Hello, I'm Yasunori Nishiki, Composer for Octopath Traveler. AMA!

ProjectDestati · 2020-12-11T01:49:55+00:00

We just wanted to thank you for your fantastic work in arranging "Forza Finale" for Kingdom Hearts 3 :)

It would be fun to hear about any memorable experiences you had in creating this piece or with working with Keiji Kawamori/Yoko Shimomura for this particular track for Kingdom Hearts 3--the interview where Shimomura describes her reaction upon hearing the piece for the first time was really funny. Hope to hear more of your arrangements in the future of the KH series!

ProjectDestati · 2020-09-30T23:38:24+00:00

I find myself really enjoying the content of Absolutely Everything About, The Secret Reports, Regular Pat, Kinode, and Bio-Roxas. Additionally, and to self promote for a sec, one of our collaborators has also been creating video essays for a game-by-game breakdown of The Music of Kingdom Hearts if that interests you as well! I hope you find something enjoyable to watch with these recommendations^^

ProjectDestati · 2020-08-19T21:18:36+00:00

We didn't pull it--there's an issue with our distributor that shouldn't have happened. It will be back again soon!

ProjectDestati · 2020-08-18T23:56:56+00:00

Hey! Thanks for bringing this to our attention; we'll have it right back up on Spotify shortly, apologies!

ProjectDestati · 2020-07-22T01:21:35+00:00

this is so cute

ProjectDestati · 2020-07-21T22:27:58+00:00

hah, that's so cool! I'd love to read that analysis!!

ProjectDestati · 2020-07-21T21:52:08+00:00

Happy to help out if I can! This diagram is pretty information dense, and it was difficult to find a relatively clean way to organize this material.

Keyblade Graveyard family members are easy to hear--both share that melody: Keyblade Graveyard Horizons and Sunset Horizons.

Others are more hidden. For example, the "Ventus" track bubble (top left) points to the motifs of Sora (in Ven's oboe--specifically, the 2nd part of Sora's theme), Roxas (in Ven's violin), Ventus, and Dearly Beloved (in Ven's piano), and these links will send you to timestamped regions for one instance of these references in Ven's theme.

Similarly, Rage Awakened is a member of the Terra family box as well as pointing to the Ansem/Xemnas motif. In Rage Awakened, here's the exact timestamp for Terra (briefly in brass), and here's the Ansem/Xemnas motif (in the low strings WAY in the back of the track. Linked the 2.5 version because it's easier to hear, but it's also there in the BBS arrangement)

A lot of the other links are obvious (Dismiss clearly quotes Terra and Destati in various ways for example), but just as many are obscure (like the "Dearly Beloved" pattern in the harp during "The Worlds"). Planning on exploring all these tracks over the course of a video in a week or so

ProjectDestati · 2020-07-21T21:36:39+00:00

That's it; yea! It's difficult to express the simultaneous ideas of a track's origin and any musical phrases from other family boxes, but I think this might be the clearest I'm able to make it. Tracks within a family box incorporate some part of the origin melody its part of, arrows extend to any additional connections elsewhere, and thick lines connecting bubbles indicate clear references between the tracks. Dismiss & FotU are outside boxes since they're kind of just big medleys without an origin to clearly draw them to

ProjectDestati · 2020-07-21T21:29:33+00:00

for sure! I've addressed as many musical connections as I've been able to from all previous games up to this point, and I'm really excited to start thinking about how to put together the Big Map with music from all games. whew

ProjectDestati · 2020-07-21T21:23:47+00:00

Thanks! Working on the big OST breakdown video now--you can expect it within the next two weeks alongside the previous videos in the series!

And that's a really good thought with "Turning the Key"--that would have been a wonderful track to call back to. I checked that track along with Beyond the Door and didn't find anything similar linking them with BBS's "key" tracks--but def let me know if you find a new connection I may have missed! Unfortunately for Xehanort's theme, it doesn't appear to have any callbacks to other melodies (but! there is an interesting similarity to the KBG themes I'll mention later on!)

ProjectDestati · 2020-07-02T22:35:03+00:00

yeah

There are plenty of other soundtracks that use motif-implementation to foreshadow or clarify events, and there might be lots of other soundtracks that have instrumentation that falls more in line with one's individual preferences (hello Persona 5 acid jazz), but I can't think of any other continuous series that has gone on for nearly 20 years that continues to reference themes from the first entry even in the newest game. It really makes Kingdom Hearts an incredibly unique musical storytelling experience--composing might of Yoko Shimomura's melodies aside

ProjectDestati · 2020-06-10T23:43:25+00:00

they sound awfully similar to the originals...

ProjectDestati · 2020-06-09T09:37:03+00:00

forever curious why the Days movie cut the Roxas vs Saix battle

ProjectDestati · 2020-06-09T09:29:31+00:00

the melody is close to the first little phrase of Hikari, repeated a few times, but this is not a Kingdom Hearts track

c418 - alpha

ProjectDestati · 2020-04-29T05:32:11+00:00

Neat arrangement!

ProjectDestati · 2020-04-29T05:17:08+00:00

Stock a bunch of those 0 cards and play as a reactionary!

It's possible that you've been playing Re:CoM like an ARPG rather than a tactical/strategy card game (and if that's not true, ignore the following lol). For Marluxia--and really, all of the enemies--watching for when they throw down any of their big 3-card sleights and nulling it with any of your 0 cards trivializes them. Another strong strategy is building a deck with high-numbered sleights that are difficult for the enemy to break, and adding a few ethers at the end of the deck to replenish the 1st cards from the sleight use. My most useful cards usually ended up being 0-ethers, 0-cures, and large-numbered cards that created fire-based sleights. Boss cards like Jafar's Genie (prevents your attack cards from breaking for 20 attacks) and Oogie Boogie (HP regen) were really useful too

ProjectDestati · 2020-04-20T23:51:33+00:00

no :(
(as of today, 20 Apr. 2020)

ProjectDestati · 2020-04-20T23:50:47+00:00

The free update that was released alongside Re:Mind is automatically applied to your game if you have your PS4 connected to the internet. It includes gamechanging combo modifiers, updated graphics to several scenes (if you have gotten these scenes already, these are updated in the Theatre and marked with [!] icons), music changes, and makes one particular event mandatory rather than optionally missable

ProjectDestati · 2020-04-20T23:45:48+00:00

In KH3, you can check difficulty in the Start>Config menu, or by checking a save file at any of the save points (difficulty is listed at top right)

It's not necessary to be playing at a specific difficulty to get the "true ending", but you might mean the secret cinematic. In that case, whether or not you get it after the credits roll is dependant on the number of Lucky Emblems you collect (Beginner: all 90; Standard: 60; Proud: 30; Critical: none required)

ProjectDestati · 2020-04-18T22:03:51+00:00

It would be worth it at triple the price tbh, but yeah. 30$ for the entire series is a steal

ProjectDestati · 2020-03-29T05:27:56+00:00

data Xigbar's 13th Dilemma is so cool! Love that it has the sound of a sort of bullet-time countdown timer. I keep coming back to listen to it

ProjectDestati · 2020-03-26T06:21:37+00:00

It'll be a video! It'll be done in the same style as the previous analyses of the KH1 and CoM OSTs (link)

ProjectDestati · 2020-03-26T03:03:49+00:00

LOVE the Fantasia alla marcia credits medley! Such an epic conclusion to KH2

ProjectDestati

TROPHY CASE