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Kenogu Labz

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Posts posted by Kenogu Labz

    Best Classic Game Soundtracks -- VGMusic.com Analysis

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Kenogu Labz

    As someone who got his start at vgmusic.com (and someone who you can directly blame for 33 of those 190 Mega Man X MIDI files skewing the statistics here), I found this very interesting and am glad you put that together. I do agree that doing a similar analysis with stuff from other sites would be cool too, albeit not nearly as easy.

    Also, Twilight Princess scoring so high was a surprise. I mean, obvious love for Zelda, but TP in particular, over LttP at that?

    Let's be fair now; it wasn't a naive goal when that site started 18 years ago.

    Oh, definitely agreed. And it does still have use as a transcription catalogue of sorts. The arrangements can get in the way at that point, though.

    I've even made a contribution there at one point. No, I will never say which one it is. It's horrifying. :P

    As far as the size of the soundtracks, that doesn't seem to me to be a problem. If we have two soundtracks, all with songs of the same "quality" (by whatever standard), but one is 20 songs and the other is 40, I'd be happy to say that the second is twice as good as the first, since it has twice as much "good stuff".

    You could probably make the comparison more consistent by a ratio of soundtrack count to arrangement count, or by average arrangements-per-song ratio. Both could give you slightly different conclusions.

    Best Classic Game Soundtracks -- VGMusic.com Analysis

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Pardon the bluntness, but why would you use VGMusic as the context for the survey and then post the findings to OverClocked ReMix? Could OC ReMix be used as a second source? What about other such sites for derivative works?

    The main reason I ask is that VGMusic, while noteworthy, has a goal that feels naïve, at best. MIDI is a useful medium for transcription and notation, but I daresay the total number of MIDI-based arrangements and interpretations for a given soundtrack does not necessarily correlate with the full set of soundtrack aficionados. You're looking at a small and relatively niche subset of the game music listening and arrangement population and abstracting out to the entire population, a statistics no-no unless you can show that the subset is reasonably representative of the whole.

    Also consider the size of the original soundtracks. Soundtracks with a larger number of songs would, by correlation, likely have a larger number of arrangements. You'd need to account for that in your calculations before the soundtracks can be compared against one another.

    Most Expressive VGM

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Kenogu Labz

    Antipyretic from Final Fantasy Tactics. Could just partially be the emotional content of the scenes it was tied to, but that track is hands-down one of the most expressive pieces of music of the PS1 era.

    (in my opinion)

    Ovelia's motif is solid too in

    its
    , and I have a sweet spot for the more dramatic '
    '.

    Albeit only used in the game's credits,

    remains one of my favourite long-form compositions, and it does reflect the rest Final Fantasy XII's source material fairly well. The trailer featuring it pretty much sold me the game.

    Hitoshi Sakimoto's soundtracks have a lot of breadth to them, and though it's difficult to find any one song that is individually emotive, the full soundtracks most certainly fit that category as a whole. The soundtrack to the recent

    is a shining example of this; it was co-written by his studio, but it still retains his style quite strongly. Highly recommended, as it cycles through the gamut of emotions. The second track in particular, '
    ', is simply lush in composition. You just don't get composition like that often these days, folks.

    Moving away from JRPGs: Age of Empires III has some beautiful tracks that perfectly engender the spirit of 'new world exploration' they were aiming for. '

    ' usually tops my list for this OST, followed by '
    ' and '
    '. A superb soundtrack all 'round, and highly emotive.

    Skyrim's soundtrack, like most of Soule's work, is pretty soft-spoken, so some tracks can blend together, but when they stick out, they can be very, very gripping. '

    ' is a personal favourite, though many of the town themes, such as '
    ', are also quite memorable, and personify the mood of a people entrenched against the elements and dangers of the wilds outside.

    Fez! Oh my goodness, Fez. This soundtrack is steeped in nostalgia; not because of, but rather through its low-fi textures and tape reel pitch-bending. The dual motif of '

    ' and '
    ' are always ones I come back to: so very simple, but so perfectly represented. 'Memory' feels like a memory, something barely echoing out of the past, whereas 'Majesty' is the realization of that memory in its entirety. There's plenty more in the soundtrack: The mysterious awe of '
    ' mirroring the grounded grandeur of '
    ', the calm meandering of '
    ', the mysterious chill of '
    '... there's just too much going on in this soundtrack, hah. Definitely one of my favourites for mood-setting.

    Jamestown's '

    ' is gorgeously composed, and is a brilliant example of applying modifications to a motif to provide emotional impact.

    Oh man, I gotta return to JRPGs for a bit (as I move alphabetically down my albums list)... Yoko Shimomura! How could you not add the main theme to '

    ' to this list? The game's
    complements it quite well with a vocal rendition. Then the ending theme to the game's Dragoon Arc, '
    ', is built gorgeously off of the arc's primary motif, '
    ' (song names may vary). The arrangement of that arc's music in the Shimomura compilation album 'memória!' really emphasizes how solid the motif is. The entire soundtrack is one of Shimomura's best, and the songs only amplify the game's excellent emotional content.

    Lastly, and rather oddly, the soundtrack to 'World of Goo' is surprisingly emotive, despite the often-silly backdrop it's associated with. It's got a whimsical, almost Elfman feel to it at times. '

    ' is a very simple track, but still manages to be fairly potent by its well-constructed presentation. '
    ' and '
    ' are both perfectly chilling tracks, playing off each other to create a rise and impending fall of emotion from the first to the second.

    Alright, I'm done for now. I spend way too much time on these lists, sometimes...

    Shovel Knight

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm almost done with new game +. The second-to-last level is a nightmare for double-damage no-turkey mode. I'm crying.

    Anyway, they've done a fantastic job not explicitly tutorializing. Every level has new gameplay mechanics, but they're all introduced in a sort of safe and forced way to make sure you know how it all works before you move on.

    There's a brilliant part of the Lich Yard where you step onto this new type of platform and it changes a bit graphically, but otherwise nothing happens. You keep moving and find yourself up against a wall, but you're close enough to get the attention of a skeleton on the other side. It walks onto the platform (which extends underneath the wall) and the platform starts moving down. Now you know that those platforms sink when there are two entities standing on them, and you can start solving problems and doing tricky platforming with this knowledge. It's great.

    This! They followed the lead of classic 'Nintendo-hard' games by making it hard, yet making sure you know the rules you're playing by so that you know why it's hard and what you can do about it, leading to a sense of actual accomplishment.

    Shovel Knight

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Beat it, thought it was a blast. A lot of people have been saying it's too easy, but I felt like the difficulty curve sat right at my skill level, so it felt great to me.

    To be honest, I like the refinements they've made to those older game designs, because having to retry an entire stage just to have two or three chances at figuring out a boss can get pretty annoying. Bosses and stages usually use different mechanics: knowing one doesn't necessarily translate into being good at the other. The strategy for bosses was to keep trying repeatedly until you learned them, and that learning process was hindered when there was a huge chunk of time between each set of two-three fights.

    Shovel Knight broke out of that, and instead just introduced that Dark Souls-ish mechanic, which I think gave a similar incentive to learn quickly, but also removed the demotivation factor of running out of lives. It's a smart decision, and then - on top of that - adding the breakable checkpoints let them still keep that hardcore mentality for those who want it. Pretty brilliant.

    I also give 'em huge props for how they added the Kickstarter backer recognition. Clever and clear, but still subtle. The Hyper Camelot guest director knights were a serious blast to fight, and you can see they took a lot of care in implementing their designs.

    Oh, and, of course, dat soundtrack.

    OCR TF2 Server - Anyone interested in trying out TF2 should join us!

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Kenogu Labz

    To be honest, me. I never really liked how the Demoman could excel on both offense and defense, and his ability to lob stickies and detonate them ASAP was a large part of his offensive game. I thought it made sense to nerf that aspect in order to reign him in a bit and encourage more thoughtful sticky placement, laid in advance as traps. It also doubled by making the Demoman more vulnerable in close quarters, which makes sense given that his counter is Scout. The one part of the nerf I disagreed with was how it applied to taking out Sentries as well.

    The rest of this dives into speculation with a side of ranting since I have no 6s experience, so feel free to stop reading here.

    From what I understand, Demoman was limited to a single player in 6s because of a combination of high damage and simple trap creation. With 2 Demomen, a team could lock down all possible chokepoints around a given area and that's no fun for anyone. Okay, makes sense.

    Now that Demoman was nerfed so that his stickies do middling damage at best in direct combat, people started acting like the sky is falling, demanding Valve roll back the change (which they did...) and some proposed a mod to do so themselves. But since the Demoman in his previous state was such a powerhouse to the point that he was explicitly limited to 1 per team, shouldn't have that been a red flag that he was perhaps too powerful? Did anyone in the comp scene suggest perhaps raising the Demoman limit to 2? (Likely not since the trap issue remains.) Or perhaps accept the idea that a 6s team wouldn't have to be Medic/Demoman/Soldierx2/Scoutx2 once one of those classes was nerfed off his pedestal? Embrace change? Explore new options? Evolve the metagame? Anything?

    IDK, I'm ranting at this point, but it honestly worried me to see very little constructive feedback about the nerf. (Admittedly I don't frequent the competitive forums much so feel free to point me to reasoned arguments if they exist.) And now that it's been rolled back, I assume purely in response to the outcry, I can't help but be slightly annoyed.

    Also what about Heavy's nerf? That one I can easily see room for improvement but it's been left alone.

    The pattern of players raging down any effort to balance any game feels like it's gotten more rampant recently, but it could just be awareness bias. You should see the responses to Guild Wars 2 patches (and the resulting 'fixes') sometime...

    This change really did need to happen. Then again, I'm a pipe 'n' targe demo, so it doesn't exactly impact me, and I can still get crazy burst damage with direct pipe hits. In-air stickies just require relatively less aiming skill.

    Extra Credits new show Extra Remix

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Never heard of him.

    Some schmo. Keeps making music with vocals in them, and it always sounds like the same chick. I think she's like his squeeze or something. Why can't he just do instrumental music like everyone else?? That Super Metroid 'remix' ruined the game for me forever!!!

    But seriously, awesome to see you featured! Excellent treatment and selection, Dan!

    Jillian Aversa: "Atlantis Awakening", now available! ft. Malukah, Tina Guo, Jeff Ball, DrumUltimA...

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm going to go ahead and throw in Xenogears, because it sort of reminds me of it.

    You know, another one that's getting into my head right now is "Generations". Starting to really like this track. And for some weird reason, it's giving off an Ocarina of Time vibe to me. If you listen to the Forest Temple music from OoT, the track also shares some similarities with the way the basic melody of Generations is structured. Loving how I'm noticing this stuff and it's making me like the tracks even more. Is there any basis to the nods I'm hearing or am I just crazy? Either way, guitars and vocals are really cool for this track, too.

    Well, Kindred is an arrangement from Super Metroid, and the Forest Temple cues were pretty clear in Generations, so it very well could be.

    This album's gorgeous! Beautiful singing, Jillian. It's fun to hear you improve. :)

    Plans for Expanding Workshop & Offering "Instant Upload/Feedback" Functionality to OC ReMix

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Nah, perhaps I wasn't clear: FEATURED will be the actual, judged, canonized mixes - like what we have now. WORKSHOP will be everything else, including WIPs, Finished, Submitted, etc.

    So the replacement term for FEATURED wouldn't be "promising" it would be BADASS :)

    D'oh, that was my bad reading.

    'Certified' is probably too close to 'Official', I'd guess. 'Showcased'?

    You could always use DJP'd. Then the judges really would djp.

    Plans for Expanding Workshop & Offering "Instant Upload/Feedback" Functionality to OC ReMix

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I almost wonder if adding five-star ratings would cause less useful feedback to be provided. "I gave a rating, that's sufficient."

    In terms of 'Featured' terminology substitutions, perhaps something like 'Promising', 'On the Rise', etc. would be more appropriate? Terms that imply that there is interest in the item, but not that the item is in any way a part of the official OCR library.

    Bravely Default: Return of old school Final Fantasy

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    If you play it from A to Z you might max 3 jobs for your characters. What honestly disappointed me was that they gave you so little information as to what to expect for each class. While the small tutorial after you obtain it is nice, it speaks nothing of the passives which are a big part of your character game play. Aside from that I enjoyed each class getting a small story, an encounter to see what they are made of.. and finally a slight tutorial. The customization of your characters is rather nice.

    I actually think that's a great idea on their part. Perhaps I wouldn't pick such a low number as three, but it adds replay value to the game: play it once more, but master a completely different set of classes.

    "Has Video Game Music Lost Its Way?"

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Darksiders 2 sounded horribly generic to me as well. I found nothing to really draw me into the soundtrack at all; no hooks, no clear motifs.

    In terms of soundtracks that mimic film-style composition and still succeed gloriously in game context, see Bear McCreary's soundtrack to

    . The influence of his TV background is pretty clear, but the strong motifs and excellent instrumental variety really, really makes it strong soundtrack material.

    It could be that the choice of instrumentation leads some people to be lazy in their composition ("oh, as long as it has the right tone, people will enjoy it"). And, to a point, that may be true; in the heat of battle, you probably won't stop to smell the grace notes. But that doesn't mean a composition can't be more effective in context by tying in motifs and themes.

    That is the strongest hook a soundtrack can provide in my mind, regardless of instrumental medium. It's a way to engage the user, interact with them by hinting tying them emotionally to the narrative. As a motif is used in specific points in gameplay, the player slowly comes to attach that motif with corresponding themes in the game. What a powerful mechanism, and how little it is used in modern composition! Even well-composed soundtracks that are pleasant to listen to on their own can be poor soundtracks because they don't leverage their power with the player.

    </meandering-train-of-thought>

    Earphones - What are your reccomendations?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    For earbuds, I have a pair of Skullcandy Smokin' Buds that I bought in a hurry at the campus store for $45 two years ago. Considering how long they've lasted me and how decent they sound, that actually wasn't terrible. I've carried them around the world and around campus, and they're still in excellent shape.

    They're only $10.xx on Amazon though, so for that price I can absolutely recommend them.

    Ditto. For portable buds, they are quite adequate; unlike old Skullcandy wires that were rounded and easily broken, the flat wire casing has proven to be much more long-lived on my pair. I've been using these for at least a year and a half, now, with no signs of wear.

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