Bastion's Story Book Come To Life

I am going to continue with the indie games with the next one that I will be talking about and it goes by the name Bastion. Bastion is a top-down action RPG game that was released 2011 on Xbox Live and later to PC and PlayStation systems. Bastion was created over the course of two years by Supergiant Games. The reason this game is help up to other indie critical darlings it because of two reasons: dynamic narrator and music. 

In the game, you play as a character simply known as "The Kid" who is instructed by the games narrator to save their world from ultimate destruction. The narrator in the game is very special because he almost guides your character step by step through the world by commenting on your combat skills or maybe suggestion taking a certain path. 

The composer to this game was recruited by a long time friend who was working on the game to come in and give it a try. This was Darren Korb's first video game soundtrack that he had ever made, but he has had prior experience with TV and movie scores. Korb was stated as saying that the soundtrack has a sound like American frontier and exotic fantasy music. All of the music for the soundtrack and 3,000 lines of narration were recorded in Korb's closet. The songs also has a very distinct because its a mix of acoustic and overlaid beats. From this fantastic soundtrack I will be talking about two songs that fit into the American frontier and exotic fantasy music.

The first song I will be talking about is the American frontier song "Slinger's Song". The song just oozes feel of a wanderer in the woods or walking into a very rural small town. The use of the steel guitar makes this vibe impact even more.This one is my favorite on the soundtrack.

The other song that captures the exotic fantasy music is "Terminal March". The sound is so exotic and interesting it will easily keep your attention and the overlaid beats fit perfectly with the acoustics. 

The music on this soundtrack works so well for two reasons. One is that Korb worked on the show Deadwood which was a western TV show that had a lot of acoustic instrumentation and the other is that the music fits this exploration theme because all of the music sounds like different terrains that you explore in the game. This soundtrack is held very high on the mantle of some peoples favorites and it honestly deserves it. You can take a listen to the album on YouTube and buy the album from Supergiant Game's BandCamp. Thanks for reading. 

Shovel Knight's Jolly Good Soundtrack

Kickstarter is responsible for incredible things that sadly would never get any help with public backing and I am overly happy that this game made it and became the large success that it is today. Shovel Knight is available on almost any system current and last generation and was released at inter voles throughout 2014 and 2015 across the different systems.  It released to wide acclaim from multiple reviews and became an indie sensation. 

Shovel Knight was by the developers Yacht Club Games. Shovel Knight takes inspiration from the 8-bit era of video games in its gameplay, look and music. You play as a brave knight who uses the honorable weapon of a shovel to defeat the forces of evil and save your friend Shield Knight. You fight through other themed knights who rule different lands to get to the evil doer The Enchantress. The game is styled like an action and platformer and I love it to bits. 

The man behind the beautiful the soundtrack is  Jake Kaufman. Kaufman has worked on previous games like Red Faction: Guerilla, Contra 4, and DuckTales: Remastered. Kaufman currently works as an independent composer with his own studio. His first independent game was Shovel Knight and that has set a beautiful precedent. I will be talking about two songs from the game.

 One of my favorite songs from the game is "Starlit Wilds". This song plays at the scenes where Shovel Knight is sitting at a bonfire. Shovel Knight has these scenes after you defeat a boss and then he dreams of saving Shield Knight. This song is dream like and floatt which perfectly fits the scene because moments in Shovel Knight will fall asleep. You can listen in the background of the music you can hear what sounds like crickets which is an amazing touch to make it really sound like a night time setting. 

The other song that I want to talk about it is "The Vital Vitriol" and that song is the song of my favorite boss in the game, Plague Knight. Plague Knight is a enemy boss that throws different potions in the fight that have different effects. The songs for the bosses have a very similar beats to them but are arranged differently to make each boss music feel unique and make the song fit the environment. The song uses high pitch notes to add a creepy almost mysterious science lab sound that fits the potion mixing and mad scientist vibe that the boss fight provides.

This game has fantastic moments that a very reminiscence of the SNES era of games and just makes me personally smile. You can purchase the album on Kaufman's BandCamp or listen to it on YouTube. Thanks for reading and see you next time. 

Funky Skater Beat of Jet Set Radio Future Keeps on Grinding

Looking at the cover art for the games as a young boy, I was immediately draw in because of the look of it Tony Hawk plus some kind of weird Japanese rebel spray painting. This game is called Jet Set Radio Future (JSRF) and it is a kind of sequel/remastering of the Sega Dreamcast game Jet Set Radio. JSRF was released on the original Xbox in 2002. The game is 3rd person and the graphical style of the game is called cell shaded  , which means the games as almost a hand drawn quality. 

In the game you can play many different characters that are apart of your crew called the GGs. You recruit more people to your crew as you play the game, but you need to beat them in a race to get them to join. Throughout the game the GGs have to fight against the enemies gangs that are causing trouble to the city. The city in the game is loosily based on Japan itself. The games setting has a real 1990s Japanese punk setting and the music of the game matches it perfectly.

The soundtrack to this game was made by Hideki Naganuma and Richard Jacques, who were the same duo that created the music that was in the original Jet Set Radio. Some of the songs that are in the game were not released on the original soundtrack of the game because they were made by other lesser known bands. Some of these bands were BS 2000 (Adrock from Beastie Boys), Scapegoat West, The Latch Brothers (Mike D from Beastie Boys) and the Prunes. I am noticing a pattern here. I will sadly not talking about these song since they were not on the official song track of the game, but in a different blog post I might. In this post today I will be discussing three of my favorite songs from it, but they are all extremely great songs.

When you put in the disc and the logos of developers and producers fly by, the music starts up with this heavy guitar rift that is pure 90s punk and the song name is "The Concept Of Love". On screen it is showing some of the characters in the game skating around everywhere and doing crazy tricks. This music and title screen video gives the player the exact feel of what this game will be. The song is extremely well made and almost sounds like something that is commercial, but then again most of the songs on here sound very well made. This song like most of the other songs on the soundtrack is very repetitive which makes it addicting.  If you are not into this heavy music don't worry every song on this soundtrack is different.

The nest song I will talk about is i think my favorite out of them all and it's "Oldie But Happies". This song uses old time television voices for most of the lyrics of the song and has this extremely happy-go-lucky beat to it that strangely matches up to skating around. The song near the end develops into  this chanting part that really keeps building and you almost feel inclined to chant along to because of how simple and cheeky the song is. 

The last song I am going to talk about is titled "Let Mom Sleep (No Sleep Remix)". This song is a remixed version of the song that appeared in original Jet Set Radio. The song starts out with this siren against a really funky beat that leads into some very intense bass lines. This song almost makes you want to dance more than anything else. Much like the last song I talked about this song also utilizes old television dialogue for the voices in this song. I don't know what it is about that idea, but I really enjoy that. I think it has to do with the fact that it is completely out of context and sounds ridiculous. 

This album, along with Halo, was one of the first that I really just sat there and just listened ot the music instead of playing the game. I loved everything in this game from its quirky graphics to it extremely silly idea of using graffiti to fight against the powers of evil and also inspired me to learn graffiti art which may not be the best thing. Thanks for reading and have a nice one!

The Bombastic and Sinfully Sweet Dark Souls Soundtracks

Two years ago I was suggested by a childhood friend to try and play a game that is called Dark Souls not really knowing what the game was about or how difficult that game was. Little did I know that this game, which would turn into a series, was one of the most challenging games to be released in current day video game market place. After a few attempts with the game, I finally told myself I need to actually fight through this game and beat it and after my 80 hour play through I fell in love with this game and would for the series. 

The Dark Souls series was created by Japanese based developer From Software in the October 2011 to critical acclaim, but not high sales numbers. There are a total of three Dark Souls games with the most recent one Dark Souls III releasing Tuesday April 12, 2016.Dark Souls games are action RPG games with a fantasy setting and famous for their large and interconnected worlds, very distinct controls and challenging bosses. This is a game that take patience and a calm mind. You can not just pick up the game and be the best at it you need to find your own play style. 

Throughout all three of the games in the Dark Souls series the composer Motoi Sakuraba has worked on them all. Sakuraba has worked in many different mediums including video games, anime, films and progressive rock albums as well. Most of Dark Souls music is made by orchestras and choirs. When it comes to music in Dark Souls it is only used in two parts of the game. One of the parts is when you are in the safe home base of the game and the other part is when fighting the intense and crazy bosses. I will be pulling songs from each game in the series that are my favorite and how they work for the boss.

The first song I will be talking about is the first boss in the game Dark Souls that I was stuck on for hours upon hours and that would be the "Bell Gargoyles". As you climb your way to the roof of a church you are then attack by a gargoyle and the boss fight begins. If you manage to get the gargoyle to half then another gargoyle will fly on to the roof and start to attack you as well. The music for this fight just explodes at you as soon as the fight begins you keep you on edge and ready to dodge and roll. The music has a heavy choral theme throughout the whole song playing on the church roof setting. I heard this song time and time and time again during the fight it still haunts me to this day, but I will always remember it for that reason tho and that is why it has a special place in my heart.

I will talk about one more song from the first Dark Souls game and that is played during the "Great Grey Wolf Sif" boss fight. In this fight you fight a giant grey wolf that wields a sword in it mouth to attack. The fight is mandatory in the game to obtain a ring that you need later which makes the fight that much more of an emotional fight because throughout the fight the more you hit Sif the more the wolf starts to limp and show his pain. The music of the fight completely fits this haunting idea of fighting a wolf that can show the fact that it is injured and make the player feel bad for what they do. The music is slower with another choral theme that adds a haunting sound to the battle.

The next song will talk about is from the second game Dark Souls II during the boss fight "The Rotten". The Rotten is a great boss in the game that is a large pile of corpses that turns into one person that fights. This boss is very gross and is dangerous. The Rotten's theme is very creepy and mysterious with sour notes and always building and swelling string instruments. 

The last song I will be talking about is from the new Dark Souls III and so far the only boss have beaten "Iudex Gundyr." Iudex is the first boss and a test to make sure that your skills are in check to progress. Iudex is a giant stone man that fights will a long range weapon and who will transform into a monstrosity for the last 50 percent of his health. The theme is classic Dark Souls epic boss music. Sadly I killed the boss before the whole song could play so I had to listen to it on the CD later.   

Dark Souls stands out in the gaming community now because of the challenge in the game and only the brave and patience will survive until the end. All of the soundtrack are available on Youtube and able to purchase on Amazon or iTunes. Thanks for reading. 

 

April 12 Releases: Dark Souls 3 and Hyper Light Drifter Soundtrack

Tomorrow I will be picking up the third installation of the Dark Souls series, which comes with the soundtrack, and the soundtrack to the new indie game Hyper Light Drifter. Both of these games are based on the video game genre as open world exploration game. 

I will be listening to both of the soundtracks over the next few days and do a post for both of the games as I can. Both soundtrack are extremely different from each other. Dark Souls 3 soundtrack is created by a large orchestra and choir and Hyper Light Drifter's soundtrack is made by one man and I have actually done a post about one of his games already FEZ, Disasterpeace. After I saw that he was creating the soundtrack to the game, my excitement for the game extensively increased. 

Hyper Light Drifter is a 2-D based RPG game with 8 to 16 bit graphics where Dark Souls is open world RPG that is 1080p 60fps (Frames Per Second). So the only things these games have in common is the fact that they are both RPGs and that they can be extremely difficult.

Thanks again for reading and my next update will more of less be one of these games if I can pry myself away long enough from these games. 

Halo's Space Rock Opera

 As I have said in my last post about Halo's composers Martin O'Donnell and Micheal Salvatori, Halo was a FPS released in 2001 for the Original Xbox and is set in 500 year in the future during humanities space age being devastated by an alien religious cult that plans to activate an ancient device that would wipe out all life in the universe. You play a space marine John-117, also known as the Master Chief, a man in a super powered suit that can take a ridiculous amount of damage and can deal out the same, but what makes Halo stand out from other FPS games would be the scoop and setting of the game, the multiplayer aspect and the bombastic soundtrack. Obviously I will be discussing the soundtrack today because that what I do.

In my last post I also talk about the title theme to Halo with the Gregorian chant and how that became a staple in the series, but now I will talk about some of the songs that made the level perfect and songs that inspired songs in the later games in the series. Some of the songs I will be talking about is "What Once Was Lost", "Lament For Pvt. Jenkins", "Devils..Monsters", "Truth and Reconciliation", and lastly "Halo".

The one level that the music perfectly combined with atmosphere and new introduced enemies was 343 Guilty Spark. In this level you are sent out to find a marine company that went lost in the dark jungle wetlands. After being dropped off you hear the eerie song "What Once Was Lost" as you push through the jungle. As you proceed through the jungle you come across a building in which you see the zealot aliens fleeing from in terror . After you get through them you proceed into the building and find that there is no one in the building to run from. You go down some elevators and proceed through the building only to find body after body of shredded corpses of both human and alien. When you get to the bottom most of the building you find the helmet of Pvt. Jenkins and take his recording out of his helmet to see what became of his company. As you begin to watch the tape the song "Lament For Pvt. Jenkins" which is solemn until creepy, high note and erratic string instruments cut in and make your skin crawl. The tape reveals that the company was attacked by an enemy called the Flood a infections organism that can take over a hosts body and use it to spread the infection. After the tape ends, you are immediately being surrounded and attacked by the Flood and the song "Devils...Monster" starts to play. This songs distorted sound adds to the scare and fear that are rising because of the oncoming attack. This song will play as you run your way out the building to regroup with another group of marines as you reach the exist to the building. Throughout this whole level the song will change three times going from creepy to down right chaotic and evil and is a perfect example on the music evolution in this game.

The next song I will talk about is titled "Truth and Reconciliation." This is one of my favorite song on the entire soundtrack because how much the song changes in the course of its eight and a half minute play time. This song play in various levels throughout the entire game and also plays the whole song if you sit at the main menu and listen. It plays in the levels Halo, The Silent Cartographer, Two Betrayals, Truth and Reconciliation, Keyes and The Maw. The various sections of the song are used in cut scenes and action segments of the game. The main moment the song is used in driving segments and the final drive to the end. This song is my favorite because the change in the song and also how much it sprinkled around the game.

The last song I will be talking about is simply titled "Halo." This song has appeared in every Halo game since in some form. This song also has the Gregorian chant in it as well in the beginning. This song is the legacy of the Halo games and will forever exist in the series,

This album was re-worked when they re-mastered the game on its 10th anniversary with a larger orchestra and new people, but this album to me will always be a classic. If you want to sit back and watch to the album you can listen to it on YouTube or you can purchase it on Amazon or iTunes. Thanks fir reading once again and have a great one.

The Masterminds Behind One Of Gaming's Best Soundtracks: Halo

Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori

On June 11, 2001 Microsoft and Bungie released Halo; Combat Evolved of the Xbox gaming system and this release would be a change to First-Person Shooters (FPS) genre on home consoles. Halo successful was followed by many sequel games, comic books, novels, and animations. Halo's story is that you play as a space marine named Master Chief and your goal is to stop an alien religious covenant from destroying all life in the galaxy. The first Halo was a groundbreaking game for me personally because this is only one of a few games that can still remember the first time that I actually played it. Beyond the shooting Halo on other aspect caught my attention and that was the music.

The music in Halo: Combat Evolved was composed and produced by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori and they would later go on to compose Halo's next 4 games. When they started working on Halo, they wanted to make a space epic that would resonate, but at the time they didn't know the main theme they made for the game would have such an impact on the gaming community. They used a wide variety of instruments on the soundtrack. 

The main theme as I mention before is one of the first thing people think when they think about Halo. The reason this song does that is because of one music technique they used, Georgian chant. The Halo Theme is a mysterious and haunting start to a new experience that people will remember the first time they played this game. The Georgian chants after this would be a staple in the Halo soundtracks even to today where the soundtrack are no longer made by O'Donnell or Salvatori. 

Bungie in 2012 gave the Halo franchise to 343 Industries, which was created from old members of Bungie and new people in general. After the passing of the franchise O'Donnell and Salvatori decided to stay with Bungie instead of following Halo to 343 because they wanted to work on something different. Bungie would later put out Destiny and the soundtrack by O'Donnell and Salvatori would follow. After the release of Destiny O'Donnell had a falling out with Bungie and their supporters Activision and left Bungie. 

Today Martin is on the free market and I really can't wait to see what game he composes next, but his work with the Halo franchise will always have a special place in my heart.