When Music Reigns

Video games have their own history and stories to narrate along the years. Almost 2 decades ago, when games started to take a form that set the basics for what we know today, they were let's say minimalistic. For instance characters and monsters had only a few frames for their movements, they were consisted of very few pixels, as well, which were placed in strategical positions for the resemblance between the pixelated character and the real one to be possible. The same applies for music and  sound  effects too. Back in the days, music in video games were just 8-bit sounds (because the saving format had little capacity) but u could easily tell if each composition was good or matching the scene that it was dressing with.

In my opinion video game designing is just another art or the 8th art if u want. Just think of it, they can be poetic , dramatic, gory, sad, brutal, fun, or even all of those together in the best case scenario. Just like the movies are. Surely games' audience arent so vast but they deal with the same stuff. They are being directed, there are authors to write the scripts, actors are being hired to dub the character's voices and so on. And here comes the music part. A good game scene always gets better in every aspect when is nicely dressed with a musical piece that fits. What Legend of Zelda would be without its classic sound effects of acquiring items, or FF series without the victory battle theme? No matter how good a video game is, when the music part is weak then something is missing. And thats the feeling. When u play a u practically are the character on the screen. U become one struggle with him. In other words u interact. This interaction gets completed when music comes to express the feelings, that graphics and technology cant. I remember how well chosen was the soundtrack of Painkiller. Such an arcade-fps-gory gameplay can only be dressed with fast-paced, heart pumping rock n metal tunes! 

The key to a good VG soundtrack is when the composer feels what the game is all about (and each scene scene as well), and every musical piece is the audio soul of each scene. A grande castle can be dressed with the organ, a chase in the jungle with a groovy beat of bongos, or a death scene with the sad notes of a piano or a cello perhaps.

I simply cant think of a single person that didnt feel joy when was hearing the 8-bit sounds of Kirby, or the battle's anxiety when he was hearing the battle music theme in Pokemon. VG soundtracks is such a vast a legacy itself. Music themes of retro games like Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog are being regarded classics these days, existing almost everywhere and in every form. In movies, as ringtones for cell phones, or even they are being covered by varius orchestras around the world. Youtube is full of covers like that and many of them are worth of our attention. Even metal bands, like Powerglove, have been formed with the solely purpose to cover VG music themes in a more heavy metal sound. Many composers have emerged through their work in the audio sectors such as Nobuo Uematsu, Kazuki Muraoka, Rika Muranaka.