The Five Greatest Songs (From Games I've Never Played)

The music in video games has always been one of my favorite parts of playing a game. Hell, easily half of the songs on my MP3 player are either straight from a game, or a cover/remix of a song from a game. It's something that aids the storytelling process so well, and can help inspire the emotions the game is trying to convey. And so, loving video game music as I do, and not having a review ready this week, I've decided to do a list of some of my favorite video game songs. However, this is going to have a slight twist: This list will be completely composed of songs from games I have never played. And so, without further ado, the five greatest songs from games I've never played!

Note: As I've said before with these sort of posts, these are completely my opinions. There are a lot of games I've never played, and I'm sure there are some great songs I've missed. However, these are the ones that I've somehow managed to find and absolutely love.

5. Pursuit ~ Cornered (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney)

Despite my best efforts, the only game from this series that I've played so far is Apollo Justice. From everything I've seen, this looks like a great series. Good story, engaging puzzles, and most of all, a great soundtrack. And the song that stood out most to me was 'Pursuit ~ Cornered.' I love the feeling this song has. It gives off this impression of, "You just made a huge mistake, and I'm about to win!" that I love in video games. Much love to Masakazu Sugimori for being able to express this feeling so well in just about 45 seconds of music. To me, this is the epitome of comeback music, and for that, I love it.

4. Blinded by Light (Final Fantasy XIII)

I have been a fan of the Final Fantasy series since I first picked up Final Fantasy IV a few years back. One of the things I loved about it was the beautiful soundtrack composed by Nobou Uematsu. However, he did not work on this game. Instead, I'm listening to 'Blinded by Light,' the Final Fantasy XIII battle theme composed by Masashi Hamauzu. Now, while it's true that I've never really heard any good things about this game, I love this theme. It has feeling of epicness to it that just makes for an amazing boss fight.

...Which is precisely why it isn't higher on the list. From what I understand*, this is the standard battle theme for this game. And I don't feel like that's where this song belongs. In fact, I could actually see this song getting annoying after a while. While it does have that feeling of epicness, that feeling should be saved for truly epic moments. It just doesn't feel right when you're listening to it while beating up nameless mooks.

3. You Will Know Our Names / Unfinished Battle (Xenoblade Chronicles)

Xenoblade Chronicles is probably my most-wanted game right now, and the soundtrack is no small part of it. Hell, 'Unfinished Battle' is the reason I first even heard of this game. I'm putting both of these songs in the number 3 spot because it felt unfair to have a single game represented twice on a five-entry list, but if it weren't for that, I'd take 'Pursuit ~ Cornered' off in a heartbeat to give both of these the spots they deserve. 'You Will Know Our Names' is the standard battle theme for the game, and it works really well as this. It gets the adrenaline pumping, giving the feeling of awesomeness without giving the impression that this should be saved for important events. Unlike 'Blinded by Light,' which I did enjoy, which I admitted could get annoying after a while, I would listen to 'You Will Know Our Names' looped indefinitely.

Now, I have no clue what 'Unfinished Business' is used for in-game, but I'm sure it's something big. It doesn't quite have the feeling of a boss battle theme, but at the same time, it does have this feeling of importance, the same sort of "Use this theme sparingly" quality that I felt in 'Blinded by Light.' And I'd be perfectly willing to wager that that's exactly how it's used.

2. Snake Eater (Metal Gear Solid 3)

Part of what makes this theme so great for me is the obvious James Bond homage. This feels exactly like a classic James Bond theme, which goes great to establish the setting of this game. And, honestly, I just love James Bond  themes. They tend to have this really... grandiose feeling to them, and this song encapsulates this perfectly. Even the singer, Cythina Harrell, sounds like she stepped right out of one of those movies.

The only thing really, that keeps this out of the #1 spot is some of the lyrics. "Someday, you feed on a tree frog?" Really? I'm sorry, you just completely lost the feeling I was getting from you. I really have no clue what that was about, unless Snake does actually eat a tree frog in game, but even still, why talk about that in the song? I know, it's nit-picky, but it bugged me, and since this is my list, I can decide where these songs go.

1. Revived Power (Shadow of the Colossus)

Remember earlier when I said that boss themes should have this feeling of epicness, of importance, to them? Well, this song is EXACTLY what I was talking about. Kow Otani did a phenomenal job when composing this piece to accompany your battles with the Colossi. It honestly gives the feeling that you are fighting an enormous monster against impossible odds, but that you MUST somehow come out on top. From what I understand, I realize that this game has a bit of moral ambiguity to it, but as far as this song tells me, you are a paragon of virtue fighting insurmountable evil, but through the righteousness, you WILL prevail. And even if that's not true, I'd still love fighting the Colossi just to hear this song. This is easily the best song I've ever heard from a game I've never played.



Well, that wraps up this week's post. If you can think of any other awesome video game songs, feel free to tell me about. But, for now, this is me signing off until next week. See you then!

*Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Demo Reviews

Hey guys. I'm sorry that I didn't get this posted yesterday, but it took a little bit longer than I intended. Instead of reviewing a single game this time around, I decided to take a look at three demos available on the 3DS's eShop. So, without further ado, let's get started!

Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion

The first demo I looked at was for Disney's Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion. A sequel to 2010's Epic Mickey (and at the very least a quasi-sequel to Sega's Illusion series from the early 90s), Power of Illusion sees Mickey having to return to Wasteland, having heard from Oswald of the Castle of Illusion appearing there, with various toon characters, Minnie included, trapped inside. So Mickey... borrows... the magic paintbrush from Yen Sid once again, and ventures into the Castle to save his girl. However, it is quickly revealed to the player that Minnie is safe and sound, leaving you to wonder just what sort of trap is Mickey wandering into...

Power of Illusion plays as a fairly standard platformer. You play as Mickey, going through linear courses, jumping on enemies, etc., in order to both reach the end and rescue toons. Two of the three levels in the demo are based off of Peter Pan, so for the most part you're rescuing characters from that movie, but you also rescue Scrooge McDuck, Goofy, and a couple other Disney characters. As you rescue characters and bring them back to the Fortress (the hub for this game), you can go on quests for them, which reward you with money, upgrades, and sketches, which are basically summons for this game. These sketches range from Tinker Bell sprinkling fairy dust on you to let you jump longer, to Scrooge McDuck pulling a DuckTales and jumping all over enemies with his cane.

As with Epic Mickey (from what I've heard, I've never actually played the game), the magic paintbrush is an important part of gameplay here. You can use Paint to create platforms or obstacles to damage your enemies, or use Thinner to destroy obstacles. In addition, you can also use both Paint and Thinner as projectiles to damage your enemies. Paint causes them to drop health upon defeat, while Thinner makes them drop money, which can be used at Scrooge's shop to buy upgrades to your health, attacks, etc.

So, you go through the first three levels and unlock the first boss: Captain Hook. Mickey heads into the boss room, the two exchange some banter, and then... the demo ends.

No, seriously. It ends JUST as the boss battle starts. See, that bugs me. I'd have been fine if they'd stopped before entering the boss room, I get wanting to save your bosses for the real thing, but they lead me to believe that I was going to be fighting Captain Hook. And damn it, I WANT to fight Captain Hook!

All in all, this demo did a great job. When I downloaded it, I wasn't really that interested in the game, just bored and looking for something to play. Now, I want to actually go out and buy Epic Mickey, so that I can beat it and then buy this one. Which is exactly what a good demo should do. Anyway, on to the next game.

Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy

This... strangely-named (apparently it's supposed to be a portmanteau of 'theatre' and 'rhythm') game is Square Enix's first entry on the 3DS. From what I understand, it's supposed to be a sort-of continuation of the Dissidia series, in which characters from various Final Fantasy games are brought together in order to fight to determine the fate of the world or something. I don't know exactly, but it isn't important to the demo, as it is just two levels of the Challenge mode. What sets this game most apart from the two Dissidia games, however, is the genre. While those two were fighting games, this is a... rhythm game. Yeah.

Basically, you play through various songs from the 13 Final Fantasy games included. In the demo, you only have the choices of 'The Man with the Machine Gun,' from Final Fantasy VIII, and 'The Sunleth Waterscape,' from Final Fantasy XIII. You tap the touch screen in time with the cues on the top screen, holding where indicated, and sometimes having the slide the stylus in a particular direction. Honestly, I'm doing this game justice in my description. If these two songs are any indication, this is a very enjoyable game, and I certainly want to get the full version when I get a chance. But, past that, I don't really have anything to say.* This was a great demo, and it certainly did its job well.

Lego Lord of the Rings

Now, let me preface this by saying something. I LOVE the LEGO video game series. I feel like Traveller's Tales has done a great job at... quasi-adapting these movies, telling the stories while still being both fun to play and funny. Out of these three demos, this was easily the one I most wanted to play.

This demo puts you on Weathertop, recreating the scene from Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo gets stabbed as the Witch-King of Angmar. You go through a couple scenes, using each of the Hobbits' abilities, as well as Aragorn's towards the end, in order to progress through the story. Gameplay and graphics are just about the same as any other of the LEGO games, music is taken directly from Lord of the Rings, as is the dialogue, which is probably my biggest problem with this demo.

One of the things I loved about the other LEGO games is a consequence of the lack of spoken or written dialogue. Instead, the characters basically played charades with each other, acting out scenes instead of speaking them. One of my favorite examples of this comes from Episode V of LEGO Star Wars. In the climactic scene in Cloud City, where Vader makes his big reveal, instead of simply saying "No... I am your father," he instead pulls out a baby picture of Luke. It serves the same purpose as the spoken line, but is a bit sillier, and it fits the general tone of the game. With this game, however, the dialogue adds a tone of seriousness to the game, which is rather jarringly juxtaposed with some of the sillier elements of the scene. The best example comes to me is when, after Frodo is stabbed, Aragorn is being all grave about how they have to hurry to Rivendell, while Merry and Pippin are in the background with a stretcher and nurse's hats. Now, without the dialogue, I feel like this would've been funny. But with it? The two tones just kind of clashed, and I, for one, didn't like the result. Sadly, I'm no longer very keen on getting this game after having played the demo



So, that wraps up this week's (albeit-late) review. Be sure to stop by next week for more... whatever it is I do here.

*My top scores: Sunleth: 7,229,392 on Ultimate; Machine Gun: 6,665,950 on Basic

Super Mario Land

Well, time for my first normal review in... two months. What with Month of Horrors, Wreck-It Ralph, and general laziness on my part in September, I haven't reviewed a game without any particular theme in mind since early September. So, I figured it might be good to get back into the swing of things with something easy. And thus, I decided to review Super Mario Land.

Super Mario Land was released by Nintendo for the Game Boy on July 31st, 1989, over two full years before I was even born. In it, you play as, big surprise, Mario, who has to save Princess Daisy from the evil alien Tatanga, but to do so, he must traverse across the four kingdoms of Sarasaland, defeating Tatanga's minions along the way.

Now, this game is a bit of a black sheep in the Mario series, just because of how incredibly different it is from any other title. Koopas now explode when you jump on them instead of turning into kickable shells, worlds only consist of three levels, as opposed to 4 like in Super Mario Bros., and there's only four worlds to begin with, giving a total of 12 levels, and leaving a bit to be desired when it comes to length. Also Mario must save Daisy instead of Peach. Daisy would go on to appear in precisely none of the main Mario games, though she has appeared in numerous spin-off titles, and the fandom has taken to pairing her with Luigi to complement Mario's pairing with Peach.

Gameplay-wise, it's fairly similar to Super Mario Bros. The only differences that come to mind are the enemies, and the fact that the Flower gives you the ability to shoot balls that bounce at 90-degree angles, instead of allowing you to shoot fireballs.

With graphics, it's a 23-year-old game, and it shows. It's perfectly reasonable for the beginning of the handheld-era, I'd say. The music, however, is great. Yes, it's 8-bit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that its bad. Also, the first time you get a star and hear the Can-Can played, it's kind of jarring, but in a good way.

So, all in all, I enjoyed Super Mario Land. It's not a particularly long game, but if you have a couple bucks to burn, and a couple hours to waste, I would definitely recommend picking it up on the 3DS's eShop.

Wreck-It Ralph

So, odds are you've heard of Disney's newest movie, Wreck-It Ralph. And I'm going to review it!

...Yes, seriously. I don't care if it's not a video game, it's close enough.

So, as I said earlier, Wreck-It Ralph is Disney's latest movie. It stars John C. Reilly as Wreck-It Ralph, the antagonist of the arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr. As the film begins, it is the game's 30th anniversary, and the characters of the game are all celebrating. All except Ralph, who's left all alone in the dump he calls home. When he tries to join the party, he's told, as a villain, they don't want him at the party. And so begins Ralph's quest to become a hero, leaving his game to try and prove that he's able to be a good guy.

So, I'm going to do this a little differently than usual, even accounting for the fact that this is a movie instead of a game. I'm going to look at this first as a gamer, and then as a film-goer. I'm not sure how well this is going to go, but I'm going to give it a shot.

So, as a gamer, this movie is a LOT of fun. Each of the game worlds visited has its own unique feel to it. There's the classic, Donkey Kong-like feeling of Fix-It Felix Jr., the dark Halo-ish feel of Hero's Duty, and the light, obviously-Mario Kart-inspired game that is Sugar Rush. They all feel like they're actual games, games that I would be perfectly happy to try my hand at playing.

And then there's the references. I've seen this movie compared to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in terms of cameos from famous characters, ranging from Q*bert to Street Fighter's Zangief to Sonic the Hedgehog, but I'd say it might just go a little further than that. Game Central Station, the 'hub' of the movie, has tons of graffiti in it referencing various games ('Aerith lives,' anyone?) and the lost-and-found in Tapper's bar (itself a reference) contains numerous subtle gags. And I'm more than willing to admit that there's probably a bunch more that I missed. So, yeah, as a gamer, this is a very fun movie to watch.

Now, as a film-goer, this movie... is still pretty fun. The writing isn't great, but for a kid's movie, it's enjoyable. And I will say this, the three acts are a little disjointed. The middle chunk of the movie didn't really progress the plot at all. It was good for character development, it definitely helped me feel closer to Ralph and friends, but the plot kinda got put on hold for a while to allow for this. This is one of my only complaints, though. The animation is good, least as far as I can tell, and the voice acting is VERY solid, and, ignoring act two and an admittedly-large-ish number of poop jokes, the writing is good as well. I definitely feel comfortable recommending this movie for movie-lovers, ESPECIALLY Disney-movie-lovers.

So, yeah, this movie is great, you should definitely go watch it. For the remainder of this post, I'm going to talk about the opening short.

Paperman was directed by John Kahrs, a former Pixar animator who made this as his directorial debut. The short tells the story of a young businessman who, after meeting an attractive woman at the train station before work on day, spends the rest of his work day trying to get her attention after spying her in the office building across the street. However, unable to yell without being noticed by his coworkers, his only option is to make paper airplanes out of his work and try to successfully launch one into the window of her room. And that's all I'm going to say on the plot.

Now, this short is easily one of my favorite Disney shorts ever*. It's really well-animated, and the love story between the two main characters is absolutely adorable. Despite not having a single spoken line at any point, you grow to character for the protagonist, wanting him to end up with the girl he has fallen in love with. I'm not going to lie, it may have rained a little bit in the theatre when I was watching it. At least, that's the best explanation I can come up with for why my eyes started to water up.

So, to wrap things up here, Wreck-It Ralph is a great movie, and you should definitely go see it.

Like, right now.

No, seriously, why are you still here? Go see it!

...

GO!

*Yes, even counting the Pixar shorts from before Disney bought them out.