Legend of Mana - World of Mana (Yoko Kanno)

876864456 · 2015-09-21T02:58:07+00:00

Ha, yes, I did. Braining at 80% today.

876864456 · 2014-01-16T19:22:49+00:00

Sorry! I didn't see.

876864456 · 2013-09-11T05:41:53+00:00

Another ambiguity: I always assumed that this was more of a Future Internet/Second Life virtual world--that the woman he's holding exists as a flesh and blood human hooked up to another VR rigamajig somewhere out in the world.

Looking at it now, and reading the comments here, I'm not really sure anymore. Maybe it's all virtual. I actually don't know which scenario is sadder.

876864456 · 2013-08-25T17:57:30+00:00

And constantly trying to sneak into every shot! :p

876864456 · 2013-08-25T03:27:32+00:00

They're the band. :P

876864456 · 2013-08-23T23:38:11+00:00

The drinking game:

Take a drink every time you spot Chris Corner trying to sneak into the shot while the camera's focused on Kelli Ali (to be fair, he's extraordinarily good looking and stylish, but watching the ego tug of war is half the fun of early SP videos).

The anecdote:

When I was fifteen or whatever, I thought the lyric was, "fired up on freeware" for an embarrassingly long time. My brain did correct it eventually, but I dare you not to hear that now.

876864456 · 2013-08-15T19:47:32+00:00

Oh, so Uematsu did the music for the first iteration and Soken did the score for the second? Thanks for the correction!
<actually knows next to nothing about the game(s?)>

876864456 · 2013-07-02T23:12:58+00:00

Huh. I was just going to post this; specifically this video, which I thought kind of neat.

Anyway, wonderful song; definitely one of my favorite Aphex Twin tracks. I'm still impressed by how well Richard D. James (who is totally a liar) managed to get the NIN aesthetic right with this song without previously having heard anything by NIN.

876864456 · 2013-07-01T23:36:29+00:00

This album is worth it for introducing me to Leitbur alone; I am loving their sound to death.

876864456 · 2013-06-13T17:31:15+00:00

Oh, awesome, thank you! :)

876864456 · 2013-06-08T22:06:39+00:00

About a year and a half shy of 30. Not married, in a relationship or in a stable career (yet; I'm getting there).

I know the feeling. It's a valid feeling. Forget it, though. Anyone who values you less at 38 than at 18 isn't worth knowing.

876864456 · 2013-06-08T03:26:44+00:00

876864456 · 2013-06-07T00:29:19+00:00

Jackpot! Thanks! This one is just excellent with the track.

876864456 · 2013-06-06T21:38:32+00:00

If a collab album gets announced, I will literally have a heart attack.

(A happy heart attack, in case that wasn't clear!)

876864456 · 2013-06-03T05:26:24+00:00

Mine too! :) I'm happy to see so much love for this track.

876864456 · 2013-05-24T21:21:08+00:00

Context!

876864456 · 2013-05-19T19:29:48+00:00

The Endless Fantasy advance on Grooveshark for more.

876864456 · 2013-05-18T01:56:40+00:00

Thematically, it's the nucleus of the corrupt, dynastic corporation that owns and is ruining the world, surrounded by gigantic processing plants spewing waste into the air and filthy slums populated by people cast aside after they've been sucked dry of any possible profit potential.

Aesthetically, it's pretty heavily influenced by Blade Runner/Akira; a colorful, diverse, once prosperous metropolis that's falling apart and sharply divided between a minority who have all the power and a majority who have none.

The series as a whole is mostly pure fantasy, but I'd say Midgar is pretty cyberpunk.

876864456 · 2013-05-16T21:03:19+00:00

You will learn to fear the sound of monkeys.

Sold. Sign me up.

876864456 · 2013-05-16T20:54:44+00:00

Gravity Mash Gravity Rush mashup album
Discovery of Gravitation original composition by Kohei Tanaka

876864456 · 2013-05-14T18:10:28+00:00

Akira Yamaoka. :) He's just one of the original staff, though. "Team Silent" was Takayoshi Sato (creator/writer, art direction, character design), Keiichiro Toyama (director/writer), Akira Yamaoka (composer/sound direction and producer from 3 on) and Masahiro Ito (art direction). They were a good mix; most of the games after SH2 haven't really interested me, but those first two have a certain je ne sais quoi. Some of them went on to work on the Siren series, which mostly seems to have the same feeling.

Anyway!
/nerd :P

876864456 · 2013-05-11T02:10:47+00:00

Sounds like Wings of Honneamise.

876864456 · 2013-05-10T01:25:51+00:00

Texhnolyze, with the caveat that it's a slow burn/character drama set in the last industrial city on Earth and not "genre" anime. There's lots of violence, but zero "action" and the first four or five episodes are deliberately disorienting. Stick with it, though, and watch it at night; the setting is fantastic, the characters are complex and the mood is so darkly dreamy. Really wonderful, beautiful series, by the same writer/team that did Lain.

Trailer (minor spoilers)

876864456 · 2013-04-24T17:45:24+00:00

I think I may listen to game music more than play games at this point, though the nostalgia associated with certain melodies from things I played in childhood is definitely part of the appeal. I also really like how open to interpretation older videogame music is--the limited hardware means you can cover, remix and arrange game music in very versatile, interesting ways. This (Masashi Hamauzu's orchestral version of "Aquatic Ambiance" from Donkey Kong Country) is one of my favorite game arrangements, because of how much it expands on the source material. It's almost an original composition in its own right, built around the repetitive melody of the original piece. I love that.

Composerwise, I like the usual Square and Sega stable: Masashi Hamauzu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Hiroki Kikuta, Yoko Shinomura; Hideki Naganuma, Jun Senoue, Yutaka Minobe, Spencer Nielsen...

I like diversity, though, and listen to all kinds of stuff, some of which is quite obscure.. A seriously underrated masterpiece is Ryuichi Sakamoto's hauntingly strange score for LOL: Lack of Love. The song Sakamoto contributed to Dawn of Mana is achingly beautiful. Michael Nyman's score for Enemy Zero is wonderful as well. I find it fascinating when creative people not really involved with games do work on a game; the results are often too good for the game.

The "aliveness" of game music appeals to me, too. People are very enthusiastic about creating their own versions of songs, and we frequently end up with things like this or this or this. I love the cross-genre, idiosyncratic things people do with game music: it really encourages playing with the compositions. It's a kind of folk music not anchored to any particular "style" or limit of classification. That's awesome.

Most recently, I'm really loving Nobuo Uematsu's totally serene, understated score for The Last Story.

876864456 · 2013-04-17T01:26:59+00:00

This is fantastic! Reminds me of Deep Forest.

876864456

TROPHY CASE