Music Monday: Shnabubula's NES JAMS

I listen to a lot of fan remixes and arrangements, especially those coming out of Overclocked Remix, but there aren't a great deal of remix artists that I actually recognize by name. "Shnabubula" (Samuel Ascher-Weiss) is a name I knew I had seen a lot of, but I didn't really know his style or works from the name alone. After discovering his latest solo album, NES JAMS, however -- I'll be paying a lot more attention.

NES JAMS is a combination piano and chiptune collection, presenting creative interpretations of music from classic NES games like Double Dragon, Zelda, Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Castlevania, to name a few. While there are a range of tones and styles at work, it generally hugs pretty closely to jazz and progressive ideals with an impressively frantic energy. I love it. I feel like this album was made for me.

The whole thing can be enjoyed, for free, on the album's release page, or it can by purchased for download at whatever price and format one chooses (I'm not sure if there is even a set minimum).

Music Monday: Lindsey Stirling's Zelda Medley

I didn't have anything in particular planned for this week, but I thought I should take a moment to point out a little something, just in case anybody missed it until now (hey, you never know).

Any Zelda maniacs out there have probably caught this at one point or another -- and if you haven't, shame on you!

Music Monday: Solstice

Today, for the first time, I heard the title theme from the 1990 NES game Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos, My jaw dropped. It couldn't believe this was music from an actual NES game -- I mean, it's clearly made up of the sorts of sounds and instruments an NES is capable of producing, but stylistically speaking it doesn't even sound like something created for a video game. This is a stimulating, dynamic piece that I'd expect to hear from a progressive rock band -- not the title screen of a little-known puzzle-adventure on the Nintendo.

Why have I never heard of this piece, until now? Why have I never heard of this amazing composer, Tim Follin? I only stumbled upon this track by chance, catching an old November 2010 episode of The Legacy Music Hour about experimental game music. I almost feel embarrassed for being completely oblivious about this music until now. I actually thought I probably knew most of the good stuff out there, at least as far as retro gaming was concerned -- and now, the rug has been swept out from under me. What other marvels are out there, which I have yet to discover?

Title: Title Theme
Game: Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos (released 1990, NES)
Composer: Tim Follin

Music Monday: Clockwork

Okay, let's make this short and sweet. This week, we've got a great track from Akumajou Dracula Tribute Vol. 1, a 2011 arrange album of music from throughout the Castlevania series.

Arrangements of Castlevania music really run the gamut from incredible to terrible, but perhaps that's only because there's such a wealth of it out there, and it's been done in just about every style one could hope for.

Anyway, this one's from the NES classic, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. Enjoy!

Title: Clockwork
Game: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (released in September 1990 for NES in North America)
Album: Akumajou Dracula Tribute, Vol. 1
Arranged by Aki Hata

Music Monday: Dajil

It's odd, how I often hear talk about what an incredible epic Xenogears was back in the Playstation era -- and how full of marvelous character Yasunori Mitsuda's soundtrack was in 1998 -- yet, rarely do I ever hear mention of Creid, its excellent arrange album. Perhaps only a scant few have ever heard of it, or maybe it just doesn't resonate with many folks as much as it does with me. However, rarely does a return to a classic, well-known soundtrack result in an album that expounds, expands, and explores the original material quite so colorfully as Creid.

Title: Dajil
Game: Xenogears (released 1998, Playstation)
Album: Creid
Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda

Music Monday: Iron Fossil

Why does so much remarkable music come from games I have no access to whatsoever?

Dariusburst Another Chronicle is a recent arcade title in a series of Japanese horizontal shooters. While the Darius series has been around since as early as 1986 and spanned multiple gaming systems, it doesn't seem to have ever made any big waves among the gaming community at large.

Dariusburst's OST is made up of the Photosynthesis Suite (or Suite Photoconductivity, depending on translation) -- a dynamic, six-movement flow of tracks which blend into each other and centres on the wordless voice of singer REMI. I have no idea if the in-game music melds into these different movements as seemlessly as on the disc, but it's not unthinkable, and would make for a rare and interesting experience.

Title: Iron Fossil
Game: Dariusburst Another Chronicle (arcade, released December 2010 in Japan)
Composed by Shohei Tsuchiya

Music Monday: Ovelia's Worries

This week's piece was selected for a few different reasons:

1) Hitoshi Sakimoto's unforgettable music in Final Fantasy Tactics has never received a "piano collections" album (or any additional attention outside the OST, actually). I still remember the first time I played FFT on the Playstation, and having two distinct feelings: first, that the game was way more complex and difficult than any FF game I'd handled before -- and second, that the music matched this sophistication. The gameplay refused to dumb itself down for those who couldn't survive the trial-by-fire of its intricate, strategy-based battles -- and indeed, it wouldn't think twice about leaving stragglers behind. The music served meritably as a reward in and of itself for those who kept up.

2) The featured piece, Ovelia's Worries, is just one of a handful of piano arrangements by Casey Ormond. His YouTube channel hosts a variety of game music that he's adapted for piano, and it's worth listening to as well. Ormond has proven himself as not only a skilled performer, but someone who can rewrite a piece, add his own touches and decorations, and expand on the source material in a fitting manner.

3) Ormond's talents haven't only garnered the admiration of fans. Thanks to his proven skills, he was hired to rework more of Sakimoto's music in an official capacity, through the Valkyria Chronicles: Piano Pieces album. I'll definitely be grabbing this one soon -- apparently it's available on the US iTunes store (though not on the Canadian store, so I'm still figuring out what I need to do to access it).

Title: Ovelia's Worries

Game: Final Fantasy Tactics (released January 1998, North America)

Originally Composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto

Arranged by Casey Ormond

Music Monday: Unknown World

Dragon Quest (originally known as Dragon Warrior in North America), is one of the first RPGs I ever had contact with. I may have played the original Final Fantasy at around the same time, but its abstruse rules and systems proved too esoteric for a kid who was used to Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. Dragon Quest introduced my tiny brain to the most basic of the basics, and held my hand the whole way: the game was a free bonus with a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine, and it came included with a full guidebook, dungeon and world maps, level chart, and bestiary, among other embellishments. Looking back, the game's setting was a laughably small world by today's standards, and the battle system was so shallow as to stamp out any depth of strategy. Still, at the time, it was accessible enough that it made me appreciate -- and completely buy into -- the epic, fantasy adventure it was trying to be.

True story: I was walking around the mall downtown once, and a random stranger started whistling the overworld theme to Dragon Quest. I was probably the only person around for miles who would have recognized the tune, but given that this would have been at least 10 or 15 years after the game came out, it seems I was not the only one this game made a lasting impression on.

Title: Unknown World
Album: Dragon Quest 1 & 2 Symphonic Suite
Game: Dragon Quest (released as Dragon Warrior in North America, August 1989)
Composed by Koichi Sugiyama

Music Monday: Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Run

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is out tomorrow, and I'm probably more stoked for this game than anyone has a right to be -- especially considering how disappointed I was with its predecessor. The game wasn't completely terrible, but it lacked the variety and depth of features that fans of the series have come to expect. Without going into details, it was a matter of style over substance. While the sequel promises to iron out nearly every gameplay flaw the original suffered from, one area that didn't need a drastic overhaul was the excellent music. Thankfully, XIII-2's soundtrack is no slouch.

Title: Run
Game: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Composed by: Naoshi Mizuta

Music Monday: Nier - Ashes of Dreams / New

Nier is one of those games I haven't gotten around to trying -- and perhaps never will, if I listen to the less-than-flattering reviews it's earned -- but it just looks so damned quirky and interesting that I'll always be curious about it. Supposedly, it's made up of interesting enough parts -- solid story and characters, varied level design, multiple endings -- but the whole experience overall is often agreed upon as being monotonous and not cohesive enough to warrant any recommendations.

It seems almost a shame, then, that such a dubious and overlooked title is blessed with such stellar music. Nier's soundtrack features beautifully-written themes and variations, and a refreshingly unique prominence of vocals -- the highlight of it all being the melancholic voice of singer Emi Evans.

One of the main themes, Ashes of Dreams, illustrates how impressively different the music is from what one might expect to hear in a video game. I'm not sure how this piece is used within the context of the game, but the tone seems far too ambiguous and arresting to be content hovering in the background. Emi's voice and annunciation demands one's full attention -- and I think if I were playing Nier and this song began playing, the rest of the game might have to take a back seat.

Music Monday: The Last Story - Toberu Mono (Instrumental)

Title: Toberu Mono (Instrumental)
Game: The Last Story (released 2011 in Japan, no North American release currently planned)
Composer: Nobuo Uematsu


For many, Nobuo Uematsu is synonymous with classic video game music. He penned the score for every Final Fantasy game from I to IX (and also contributed to X and XI), as well as popular favorite Chrono Trigger. In the heyday of the NES and SNES, video game soundtracks were severely limited by the hardware. Music wasn't just written, but programmed. There were no orchestras, nor live recordings, nor spoken dialogue. The system had to load and execute the music programming just like any other part of the game, and no more than a handful of digital "instruments" could be playing at any one time. It took a lot of creativity to get the most out of a system's sound chip, and the quality of a game's music hinged upon the composer's ability to craft an evocative and memorable melody which defied technological constrictions. Uematsu's work was widely regarded as some of the best that games had to offer -- and even among those who have long since given up on Final Fantasy, or RPGs in general, Uematsu's melodies still trigger feelings of nostalgia and reverence.

 As the video game industry grew into the monstrous entity it is today, demands for increased budgets and more cinematic approaches to music took over. While one can't really argue that this has been a bad thing overall, it has shifted emphasis away from that mother of invention who demanded stirring melodies above all else. A lot of modern soundtracks seek to lend background mood or atmosphere and tension to specific scenarios or dialogue scenes, when they aren't licensing popular music from outside of gaming entirely. As a result, some of today's music -- while enjoyable within the context of play -- may not leave a lasting impression once the game is shut off.

Toberu Mono, the main theme of Japanese RPG The Last Story, recalls the tradition of unforgettable melody. Hearing it is like being transported back to 1994 -- a sort of alternate-reality 1994 in which game composers had all the resources and sophistication they take for granted today. This piece would feel right at home in a 16-bit game like Final Fantasy VI. From the gentle winds of the opening moments to the brassy flourish of the triumphant anthem at its conclusion, it's clear that Uematsu hasn't lost sight of the magic which captivated a generation.