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Castle Paradox
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Moogle1
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 Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:17 am Post subject: |
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That's a good movie score. A good game score is one where the music is essential to the game. Think about Mega Man 2's music. It defined the game. The music is excellent independently from the game.
Now think of the most memorable movie soundtrack you can think of. Can you think of more than two tunes from it?
For a better example, Final Fantasy XII is the first game to go without Uematsu*. The only songs I can remember from the game, though, are Uematsu songs. It just doesn't have nearly as good a soundtrack.
* I'm not sure about FFXI, but I don't consider it part of the series proper.
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Last edited by Moogle1 on Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Newbie_Power
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:21 am Post subject: |
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I'm no expert in music, but I think the intro lasts about as long as the random battles in your game tend to, so that's what the player is going to be listening to most of the time.
EDIT: And didn't FFX-2 go without Uematsu as well? I could be wrong though, since I didn't actually see much of the game, but did hear its music before.
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Artimus Bena
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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My personal opinion is that in order for a game soundtrack to be considered 'good', it has to be appropriate to the style of game and director's vision. Not always memorable.
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Moogle1
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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Games don't have directors -- you're still thinking movies. And last I checked, "forgettable" is pretty universally a bad thing.
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Artimus Bena
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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Haha. Um. Games do have directors.
And the second thing you said is completely subjective. Besides that, I never said forgettable was good. I said 'not always memorable' might be better for the experience, depending on the game. Which is again, subjective.
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Moogle1
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Wikipedia wrote: | | Also, the division in labor for video game development is far different. For example, Japanese game design teams had a dedicated designer, (which they called a "director") far earlier than American design teams adopted the practice. Yet it was clear that even with this centralized design process level designers and character designers were given a lot of leeway to work within their boundaries as much as possible. For example, almost every level in Super Mario Bros. 3 has new gameplay concepts within it. |
There is a position called "director," but it's not the same thing.
| Bena wrote: | | I said 'not always memorable' might be better for the experience, depending on the game. Which is again, subjective. |
What's subjective? The experience? Perhaps. What game, in your (subjective) opinion, has the best music? I'm going to guess that you're going to name something with (surprise) memorable music. In fact, I'm certain you will, since you wouldn't remember the music otherwise.
In the Old Days of video games, music was the most effective way to set the mood. While movies could present realistic settings, actors' faces, and their spoken, inflected dialogue, games had little but text and relatively crude graphics. Music didn't support the mood, music told you what the mood was.
This may be decreasingly true of the video game industry at large, but it still applies to OHR games.
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Artimus Bena
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 1:07 pm Post subject: |
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Still depends on the game, and the developers. Orchie's Missing, for instance. It was better to go with mood music most of the time that supported the game, than to make memorable themes.
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TwinHamster
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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It actually depends on whether you're trying to make an interactive-movie or a game.
Then again, some games manage to come up with mood-setting songs that are also memorable.
*na naa na na na na na na na na na na na na naa!*
Wait, is a song that gets stuck in your head the same as being memorable? |
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Meatballsub
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Artimus Bena wrote: | The presence of the harp is fine, so long as that's the feeling you want to go for. As for it not changing much, well, sure you could put some variation in, but you also have to consider that although this song will loop a lot, the player will also be concentrated on winning battles, and not whether the harp part varies.
Overall, I think you've improved it vastly. I like the last version's brass section a lot, although you could try moving it even further out of the note range that it stays in the whole song. If anything gets on someone's nerves eventually, it'll be that. Just to test this, I've listened to this song for 20 minutes straight now.
The drum buildup at the end goes a little fast for any normal person to accomplish. It's a style thing, but I'd cut the amount of drum hits there in half, and probably insert a bass drum hit every other snare hit.
I'd say you could definitely improve it, but it is great as it is. And remember to trust your instincts like a good jedi; don't listen to everything we say. |
The bass drum hits are there, but I guess it is being covered up by the amount of snare hits. Why wouldn't that speed be possible? It is about the same speed as a drum roll... I still might change it though.
I am working on (hopefully) one of the final revisions right now. I should have it up within a few hours.
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Artimus Bena
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Meatballsub
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Artimus Bena
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Moogle1
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm, somewhere in the works this has made the transition from BATTLE MUSIC to HERO THEME. That's not a bad thing, just an observation. You could use it either way.
The harp is better, but it still feels off sometimes. Listen specifically to the harp and ask yourself if it feels right.
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Meatballsub
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Calehay
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Moogle1 wrote: | | That's a good movie score. A good game score is one where the music is essential to the game. Think about Mega Man 2's music. It defined the game. The music is excellent independently from the game. |
A good movie score is one that's essential to the movie, as well. It all has to work in tandem or the entire effect is destroyed and there's not point in having music in the first place.
There is a breed of composers that seem to take over (John Williams comes to mind.) but the thing that I'm trying to get at is that, even though these scores have a life outside of the movie, they don't get in the way when they are *in* the movie. If a score, video game or not, gets in the way by drawing too much attention to itself, then you've ruined the experience for the audience. I never said that the music has to be bad. Uematsu, Yuukichan's Papa, and Williams all have come to find the perfect balance of a good score that's inobtrusive.
Of course, with game music, (or at least old retro game music) there's a bit more leeway than a movie. Since you don't have to worry about covering up as many things, the music can take a bit more prominence, but not much. I really do think that, in terms of either a movie or a game, the audience should never really be forced think about the music, it should just be there. I hasten to add that the fact that it is there makes everything more heightened.
I think the worst movie score ever is Fred Katz score for "Little Shop of Horrors" (the original Roger Corman film, not the musical.) The entire thing sounds like a beginning composer's counterpoint exercises threw up on a marching band. It's not only that the music isn't well written, but it's also very concious of itself. It rarely fits the mood of the movie, and even when it does, it sounds like the score is trying to upstage the action on screen. This makes it very uneffective. (The rest of the movie, however, is absolutely hilarious, so I force myself to deal with it.)
Another bad score is Trevor ____'s score to "The Mighty." However, the music isn't bad in itself, but it just doesn't fit the mood at all. Maybe I'm a little biased because I heard a completely different type of score while I was reading the book, but it still stands that, even though the music is good, Trevor _____ wasn't able to find the ability to make everything gel like it was supposed to. I could hum you many things from that score, but it still would be that I didn't think it worked well in the movie. It's another score that's concious of itself, but in a different way than Katz's score.
One game that I think had a good score was The Last Express. Though I am cheating a bit because that game was so cinematically based, there's still a lot of "game music" aspects to the score. I don't find very much of it to be "memorable," but what I do remember was how the music heightened the experience of game. In particular, one scene comes to mind where *spoiler* Robert Cath *seemingly* wakes up in the middle of the night. You go outside, but if you try to go to another compartment of the train, you always end up in front of your door, and you're forced to open it to go through a nightmare sequence. *end spoiler* The music there is excellent and really helps the unease of that scene. Could I hum it for you right now? No. But what I remember is that everything worked in tandem very well.
One thing that is true of games is that music takes so much prominence because much less things are happening than in a movie. Perhaps you're running in a field, and you're looking at graphics, but that's really it, while in a movie, you're watcing actors, recieving dialogue, cinematograhpy, sets, etc. So maybe there, it seems that music is taking a bigger role than it is, but it's still the bottom rung of the ladder. But the audience is allowed to see its prominence, and moments like this can work well. Think why everybody hums the Darth Vader theme as opposed to some obscure underscore in Star Wars? Final Fantasy X would still be a fun game without the music, but adding music by Nobuo Uematsu that's not only functional as a score, but well done, heightens our thoughts about Final Fantasy X as a whole. I mean, everyone will hum the Mario theme, but it doesn't stop them from making that tricky jump in world 8. People won't play games or watch movies to listen to music, they'll go to the concert hall for that. But when the music is good and it is allowed to take prominence, then people will think it's "memorable."
However, if the game wouldn't be good without the music, I don't think it's much of a game at all.
| Quote: | | In the Old Days of video games, music was the most effective way to set the mood. While movies could present realistic settings, actors' faces, and their spoken, inflected dialogue, games had little but text and relatively crude graphics. Music didn't support the mood, music told you what the mood was. |
This is true, but graphics and text helped a lot more than music. It's what was already there that music helped support. Again, it's the whole thing about less to absorb that heightens the music's importance.
| Quote: | | Still depends on the game, and the developers. Orchie's Missing, for instance. It was better to go with mood music most of the time that supported the game, than to make memorable themes. |
I don't think it's so much that you want film/game music (or any music, for that matter) to be "memorable" (which would really mean either ridiculously simple/catchy or grated into your brain with 60 reprises) but you want it to fit the mood well. If it is memorable, then that's a plus, but don't expect people to care about the music when they're having a heated action-packed battle with the boss. I didn't even notice what FF7's first Sephiroth battle music was until I heard it on the soundtrack and listened for it in the game. Or course, in RPGs, since there's so much non-user interactivity, the player gets even more chance to listen to the music there. That's why so many people talk about RPG music than say an action game.
I think this still would work better as a battle theme, but I'm hoping that you're planning on adding another section to it. It's going to be a bit repetitive. I think the harp has just gotten awkward, but it's an improvement from before. Though by getting rid of the harp at the end of the last phrase, it does create a bit of a hole in the orchestration, but not very big and it's easily forgivable. Maybe if you could find a way to tell us that the harp is going to drop out instead of just having it drop out, it would work a bit better.
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