Taro Omiya

Taro Omiya

Software Engineer, Game Designer

  • #WeeklyGameMusic: Prime #4507 (Echochrome II)

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    Taro Omiya
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    This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic may sound like generic elevator music, but is actually a world record holder. That’s right, we’re talking about the single longest video game track ever composed (as of this writing, year 2020, according to Guinness World Records), Prime #4507. This whopping 75-minutes long piece was composed by Hideki Sakamoto for the mind-bending puzzler, Echochrome II; a game developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) Japan Studio.

    Echochrome II is a puzzle game where one uses the motion controls to move the light source and create a shadow path from a bizarrely arranged array of toy blocks for the artist mannequin, cast, to travel across. Depending on the angle, some blocks reveal interactive puzzle elements, including springs, holes, tunnels, and of course, the goal of the level. Much like the predecessor, the player has little control over how the cast moves, aside from making it stop and change directions; instead, much of the puzzle solving comes from the cast’s environment.

    Echochrome II was released on the PlayStation 3. No other ports exists, as of this writing; though presumably, it can be purchased online from the Sony online store like other past Playstation titles for the modern console. As a complete aside, number 4507 is, indeed, a prime number.

    Read more: #WeeklyGameMusic: Prime #4507 (Echochrome II)

  • #WeeklyGameMusic: Skate Park Shuffle (Create)

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    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

    Read more: #WeeklyGameMusic: Skate Park Shuffle (Create)

  • #WeeklyGameMusic: Colors (Guilty Gear Strive)

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    Finally, we cover heavy metal in this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic with Arc System Works’ upcoming fighting game, Guilty Gear Strive. Composed by Daisuke Ishiwatari and performed by Naoki Hashimoto, this admittedly Engrish song manages to capture the goofy and chaotic fighting style resident Guilty Gear surgeon, Faust has. Despite it’s brash and dark beginning, it’s a remarkably sympathetic piece that does a decent job of summarizing Faust’s character arc throughout the game series.

    As a long-running series, Guilty Gear Strive has quite a long backstory to cover. To summarize as best as this writer can, Guilty Gear‘s universe exists into the far future where scientists have already discovered…magic. As one would expect of such incredible power, it ends up being used by the military to create “Gears:” biological weapons that takes a humanoid shape. Naturally, the robo-I mean, Gears overlord starts becoming self-conscious and takes down humanity. By the time Strive begins, much of the war between Gears and humans have passed, and a brief period of peace has been achieved. But the main ensemble of mostly-human characters hears the news that the original creator of Gears, Asuka, has turned himself in. Suspecting this is another part of his foul schemes, the cast gears-up for action.

    Guilty Gear Strive is a classic 1 vs 1, combo-based fighting game, similar to Street Fighter series and the like. Just choose one of your favorite characters, each with their own unique moveset, and dish it out with another player or AI. Unique to the series is the game’s stark art style: at first glance, one could mistake it for a well-animated 2D Japanese animation. In fact, the game is completely in 3D, including the characters. Lastly, Strive is planned to streamline many of the complications born from added features in prior titles, thus hopefully creating a more beginner-friendly control scheme.

    As of this writing, Guilty Gear Strive is still in development. It’s planned to be released on Playstation 4, 5, and PC via Steam.

    Read more: #WeeklyGameMusic: Colors (Guilty Gear Strive)

  • #WeeklyGameMusic: Undertale (Undertale)

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    This theme needs no introduction: it’s Undertale by Tobi Fox. This particular piece of music is a bit of a stand-out for #WeeklyGameMusic, given its clear story-driven composition. The gradual crescendo in this theme helps build up to the final moments of your character journey.

    Undertale starts with a bit of a legend: long ago, after a war broke out between the monsters and the humans, the monsters lost and ended up hiding under a deep cave. The two specious never encountered each other again. There’s still a hole, however, that humans sometimes accidentally stumble upon, and as luck may have it, today’s lucky winner to fall into said hole is you, the player!

    Advertising itself like an old-school JRPG, Undertale utilizes a turn-based battle system when fighting against random encounters. Unlike old-school JRPGs, the battles plays out more like a visual novel where the player negotiates with the monsters. Monsters can attack via a shoot’em-up-like play-field where the player must dodge the bullets being fired. Ultimately, the player can choose to kill or befriend the monsters they encounter, with the latter concluding the fight peacefully. Naturally, the narrative updates itself to take these information into account in subtle ways.

    Undertale is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam.

    Read more: #WeeklyGameMusic: Undertale (Undertale)

  • #WeeklyGameMusic: Mamazon (Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada)

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    This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic, to be honest, leaves me more baffled than I can ever describe. Here’s Mamazon‘s theme, composed by Hirofumi Taniguchi from the very meta mobile game, Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada. And yes, for those listening to it now, I, too, have no idea what’s going on. But it sure sounds special!

    True to the Onion Games brand, Dandy Dungeon is a bizarre and at moments, creepy game featuring a 30-something programmer developing a game in only his underwear. In a prior life of just-yesterday, Yamada skipped over going to work to instead delve into his own pet project just a bit longer. The very next day, he’s fired. He takes his self-fulfilling prophecy newfound freedom to go right on ahead to finish his dungeon crawler game, and asks you, the player, to beta test it.

    Dandy Dungeon is a rogue-like, touch-based RPG where the player traces a path for the hero (who else?), Yamada, to defeat monsters, collect treasure, and exit the floor. While the gameplay itself is nothing to write home about, it’s the bizarre nature of real life and fantasy slowly blending into each other that defines this game’s quirkiness. For example, the “princess” virtual Yamada is rescuing in-game is none other than Yamada prime’s next door neighbor. The great evil boss is none other than the same manager who fired Yamada prime. And despite the virtual game’s fantasy, the very-final-dungeon looks eerily similar to Yamada’s old office.

    Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada was originally released for iOS. It’s now available for Nintendo Switch, PC, and Mac via Steam.

    Read more: #WeeklyGameMusic: Mamazon (Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada)

  • #WeeklyGameMusic: A Quick Break (Cuphead)

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    Ready for a hard-to-find tune in a hard-to-play game? This week’s WeeklyGameMusic has you covered with A Quick Break by Kristofer Maddigan from the indie game classic, Cuphead. This acapella piece from Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc.’s debut title encourages the player to…put the game down. Huh. Interesting.

    Cuphead‘s story takes the 30’s animation approach of starting awfully dark. Our titular character, Cuphead, and his brother, Mugman, goes off one day to do what all kids love to do: gamble. Well, OK, neither kids nor adults should gamble, and to really drive home that lesson, the devil himself raised a deal with the pair that should they lose the next game, he’ll be taking their souls. Not being the brightest lightbulb in the Christmas tree, Cuphead gleefully accepts this deal, and promptly finds himself losing the very next game. Begging for forgiveness, the pair makes a deal with the Devil (which, again, this blog does not endorse doing) where they need to collect all the soul contracts out there on Inkwell Isles before the end of the day.

    Cuphead is a action-platformer in the same vein as the Megaman series. Both Cuphead and Mugman runs, jumps, and fires bullets from their fingers to fight against a wide cast of bosses and levels. Unique to this game is the counter mechanic: an aerial attack that defuses projectiles of a specific color, and regenerates the pair’s special-attack. That said, much of the accolade this game has revolves around it’s animation quality, and its utterly-uncompromising difficulty.

    Cuphead was released for Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, and Mac via Steam.

    Read more: #WeeklyGameMusic: A Quick Break (Cuphead)