Game Music 2: Beyond Thunderdome

Games
605

A lot of the recent and upcoming match-ups are notable for the similarity of the contestants. That is definitely NOT the case for Nex Machina/Hollow Knight! And that’s what’s making it so agonizing. Nex Machina is a monster tune. As intricate as it is exhilarating, and managing both those things at every turn. And it has some great turns, though the pulse of that bass drum always comes back, pushing, squeezing you along like blood through arteries, always alive.

Hollow Knight is just as alive, but in a totally different way. It’s soft and organic. Lush. It’s not trying to win you over or carry you away. It lulls you, gets you nostalgic, hypnotizes you. The opening melody on the viola (I think–correct me if I’m wrong), chased along languidly by the clarinet, is pleasant but not entirely comforting. Eventually it disappears, like an animal in the jungle undergrowth, and we’re left with dappled glockenspiels and harp sweeps flickering like light through trees, the melody occasionally peeking its head above the greenery before it disappears again. Video games don’t often have music like this, so sensitively pitched, so warm (but not sunny), so subtle as to be insidious. I think for that reason, I have to go with Hollow Knight.

Outcast is a soundtrack I’ve adored since it was released, so this is a much easier choice to me. A few things I love about the Shamazaar theme: It feels like it uses the whole orchestra—flutes, horns, clarinet, percussion… they all get their moment. If you stripped any of them away, the composition would be much poorer for it. Secondly, while there are now a lot of games that employ a choir in their score (see Freedom Fighters and Deus Ex, in our current crop), I feel like Outcast employs the choir with much more restraint than most. The last thing I love: That crescendo at 2:10.

Terra’s Theme from Final Fantasy IV is classic video game music: A call to adventure, with marching drums, perfect for accompanying a trek across a sprawling world map. It has a rousing and charming flute melody floating over synthetic strings and that ever-present snare drum. But there’s also a fascinating “bloop” sound bubbling along, matching the rhythm of the snare, that sounds like the essence of video games. The track says: Come into this digital world and play. There’s a lot to explore.

Outcast is an easy pick for me here. But I enjoyed listening to all of these a few times through for this round of voting.

606

I would Like the crap out of your post if I could Nightgaunt; beautifully put.

607

Agreed! That is a fantastic exploration of a lot of elements that contributed to how I’ve enjoyed all these pieces, but couldn’t pinpoint like that.

608

It seems to be a cello played in the upper register. Viola doesn’t have that kind of sound projection. Acoustically, the body is too small for it’s range; practically, one can’t hold anything much bigger and thicker on one’s shoulder.

609

I bet you’re right!

I’ve been hoping you would chime in on some of these pieces, Shimarenda! I could tell from this and your earlier comments that you actually know what you’re talking about on a technical level, unlike me.

@krayzkrok, too!

Glad you enjoyed what I wrote, @Thraeg and @geggis.

(P.S., Is it me, or is Thraeg & Geggis like an orkish comedy troupe or something?)

610

Frozen Synapse and Deus Ex: HR advance.

611

Thraeg doesn’t know this but I’ve done a lot of nodding reading his posts over the years (more than most) so I do feel like I’m on a similar wavelength to him at times. That said, I’m not a big fan of metal so… maybe that difference could be our shtick?

612

Match 27

@ArmandoPenblade: Furi - You’re Mine (by Carpenter Brut)

vs.

https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/233374-superbrothers-sword-sworcery-ep-ipad-front-cover.jpg

@geggis: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP - The Prettiest Weed (By Jim Guthrie)

  • Furi

  • Sword & Sworcery

0 voters

Match 28

http://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/274842-frozen-synapse-android-front-cover.png

@Soren_Hoglund: Frozen Synapse - A Functioning God (by Nervous Testpilot)

vs.

http://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/325606-deus-ex-human-revolution-playstation-3-front-cover.jpg

@soondifferent: Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Icarus (Composed by Michael McCann)

  • Frozen Synapse

  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution

0 voters

613

Furi starts out at what feels like an unsafe speed. If the beat’s not enough to hijack your pulse, the long buzzing bass notes will force the air out of your lungs. But a minute in, you think maybe you’ve gotten the hang of it. The melody is smooth, the bass calms down a bit and adopts a friendly funk, and you think you can ride this rollercoaster. It’s going to get scary again–dark and dissonant. Which is a feeling that is going to get undone once again, by a soaring synth-guitar solo. Up and down, smooth then jagged, but never slowing… until in the last few seconds it breaks down, just to mess with you one last time. I really found this rewarded repeated listens because of all the different directions it swerves on you. Grew on me a lot.

Jim Guthrie’s Superbrothers track drops most of its surprises on you in the opening seconds: A baroque piano figure paves the way for its synthetic twin (fraternal). Maybe, you muse, this is a bit of Vangelis-esque electro-classica— WOAH those drums! Did John Bonham just enter the building? No, it’s just the trademark Jim Guthrie beats, with debt owed and paid to the sainted Bonham. They’re bombastic, dominating. The fills are more distinctive and in-your-face than any melody the piece might feign toward. It’s not the music you expect accompanying pixel art–it’s not beeping, jittery chiptunes. It’s future-rock applied in heaps onto a cold but lush fantasy world. Like the game, it is sui generis, gonzo in all the right ways, if you like that sort of thing. (I do, a lot!)

Frozen Synapse v Deus Ex is dystopia vs. dystopia. Frozen Synapse wants you to know it can be an occasionally pretty dystopia–with a classically inflected piano melody inviting you in. When it’s succeeded by a string melody, you’re less charmed and more unsettled. The piece goes on to remind you of the capacious loneliness of the hyper-capitalist future it heralds. When the piano returns, loneliness is all it stands for. It glitches into nothingness at the end. Welcome to your lonely, decaying future.

Deus Ex is happy to paint with a broader brush than the others in this round. This big brush (to squeeze the metaphor further) moves slowly but drops oceans of paint, bleeding out across a canvas whose edges you can’t even perceive. The washes of sound become ambient even while they are intense. The voice, with its ambiguous (to me) ethnic flavor, is like your life raft as all these sounds flood around you. Sometimes it cuts through it all slickly, with steely focus. Sometimes it gets lifted up by a cresting wave and multiple voices call out, all but out of control. This track seems the most manipulative of them all; once it gets going, you have almost no room to think. I think I prefer Frozen Synapse for its variety, but there’s no denying the power here.

(I think your kind words might have gone to my head, guys. I feel like I was a bit more florid this time than last. My apologies if so. These are fun to write, though!)

614

Nightgaunt: the Lester Bangs of the 'dome

615

Haha, I could hear you cracking your knuckles before starting that!

Yeah, I wasn’t keen on this early on but, damn, I’m glad it went through because it’s grown on me so much. The bass always satisfies though.

Two dystopian tracks, node to node!

616

At this point, voting is killing me on these tunes. They are all so good that I feel like I’m deciding which child to throw out of the raft so that one can live in the end.

617

Although I voted against it, I do miss having a tune like Cuphead still in the mix. It would be nice to have something a little less self-serious!

618

Match 28 is probably the hardest yet for me.

619

Yeah I feel exactly the same, and I nearly voted against it :-) I appreciate variety though and feel this 'dome has been a lot more Serious than the last overall.

620

Nex Machina and Outcast advance.

621

Heh, thanks :). On the other hand, has anyone ever seen us in the same room together…?

624

I voted for the Deus Ex HR track because I thought the Frozen Synapse one, though it has a strong main theme, kind of loses its way melodically in the middle, and melody is everything to me.

626

Hey look at me contribute. So fair warning; the criticism, it burns! I’m going to be tersely merciless. Mercilessly terse? This doesn’t mean i think any the following are bad.

Frozen Synapse sounds like watching electrons racing down a hacker’s code into the cyberfuture.

Deus Ex has that generic Pretend Film Score sound that Two Steps from Hell does better, because apparently epic shenanigans are afoot at the Cybercircle K.

You can’t go too wrong with Carpenter Brut, except that like music at raves often do, it all blends together. I haven’t played Furi so i don’t know if the track fits the game. We all know Brut Knows Retro.

Jim Guthrie’s track is the storm you drove through on your way home for the last time, the first or last date, the moment of change.

627

A really boring storm.

I really don’t like that S&S track. Forgettable.