Movies and video games don’t necesarily affect the style of music. What rather affects it is the story’s content, or the atmosphere. John Williams has composed 1 video game (it was a star wars video game on SNES :P), btw. It doesn’t really matter either way, in fact, you might be also surprised to know that it’s MUCH easier than you think to write music to scenes. Not to say that it’s easy, but actually, composers have programs where you put the movie scene to a tempo, and you point out some of the dynamic parts (like where they are in the elapsed time), and it gives you the counts that all these important parts fall on and stuff. This makes it easy to write music that accents particular parts, or to find out how much time and counts and measures you have for this or that certain part, etc. The process has been very facilitated.
Originally posted by Curtis
Why, is their synchronized music during all the FMVs? If it’s becoming a trend, I wouldn’t know, because the most recent RPG I’ve played is FF8, though I’ve downloaded select songs from other more recent ones.
Of course there is synchronized music during FMVs! They are just like movies, so they can score the music for them they way they would for a movie. It would be stupid not to.
The thing that is being done more now is to synchronize the music with the interactive parts of the game.
Originally posted by Sinistral
Soule DOES NOT compare to the Ogre Battle composers. Fuck. No. Styles ARE WAY different also.
Well, instead of using synthetisers(Only about 10 or so tracks were orchestrated in Xenosaga, contrary to the popular belief that the entire OST was performed by the London Philharmonic.), he chose to use a real orchestra.
When I compared him to Sakimoto, it wasn’t for style but rather in terms that they both try to orchestrate their music , just that Soule does it on a more ambient level. Compare Treasure Hunter G, in which the FFT duo had a hand in, with Secret of Evermore, both had their share of New Age style of music, although THG had more melodious music, the SoE staff chose to add a completely new element in the game : realism. For example, while being in the pre-historic marsh, you hear alot of animal grunts and such, actually, I think it worked really well to portray what a marsh would sound in reality. I just think it was an interesting touch, even it did not appeal to alot of people.
Maybe I’m alone in this, but I beleive Soule has plenty of potential as a composer, even if he focuses on the ambient type of music, if it’s well written and the players feel certain emotional attachment to the piece, then it’s purpose has been fulfilled.
when is thom yorke scheduled to start composing video games?
I plan on buying Knights of the Old Republic, it looks awsome. Plus being a Star Wars fan kinda makes it so.
Hmm, DG is kinda right about Jeremy Soule and the way he composes. I don’t think that he’s anything like Sakimoto though. I wouldn’t say someone is the same just because they both write orchestral music. Sakimoto has even said that he just writes stuff necesary for the atmosphere in the game. It’s just that the majority of games he’s hired for have that medieval style to them. In BoF: Dragon Quarter for example, he has his share of orchestral music, but he also tries to make it a bit techno-ish, and almost upbeat jazz, like BoF3.
Soule is pretty good (especially in Icewind Dale) but you don’t mess with Mitsuda and the almighty Nobou. these people have made the best soundtracks on the face of existance (The FF Series, and the Zeno Series)
I think Soule still has a lot of competition.
I _hate_ambient.
Then you’ll hate Morrowind’s music. It almost perfectly fits in, but only due to excessive ambience. It’s relaxing, but sometimes you just forget it’s there. I dunno, I guess Klepacki has spoiled me…
SoE had good musics, (well… it had very good ambient themes, which is quite a miracle considering the SNES sound chip…) but Icewind Dale kicks the shazbot out of someone and puts it back in! Dungeon Siege had some good tunes as well, but I played it only shortly, so alas -_-
…And what would be the second biggest video game music funding? Like, the previous bigass music production?
Aurabolt, Nobuo nor Mitsuda composed any Mana game.
Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu 1) - Kenji Ito
Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) - Hiroki Kikuta
Seiken Densetsu 3 - Hiroki Kikuta
Legend of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 4) - Yoko Shimomura
Sword of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 1 remake) - Kenji Ito
ok, my mistake, but nevertheless, Soule still has a lot of competition, especially with Nobou. The man is a god in the RPG music world.
Meh, Nobuo is overrated these days(That might change once I hear his Hanjuku Hero Tai 3D score).
Gimme composers like Sakimoto, Soule, Mitsuda, Shimomura, etc… any day
Anywhoo… as I’m about to complete SoE, I have to say that the score was more than fitting. I’m expecting alot in SW : KOTOR.
Though I disagree with some of Nobuo’s moves (like the ff9 and 10 battle music) you have to give the man credit for innovation. Look at people like Sakuraba and Sugiyama. They’re good at what they do (though I greatly dislike Sakuraba) , however, that’s all they do. Uematsu expanded and tried a variety of things, some of which came out well, some of which didn’t. I’m pretty pissed at him getting sidelined lately.
The only thing I have to say is this.
No one comes close to Ishiwatari Daisuke. 'nuff said. (I’m a TAD BIT biased.)
And, in my opinion, incorrect. 
I absolutely adore Yoko Shimomura. The Legend of Mana music is absolutely beautiful. It was also the first OST I imported (thanks to DG for the help finding it and such). The music throughout that game really fits the atmosphere, and some tracks like “The Darkness Nova”, “Pain the Universe”, and “Complicated Destiny” are just utterly amazing.
Yoko is great, especially in KH, and i’ve never heard of Daisuke, but Uematsu is a great composer, think about it, go back to FF6-7 and even the remastered version of FF1, and they are total masterpieces (especially the orchasterated versions)
In my honest opinion, VG music is some of the best in existance!