Kerman7's Blog - Jan to Mar 17 (10 followers)
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Feb22
On the importance of a soundtrackPermalink
Recently I have been immersed in an old JRPG called Lost Odyssey. It was free for some reason a while ago and I picked it up without much expectations, leaving it aside untouched for a while. I remember when it downloaded the one thing that struck me was the sheer size of it, which was huge for a 360 game.
Since I started playing it, I haven’t been able to put it down. The story it tells is immersive, with characters you get attached to, and meaningful cutscenes. The gameplay is gripping too, nothing ground-breaking, almost the opposite actually, but full of options and very well done. And then there is the soundtrack. Sometimes I just want to stay on the ‘press start’ screen just to listen to a relaxing and amazing tune.
It’s not very often that I can skip a travelling animation and choose not to, but in this game the soundtrack makes me enjoy everything that much more and immerses me in the experience. A few months ago Life Is Strange had a similar effect. I didn’t connect to the story that much, but the music that was supporting the game was very well thought out and appropriate, and made the experience for me.
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When choosing to buy a game, I don’t think many people look at the quality of the soundtrack as a criteria, however as far as the value it brings or the rating is deserves, I believe a game’s soundtrack is at least as important as the visuals.
I first realised how much soundtracks were important to me many years ago when I used to go to the cinema several times a week. Statistically I saw a lot of poor movies, but some were bearable or made better thanks to an amazing soundtrack. And I started collecting soundtracks to the point where those were the overwhelming majority of the CDs in my library.
Music is not optional but sets the mood of a scene and it is no different in a game. It is even more obvious when it is absent. When you play a game with no music, you feel something is missing. And when it is there, having the wrong music can be disastrous. Gears of War is an example for me of a very specific moment when music was well used. [Beware, potential spoiler] The moment when Dom gets in the truck and ‘Mad World’ plays. The music is what made that scene work.[/potential spoiler]
Soundtracks have evolved a lot since the beginning of games but one constant is its impact. There is a reason why themes like Mario’s have become iconic and so many people recognise them. Thinking about it, even something as simple as the ‘blip-blop’ of an achievement unlock, triggers emotions in many gamers.

Amongst my favourite soundtracks in games, I’ve come to realise Rockstar are pretty good at it. They understand the importance of a good music and Red Dead Redemption is a good example to start with. LA Noire had an original soundtrack of amazing quality too. And I could also name all GTA games in general, that have some pretty good radios for every taste and are always a good pick.
Probably my favourite of all time would be Outlaws from Lucasart however. This is an old PC game and the original western FPS. Now I could talk about how amazing it was, that the FPS genre never had a good western themed game before this one, or how fantastic the gameplay and humour was, but we are talking about the music here. Well let me tell you that the game’s CD-ROMs were also playable on a CD player; and mine got and still get played quite a lot. It says it all I reckon. Also, the composer's name was Clint. (Seriously, if you can grab that game somehow for any kind of money, go for it)
Otherwise games that come to mind when I think about music are Wet, which has a great soundtrack that I recommend to anyone not opposed to some good old rockabilly songs. And The Saboteur, for those who love good old and jazzy types. Of course I could also name Guitar Hero (mainly World Tour and 5), but that's a bit cheating since they are music games.

Visuals often take too much importance in discussions when I think sound should be treated just the same.
If reviewers and ‘experts’ talk so much about frames per second and resolution, why not talk about sample per second and frequency too? Actually, all the technical bit doesn’t matter, it’s how we feel that counts.
And I love a good soundtrack.

Ker
Posted by Kerman7 on 22 February 17 at 13:33 | Last edited on 10 March 17 at 11:27 | There is 1 comment on this blog post - Please log in to comment on this blog.
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