I recently stumbled upon my nostalgia-machine which led me to some of my favourite video game music. Once again, I am blown away with how much feeling and complexity they were able to pump out of those 16-bit cartridges. All of these are from 16-bit/32-bit JRPG era.
Favourite Boss Battle Music:
From Final Fantasy Mystic Quest comes an incredibly high energy, intense, metal sounding theme. FFMQ was designed for North Americans as an 'entry-level' RPG with simplified mechanics and easy-to-follow story line. Even though it is "dumbed-down," it still did not take away from the fun.
Runner-Up:
Oh EarthBound how awesomely tragic your story has become. Most people only know of you from Ness' inclusion in the Super Smash Bros. series and not for being the most unique, most interesting JRPG ever made. The song above is taken from the second-last battle where your Cartman-esque next door neighbour Pokey has now acquired near-infinite power. Picture Cartman with near-infinite power and realize how scary that would be.
The song gets all metal starting 0:53 but the music before that creates a great mood too.
Favourite Opening Music:
Oh EarthBound how awesomely tragic your story has become. Most people only know of you from Ness' inclusion in the Super Smash Bros. series and not for being the most unique, most interesting JRPG ever made. The song above is taken from the second-last battle where your Cartman-esque next door neighbour Pokey has now acquired near-infinite power. Picture Cartman with near-infinite power and realize how scary that would be.
The song gets all metal starting 0:53 but the music before that creates a great mood too.
Favourite Opening Music:
From Chrono Cross comes a slick scene that introduces the player to the magical setting of the game full of a colourful cast of characters, beautiful scenery, unruly dragons, and other bouts of danger and mystery. The song's focus on the violin gives the tune a more nautical tone which I believe perfectly parallels with the seaside themes.
Runner-Up:
Of course Final Fantasy VIII is here! During the era when Squaresoft cared more about cut scenes than game play, the JRPG factory certainly pulled out all the stops to produce this short film. While certainly magnificent, after getting revved up by the intro the game unfortunately slows down to a halt and leads to one of the most boring Final Fantasy starts I can remember. I wonder if Asians still love these characters?
Favourite Regular Battle Music:
All EarthBound! They had different songs of different genres based on what kind of enemy you bumped into.
Techno:
Favourite Regular Battle Music:
All EarthBound! They had different songs of different genres based on what kind of enemy you bumped into.
Techno:
Jazz:
Reggae:
Salsa:
GO PLAY THIS GAME!
Agreed with the Square cinematics > gameplay comment, sad but true.
ReplyDeleteMy FF fanboyness that I've been trying to smother (while it sleeps) is disappointed that there isn't too much FF stuff. However, Chrono Cross is great. I have the soundtrack if you'd like...or is it Chrono Trigger...I forget =P
Both Chrono Trigger and Cross have amazing soundtracks, but the violin they based the soundtrack on in Cross really makes it special.
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