#WeeklyGameMusic: Shinshu Fields (Okami)


For some more optimistic and energizing #WeeklyGameMusic, why not enjoy the fabulous track, Shinshu Fields, composed by Masami Ueda? If you couldn’t guess from the very Japanese instrumentals, this tune is indeed from the cult-hit Clover game, Okami, an epic tale of how the goddess of the sun saves feudal Japan from great evil.

Okami wastes almost no time, with the story immediately starting with the seal of great evil Orochi being broken by an unknown troublemaker. Almost instantly, Nippon (“Japan” in Japanese) gets enveloped by a swarm of monsters and evil spirits. With the country in peril, the guardian spirits summon the sun goddess, Amaterasu, to fight against the darkness. Taking on a form of a white wolf with awesome red highlights, Amaterasu immediately springs to action…by taking a nap. Deflated and out of energy, the guardian spirits expires, literally leaving the fate of the world to one lazy female dog. Thus begins a parody retelling of many Japanese folkstories — including Issun-Boushi, Hato no Ongaeshi, Hanasaku Jiisan, and more — all uncomfortably mashed together into a single world.

True to Platinum’s spirit (a game studio which many of the main players from the now-defunct Clover Studio founded), Okami is an action-adventure game not unlike the Legend of Zelda series, but with a much tighter action component. Like any JRPG, battles takes place in an enclosed space, though in real-time with button-timing playing a critical role in stringing combos. In the midst of battle, Amaterasu can use her brush power to literally pause the game and draw over it, thus conjuring up spells to aid in battle. The genius of this combat gimmick is that it also works outside of combat, as a way to solve puzzles in dungeons.

Okami was originally developed for the Playstation 2. It was ported on the Nintendo Wii and Switch, Playstation 3 and 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: To Catch an Owl (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)


Welp, this writer didn’t have a festive tune in their backlog of video game music, but this #WeeklyGameMusic, composed by James Hannigan comes close enough. To Catch an Owl is a video-game-original track for the book-to-movie-to-game adaptation, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, developed by EA UK. It’s a magical and celebratory tune fitting of the upcoming holidays, and manages to capture the movie soundtrack’s spirit.

Note: this writer does acknowledge the author of the Harry Potter series is notoriously transphobic. While the composer of this track is completely unrelated to J.K. Rowling, it should be stated that transphobia is immoral and wrong. This writer does not intend to promote such a position.

Within a few chapters of the fifth entry in the seven book (or eight movie) series, titular character Harry Potter and his non-magical cousin Dudley get attacked by the depression-inducing Dementors, well outside of the wizarding realm and within our realistic one. Thus setting the tone for what’s going to be a dark entry amongst the series, Harry uses magical spells Dudley can’t perceive to ward off the Dementors in self-defense. The problem? It’s illegal for an underage wizard student (which Harry himself is just into the fifth year of a seven year long career) to use magic in front of muggles, or normies by wizard lingo. This immediately kicks off a number of lawsuits Harry is forced to navigate, and while the ruling manages to fall into his favor, puts Harry into a legally precarious position as he enters Hogwarts wizarding school for the fifth year.

While story-wise, the video game adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix doesn’t stray from this story, it’s gameplay takes a much more interesting approach to the politically oppressive atmosphere the book presents. In short, Order of the Phoenix is an open-world game where players utilizes gestures on the right-stick of the controller to cast various spells. Said spells are used to handle various tasks given by minigames, or simple environmental puzzles to unlock new secrets in the labyrinthine Hogwarts. Exploration is key to both progressing the story and unlocking new abilities and upgrade to our hero as he navigates this magically dangerous place.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released for the (wait for it…) Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, PC, and Mac (phew!)

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Skate Park Shuffle (Create)


Regulars of #WeeklyGameMusic know I often find some rather obscure game music pretty often. Here’s one from a little-known sandbox game called Create, developed by EA Bright Light. That’s right, we’re checking out Electronic Arts game music this week! Ian Livingstone’s piece, Skate Park Shuffle, is a bit corporate at the beginning, but soon mellows out to a rather calming (and more interesting) conclusion.

A bit like the The Incredible Machine, the most game-like aspect of Create involves the player to use the items and tools available in the pre-made levels to push, nudge, and navigate an object from point A to point B. Much of these levels take place in the 2D plane to provide a simpler interface, though lanes of depth can be added like LittleBigPlanet. And of course, much like LittleBigPlanet, Create allowed players to create and share levels online, though as of this writing, the servers has long been shut down.

Create was released on PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, PC, and Mac. As far as this writer can tell, there does not appear to be a way to purchase the game online easily, but the official game page is available here: ea.com/games/create

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Credits (Metroid Prime)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music. Today’s track is an oldie, but timeless creepy-crawly…sci-fi tune, the Metroid Prime credits theme, composed by Kenji Yamamoto and Kouichi Kyuma. That’s right, we’re highlighting Retro Studios’ first release, the fantastic sci-fi first-person action-adventure game, Metroid Prime, published by Nintendo.

Where to begin with such a legendary game such as Metroid Prime? The mission starts with infamous bounty hunter, Samus Aran, investigating a seemingly decimated space laboratory that reveals that the evil Space Pirates has, once again, been experimenting with the deadly alien parasites, Metroids. True to the series roots, while Samus successfully destroys the laboratory to prevent further spread of specimens coming out of it, she loses all her upgraded space-suits with it, and needs to regain them from a neighboring planet that she once called home (or more like training ground, but that’s another story for another time). Unbeknownst to her, though, the Space Pirates had some tricks up in their space-sleeves…

Metroid Prime is renowned for successfully genre-shifting the retro-platformer to a first-person shooter, and still garner praise and support from fans of the older series. Despite some similarities, graphic-wise, to modern shooters, Metroid Prime doesn’t feel like a competitive shooter. Instead, the game has a strong emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving, with action occasionally sprinkled to even the game’s pacing. More often than not, the map is going to be your best tool: figuring out where to go next, and more importantly, how to get there defines the game’s core experience. Furthermore, to de-emphasize the action, Metroid Prime utilizes a lock-on mechanic akin to The Legend of Zelda series, making combat focus more on dodging attacks, rather than aiming. Finally, who can forget the scan-visor? It’s a lore-revealing tool that allows Samus to gather information on aliens, plants, data logs, power-ups, and more! This useful, but optional feature allows the player to organically piece together the scattered logs and events by themselves, revealing what has happened to the planet prior to Samus’ arrival.

Metroid Prime was originally released on Nintendo Gamecube. A remake of the entire Gamecube series, Metroid Prime: Trilogy, was also released on the Nintendo Wii, complete with motion-controlled aiming.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Main Menu (Epic Mickey)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

Now that love is over, it’s time to return to an old classic (made new (but is now old (this is so confusing))).  Epic Mickey could be described as Warren Spector’s darker remix to the classic Mickey cartoons, and its music follows suit.  James Dooley’s composition has such a classic Disney charm to it, yet manages to be more ominous than its inspiration.  A fitting re-arrangement to a game that looks at Mickey’s less kind, devious personality.

Epic Mickey‘s story is a simple one: darn old Mickey screws up big time when he fiddles around with Yen Sid’s beautiful sculpture that, itself, holds many denizens such as Oswald the lucky rabbit.  Out of pure curiosity, Mickey tries to create his own things using the magical brush, but instead creates a living monstrosity that tries to consume him.  Panicking, Mickey chucks paint thinner at it and flees before Yen Sid gets back.  Years later, and significantly more famous, Mickey completely forgets about the incident until Blot, the monstrosity, manages to take Mickey while he’s asleep into the demented world named Wasteland.

Epic Mickey is a 3D platformer that revolves around an unusual tool and weapon.  Mickey’s paintbrush can throw both paint and thinner, something that he uses to both construct and destruct the world around him.  This proves to be important when Mickey needs to construct new platforms, or break down a wall that’s in the way.  The paintbrush can also be used for combat, with paint turning enemies to allies, and thinner practically destroying them.  Much of the morality plays around which type of tool you prefer to use, and as a result, a few story elements may change on your play habits.

Epic Mickey was original developed for the Wii.  No other ports exist.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: It’s Kill or Be Killed Mix (No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

“No more heroes, it’s kill or be killed” describes No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle pretty darn well in this red hot chili pepper theme music. Indeed, Yoshioka Taku Squad’s remix of Masafumi Takada’s original composition does an excellent job satirizing the excitement of violent medium…when the same actions replicated in real life is so revolting. Much like the music, Suda51’s sequel to a Wii cult classic makes yet another careful observation of violence in media, criticizing their effects to sick minds.

Remember Viewtiful Joe? In that game, Joe was a loser that gets put in a world that makes him awesome. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle takes a different approach: Travis Touchdown is a loser nerd who assassinates people in an otherwise boring world to make himself feel awesome. So no surprise then, when a completely forgettable character in the first game, Travis’ best friend Bishop Shidux, gets killed and have his head delivered through Travis’ window. Utterly shocked, Travis pounces on the assassination top ranking, starting at position 51, on a revenge mission against the top-ranked assassin and Bishop’s murderer.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is a rare breed of video games called magical realism, where spouts of assassination missions and boss battles are divided by mundane and pixelated day jobs. Day jobs help Travis make money to enter himself to the next ranking mission, while the heart of the game lies in the boss battles. Using his trusty beam katanas, Travis can unleash long combos and occasional special attack in a beat ’em up control style. Every once in a while, the katanas losses its power, requiring Travis to recharge them by shaking its handle. It’s a subtle symbolism when this happens, as Travis looks like he’s beating off to regain his energy to take on the intense, on-going battle.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle and its prequel, No More Heroes 2 were originally developed for the Wii. While the prequel has a Playstation 3 port, the sequel does not.

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