer George Fan, while Shigihara's father performed the zombie vocals in the Japanese version.
In Plants vs Zombies, the zombies are goofy, and the plants are cute. That was just one way that Laura Shigihara described the game. She understood the concept of the game, and was able to match her style of music with the game's unique and comedic approach to a game about defending your home against zombies, using plants.
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Ys Seven, composed by Hayato Sonoda, Takahiro Unisuga, Saki Momiyama, Masanori Osaki, and Ryo Takeshita
From 1992 up until 2005, the Ys series was never released officially outside of Japan. After 2005, the Ys series slowly started to become more accessible. And through fan translations of various Ys titles, awareness of the series started to increase. The PlayStation Portable would end up being an ideal platform for the Ys series, as it saw three different Ys titles released outside of Japan; one of them being this game, which was originally released in 2009.
Like with previous Ys titles, the score is credited to the Nihon Falcom Sound Team JDK. The members who participated in the scoring of this game were Hayato Sonoda, Takahiro Unisuga, Saki Momiyama, and Masanori Osaki. Ryo Takeshita's involvement with the game is uncredited. His involvement, along with the other composers' specific involvement with the score is cited by the Video Game Music Database to a page on the Japanese At Wiki domain. The page claims that the information is correctly cited by an anonymous ex-member of the Falcom Sound Team JDK.
The Ys series had always been regarded for its approach to scoring in a role playing game. The consistancy of the score, blending rock, and symphonic music to the overall score. But it's not entirely safe choices for the composers. Dungeon themes like the Sanctuary of Meditation Breeze are much slower, brooding pieces than the fast paced nature of a typical Ys score. And certain motifs for characters are much slower paced, and much more minimalist, like the motifs for Tia.
Ys Seven may have evolved its gameplay style with this game, but Ys Seven continued to remind its fans and players exactly what they can expect from the game with its balance of fast paced music with beautiful melodies.
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Halo 3: ODST, composed by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori
Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori collaborated together frequently under the production company TotalAudio. Before composing for video games, Martin O'Donnell wrote music for commercials in the 80s. He wrote the music in commercials for Mr.Clean, and Flintstones Chewable Vitamins, which his kids helped perform. Michael Salvatori didn't have as much experience as O'Donnell did before composing for video games. He wrote music for a band he was apart of in college, then moved to Chicago where he met O'Donnell, and the two made their first collaboration together, an independent film score for a friend. Through a family friend, O'Donnell became inspired by the soundtrack of the 1993 game, Myst. He met with some of the Myst developers, and would join the staff of Myst's sequel, Riven, as a sound designer. During development of Riven, the staff would occasionally play Bungie's Marathon. O'Donnell and Salvatori later joined Bungie to work on the music for Myth: The Fallen Lords, Myth II, and Oni.
Then came Halo, which both composers worked on equally, and have continued to be apart of throughout Bungie's history with the Halo series. What seperates Halo 3: ODST, a stand-alone expansion of the main Halo 3 game, from the previous Halo scores is the new direction the composers took with the music to match the new protagonist you got to play as in the game. Martin O'Donnell compares the ODST score to previous Halo games by describing it as a more intimate and personal human story, taking place in one Earth city, as opposed to a space opera taking place across a galaxy. Film-noir style of music is also incorporated into the score, to help enhance the different kind of experience ODST had in terms of storytelling from the rest of the series. Salvatori would join the ODST sound team after O'Donnell started working on the score. He was intimidated at first with the direction that O'Donnell wanted to take the score in, but like before, he and O'Donnell would pitch ideas to each other before finishing the score at Bungie studios in Seattle.
Halo 3: ODST's score was a risk for Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori. They abandoned the grand/epic style of music that the Halo series was known for, and opted for something more intimate and in some cases, minimalist. It was a unique approach to scoring a first person shooter title, and their efforts helped make the score one of the most critically acclaimed aspects of ODST.
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Brutal Legend, composed by Peter McConnell
Brutal Legend's entire aesthetic was the heavy metal music genre. Tim Schafer, former key developer of LucasArts, had always been fond of heavy metal, and the roadies who would tour with heavy metal bands. Schafer cites his experiences with a roadie for the group Megadeth as inspiration for a game about a roadie. To help amplify the heavy metal aesthetic, Double Fine based the art design on heavy metal album covers. Then came the cast ensemble, who were inspired by heavy metal artists. Like main protagonist Eddie Riggs, whose look was originally inspired by Motorhead's Lenny Kilmister, but then became what was described as half Glenn Danzig, and half Jack Black, the voice actor of Eddie Riggs.
And speaking of the voice acting; Lemmy, Judas Priest's Rob Halford, The Runaways' Lita Ford, and Ozzy Osbourne had voice roles for characters inspired by their own likeness and careers. The main antagonist, Doviculus, was originally going to be voiced by Ronnie James Dio. However, Doviculus would end up being voiced by Tim Curry. Licensed heavy metal music can be heard on the in-game radio stations as you drive through the game's world, as well as during important events during the game's main story. And for the guitar solo attacks, those were recorded by Judas Priest guitarists Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. The game didn't consist entirely of licensed music though. Longtime collaborator of Tim Schafer's, Peter McConnell provided the game's original music, with authentic metal drums played by Mike Vanderhul and Harry Cantwell.
McConnell, who had composed for LucasArts since 1991 with the game Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, helped co-produce the iMUSE audio sequencer, which allowed the in-game music to change instantly, according to what is happening in the game in real time. Most of McConnell's works for LucasArts would be for their Star Wars games. But he would occasionally contribute to non-Star Wars games like Sam and Max: Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, The Dig, Herc's Adventures, and Grim Fandango. After Scafer left LucasArts to form Double Fine, McConnell joined him, and the two have occasionally collaborated with each other since, with their first Double Fine collaboration being the 2005 Psychonauts.
Brutal Legend was a combined product of Tim Schafer's fondness for heavy metal, and game design. Peter McConnell, who was with Schafer since the LucasArts days, helped amplify Schafer's vision of a heavy metal world, by making it sound as authentic as it possibly can, by combining original metal inspired music with the metal music that inspired Schafer in the first place.
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Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, composed by Greg Edmonson
Every PlayStation had a flagship franchise from developer Naughty Dog. Crash Bandicoot for the PlayStation 1, Jax for the PlayStation 2, and Uncharted for the PlayStation 3. Throughout the Naughty Dog developed Uncharted games on the PlayStation 3, Greg Edmonson was there to score Nathan Drake's adventures, with the second one being widely regarded as not just one of PlayStation 3's best games, not just one of the best games of 2009, but one of the best games of the 2000s.
Greg Edmonson had been a guitar player for most of his life. He grew up in Dallas, but moved to Los Angelas to pursue a career in music. He worked under television composer Mike Post, who he worked with on shows like Cop Rock, L.A. Law, and Quantum Leap. Edmonson became a television composer in his own right, composing for popular shows like King of the Hill, and Firefly. He also gained experience in the film industry with films like Blue Ridge Fall, Luckytown, and Montana Amazon. In the video game industry, he only scored for three games. And those three games were the first three Uncharted games.
Edmonson's approach to composing the Uncharted games were to match the locales with the instruments of their respective cultures. In Uncharted 2's case for example, much of the game takes place in Tibet. So to create a sound that would best match the culture of Tibet, Edmonson used the erhu, known more commonly in the west as the Chinese violin. The Erhu was used in the game's award winning piece, Reunion. Edmonson and Naughty Dog weren't sure where a piece like Reunion would be used at first, but Edmonson wanted an emotional piece for the game, and wanted to make use of the erhu, played by Karen Han who he describes as a master of the instrument.
Greg Edmonson's score helped bring to life the adventures of Nathan Drake, and add realism to the countries that are visited in the Uncharted games. For Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Edmonson's score both amplified the adventure, and invoked a sense of raw emotion that wasn't present in the previous game.
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Bayonetta, composed by Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Masami Ueda, Rei Kondoh, Norihiko Hibino, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Takayasu Sodeoka, Takahiro Izutani, Yoshitaka Suzuki, Erina Niwa, and Naoto Tanaka
Hiroshi Yamaguchi, the lead composer of Bayonetta, describes the character the game is named after in four different ways: An unmatched beauty; Fast, agile, and has powerful attacks that spell instant death to monsters; Cool and collected, sassy, and a real princess; Concerned with looking good, loves candy, and can show hints of being cute. The music had to match who Bayonetta was, as well as make music that Yamaguchi claims "could only appear in [the game]." Much of the score relies on up-beat tempo, and Yamaguchi's idea of femininity, expressed in the form of music; pianos, organs, vibraphones, fluts, double bass instruments, and electric piano, sometimes with female vocals and/or a female chorus.
The game's event and cut scenes were scored by Norihiko Hibino, and PlatinumGames composers Naoto Tanaka, Erina Niwa, and Takayasu Sodeka. Hibino was primarily known throughout the 2000s for his work on the Metal Gear Solid franchise. Most of his works for Bayonetta were done with help from fellow Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots composers Takahiro Izutani and Yoshitaka Suzuki. Before joining PlatinumGames, Naoto Tanaka, as mentioned during the MadWorld segment, was a Capcom composer who stated working on the Rockman Complete Works series, eventually becoming the primary composer of the Mega Man X and Phoenix Wright franchises. Beyond their involvement with PlatinumGames, little to no information is available on Niwa and Sodeka as of this production.
Rei Kondoh first collaborated with Yamaguchi on the 2006 Okami, which ended up being first game both composers ever worked on in their careers. Kondoh scored much of the games stage and boss themes. Hiroshi Kawaguchi, a Sega composer whose works include Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone, composed arrangements of music from both games for Bayonetta.
Masami Ueda, who also collaborated with Yamaguchi on Okami, did the largest portion of the score on his own. He composed a little bit of everything; Jingles, cut scenes, battle themes, an arrangement of the piece After Burner from the game After Burner, and all of the game's Angelic Hymns; haunting arrangements of classical pieces from classical composers like Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Waldteufel, Wagner, Handel, and Holst.
The main vocalist for the game is Helena Noguerra, who Yamaguchi describes her contributions as a mature, feminine sense of glamour and a cute playfulness both coming in through her voice. She performs the game's main battle themes; Theme of Bayonetta - Mysterious Destiny, and the Infinite Climax Mix of Bart Howard's 1954 classic, Fly Me to the Moon, originally known as "In Other Words."
Bayonetta's score was just as fun and exciting as the game itself. Taking talents whose experience covers Capcom, Konami, Sega, and Bayonetta's own PlatinumGames, to create one of the largest, most eclectic scores for an action game.
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Dragon Age: Origins, composed by Inon Zur
BioWare over the course of the 2000s had made a name for themselves within the home console market with games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect. For Dragon Age: Origins, it was a chance for them to revisit the fantasy role playing game genre that they explored with PC games like Neverwinter Nights and Baulder's Gate, and to both provide a spiritual sequel to those games, while introducing console gamers to BioWare's version of a fantasy role playing game.
Inon Zur had been fascinated with classical music since his childhood, when he would compose music to match the melodies of his Mother's singing. He would develop skills as a French horn player, a piano player, and finally professional composition, all before he turned ten. After emigrating to the United States from Israel, he continued to study music under composer Jack Smalley, who had been recognized for his works on the television shows Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, and Murder She Wrote.
Zur would go on to compose for independent films like Yellow Lotus, and would be a composer for Fox Kids. As a composer for Fox Kids, he would contirbute to shows like Power Rangers, Big Bad Beetleborgs, Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog, and the Fox Kids dubs of Digimon, and the Vision of Escaflowne. Zur's last score for Fox Kids was Power Rangers Time Force. After this, he became primarily a video game composer, receiving acclaim for his works on games like Icewind Dale II, SOCOM II: US Navy SEALs, Men of Valor.
Zur describes the process of composing for Dragon Age as approaching things from the perspective of the characters in the game, not necessarily providing an enhanced experience for the player. The entire score was composed using a live orchestra performed by Northwest Sinfonia, whose performed for games like the original Halo trilogy, the Medal of Honor series, and their first video game score, the 1997 Total Annihilation. Northwest Sinfonia has also performed for movies like The Grudge, Blade: Trinity, and Brokeback Mountain. The score was recorded twice with a 44-piece orchestra, with the two recordings layered together to sound like the score was composed with an 88-piece orchestra. The vocals in the game are performed by Aubrey Ashburn. The insert track, Lelianna's Song, took less than a day to compose and record.
Inon Zur's resume is traced to television, even learning from television's best composers. He took what he learned from the television industry, and implemented his skills into the video games he worked on. But sometimes composing simply isn't enough. He would experiment with sound design to go beyond what the game would have gotten if he had stuck with a score using a 44-piece orchestra.
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Final Fantasy XIII, composed by Masashi Hamauzu
Final Fantasy XIII would be a "first" for the franchise for a number of reasons. Musically, it was the first in the main entry series to feature a single composer since Final Fantasy IX, and it was the first in the main entry series to not feature longtime Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu in any capacity. Masashi Hamazu's first experience with the Final Fantasy series was being one of the composers for Final Fantasy X. The games Hamazu was a primary composer on before Final Fantasy X was Chocobo Mystery Dungeon, and SaGa Fronteir 2. Hamauzu's other experience with the Final Fantasy series includes being the primary composer of Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. Hamazu grew up in Germany with music in his family. His Mother taught piano, and his Father was an opera singer. He was influenced by Koichi Sugiyama's score for the Dragon Quest series, and was inspired by the effort Square placed in the scores for their video games.
The soundtrack wasn't in full development until late into 2008. But a few pieces were composed to help promote and announce the game when it was announced as early as 2006, like the game's battle theme, Blinded by Light, which was used in various promotional trailers. There was also more of an emphasis on vocals than previous Final Fantasy scores. The vocalists include Frances Maya, Mina, and Matsue Hamazu. The game's main themes, Eternal Love and Kimi ga Irukara were performed by Sayuri Sugawara. Eternal Love is used as an insert song depicting a moment between characters Snow and Serah, and Kimi ga Irukara, which Hamauzu describes as his favorite in the whole game, is the ending theme.
Both of Sugawara's songs were removed from the western release of the game, with Eternal Love replaced by Serath's Theme. And Kimi ga Irukara was replaced with the licensed track, Leona Lewis' My Hands from the album Echo. Then-president of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada, wanted a brand new song exclusive for the western audience. It ended up being much easier to license a track for use, rather than attempt to come up with a new song from scratch.
Final Fantasy XIII continued what Final Fantasy XII started, by providing fresh experiences to the main entry Final Fantasy franchise. Masashi Hamauzu helped amplify those fresh experiences by providing a unique kind of sound for the game, as well as the sequel games Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns. A unique kind of sound that could not be heard in previous Final Fantasy games, no matter how eclectic they may have sounded in the past.
WRITTEN SOURCES
1up
atwiki.jp/falcom_staff
Destructoid
Gamasutra
Game Informter
gregedmonson.com
Official Xbox Magazine
Original Sound Version
OXM Podcast
platinumgames.com
RPGFan
Sound Byte
Video Game Music Online
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