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I perhaps should shy away from including the Castlevania franchise three times in this feature, but its music encompasses some of the most memorable material in game scores. Video Game Music Daily, the site that inspired this mess, had the same problem; look at the size of its "castlevania" cloud tag compared to the others. What's remarkable is how many different composers have contributed cornerstones to the franchise: Ken'ichi Matsubara's "Bloody Tears" to Masanori Oodachi & Soutarou Tojima's "Simon's Theme" to Michiru Yamane's...well, everything. A landscape of mist-veiled mountains and haunted houses just seems to bring out the best in everybody.
Castlevania's music is so strong, in fact, that in recent years the Japanese end of the franchise seems to have been geared primarily to selling soundtracks, with gameplay a secondary consideration. No one can say that Judgment's arrangements of the old standards weren't the best part of that title, and much of Harmony of Despair's DLC consists of BGM. Then we have the Pachislot games, which have nearly no gameplay but manage to generate a soundtrack CD with every release. They still have original compositions, too - and they ain't bad.
That pause screen, yes, I know.
To the music, though, which is a celebration of adventure and excess. It's gothic, yet there's action and momentum. It has a degree of taste - but not enough, mind you, to employ any sort of restraint or tact. There are choirs and electric guitar and near-constant drums - and yet it's not a reckless full-frontal assault; all elements are carefully and effectively employed and balanced, to grand and intoxicating effect. This music wants the listener engaged, exhilarated, and having a great time.
The franchise's recent American adventures seem so frustrating due to their evident laziness - take a scrapped Lord of the Rings title, add some God of War ripoff gameplay, throw some money at Patrick Stewart (without writing anything worthy of an actor of his caliber), and voila. It's the triumph of money over ideas, all calculation and soullessness. While the Japanese division's commitment to producing actual games is certainly lacking, the U.S. folks could still stand well to take a few cues from the Nipponese music, which for a franchise so steeped in decay and death seldom fails to exhibit a boundless joie de vivre.
.
Castlevania's music is so strong, in fact, that in recent years the Japanese end of the franchise seems to have been geared primarily to selling soundtracks, with gameplay a secondary consideration. No one can say that Judgment's arrangements of the old standards weren't the best part of that title, and much of Harmony of Despair's DLC consists of BGM. Then we have the Pachislot games, which have nearly no gameplay but manage to generate a soundtrack CD with every release. They still have original compositions, too - and they ain't bad.
That pause screen, yes, I know.
To the music, though, which is a celebration of adventure and excess. It's gothic, yet there's action and momentum. It has a degree of taste - but not enough, mind you, to employ any sort of restraint or tact. There are choirs and electric guitar and near-constant drums - and yet it's not a reckless full-frontal assault; all elements are carefully and effectively employed and balanced, to grand and intoxicating effect. This music wants the listener engaged, exhilarated, and having a great time.
The franchise's recent American adventures seem so frustrating due to their evident laziness - take a scrapped Lord of the Rings title, add some God of War ripoff gameplay, throw some money at Patrick Stewart (without writing anything worthy of an actor of his caliber), and voila. It's the triumph of money over ideas, all calculation and soullessness. While the Japanese division's commitment to producing actual games is certainly lacking, the U.S. folks could still stand well to take a few cues from the Nipponese music, which for a franchise so steeped in decay and death seldom fails to exhibit a boundless joie de vivre.
.
