Japan Archives - Taro Omiya

#WeeklyGameMusic: Search a Seal ~Tethe Alla~ (Tales of Symphonia)

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Taro Omiya

Whoops, a little late on this #WeeklyGameMusic. We’ve got an old classic, Search a Seal ~Tethe Alla~, by Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura. This lavish variation of the dungeon-crawling music comes from the old-school JRPG, Tales of Symphonia: a seemingly innocent-looking Namco Tales Studio game that has a dark and twisted story discussing politics, religion, prejudice, and class struggle.

Welcome to Sylvarant, a fantasy world in decline. In a land where mana — the fundamental element in this universe — is rapidly depleting, humans are dealing with poverty, monsters, and Desians, a group of half-elves that enslaves humans into slave camps. But in a small village of Iselia, there’s hope: the chosen one, Collette, along with her guardians, Raine and Kratos, have just begun the journey of Regeneration. In said journey, the trio will break the five seals in the world to unlock the Tree of Mana, a renewable source of mana to bring prosper to Sylvarant and give humans a winning edge over Desians. Despite this setting, Tales of Symphonia actually follows an outsider, Lloyd, and his friend, Genis, who joins Collette’s party after the two banished from Iselia due to disrupting a neighboring Desian human ranch (and breach the two org’s peace treaty). The duo initially follows the party given they’re already familiar with its members (Lloyd is good friends with Collette, and Raine is Genis’ sister). But as the journey continues, they uncover terrifying secrets that forces them to question everything the party knew.

Tales of Symphonia is a JRPG that uses an (admittedly antiquated) real-time battle system called Linear Motion Battle System. Upon touching a generic monster in the overworld, up to four party members are teleported in battle mode. The playable characters moves towards or away from a monster, similar to 2D fighting games. Attacks are executed similar to Super Smash Bros., i.e. inputting a controller direction and button press at the same time. Naturally, each character specializes in a type of attack (e.g. ground-melee, anti-aerial, offensive magic, support magic, etc.) that enemies are weak to, so having a well-rounded party is important to success. Otherwise, the game’s exploration mode is relatively similar to most JRPG affair: in villages, talk to people; in overworld, just move from point A to point B; and in temples, use items to solve puzzles.

Tales of Symphonia was originally released for the Nintendo Gamecube. It’s been ported to PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PC via Steam.

Leave a Comment | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

#WeeklyGameMusic: Shinshu Fields (Okami)

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Taro Omiya

For some more optimistic and energizing #WeeklyGameMusic, why not enjoy the fabulous track, Shinshu Fields, composed by Masami Ueda? If you couldn’t guess from the very Japanese instrumentals, this tune is indeed from the cult-hit Clover game, Okami, an epic tale of how the goddess of the sun saves feudal Japan from great evil.

Okami wastes almost no time, with the story immediately starting with the seal of great evil Orochi being broken by an unknown troublemaker. Almost instantly, Nippon (“Japan” in Japanese) gets enveloped by a swarm of monsters and evil spirits. With the country in peril, the guardian spirits summon the sun goddess, Amaterasu, to fight against the darkness. Taking on a form of a white wolf with awesome red highlights, Amaterasu immediately springs to action…by taking a nap. Deflated and out of energy, the guardian spirits expires, literally leaving the fate of the world to one lazy female dog. Thus begins a parody retelling of many Japanese folkstories — including Issun-Boushi, Hato no Ongaeshi, Hanasaku Jiisan, and more — all uncomfortably mashed together into a single world.

True to Platinum’s spirit (a game studio which many of the main players from the now-defunct Clover Studio founded), Okami is an action-adventure game not unlike the Legend of Zelda series, but with a much tighter action component. Like any JRPG, battles takes place in an enclosed space, though in real-time with button-timing playing a critical role in stringing combos. In the midst of battle, Amaterasu can use her brush power to literally pause the game and draw over it, thus conjuring up spells to aid in battle. The genius of this combat gimmick is that it also works outside of combat, as a way to solve puzzles in dungeons.

Okami was originally developed for the Playstation 2. It was ported on the Nintendo Wii and Switch, Playstation 3 and 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.

Leave a Comment | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

#WeeklyGameMusic: Colors (Guilty Gear Strive)

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Taro Omiya

Finally, we cover heavy metal in this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic with Arc System Works’ upcoming fighting game, Guilty Gear Strive. Composed by Daisuke Ishiwatari and performed by Naoki Hashimoto, this admittedly Engrish song manages to capture the goofy and chaotic fighting style resident Guilty Gear surgeon, Faust has. Despite it’s brash and dark beginning, it’s a remarkably sympathetic piece that does a decent job of summarizing Faust’s character arc throughout the game series.

As a long-running series, Guilty Gear Strive has quite a long backstory to cover. To summarize as best as this writer can, Guilty Gear‘s universe exists into the far future where scientists have already discovered…magic. As one would expect of such incredible power, it ends up being used by the military to create “Gears:” biological weapons that takes a humanoid shape. Naturally, the robo-I mean, Gears overlord starts becoming self-conscious and takes down humanity. By the time Strive begins, much of the war between Gears and humans have passed, and a brief period of peace has been achieved. But the main ensemble of mostly-human characters hears the news that the original creator of Gears, Asuka, has turned himself in. Suspecting this is another part of his foul schemes, the cast gears-up for action.

Guilty Gear Strive is a classic 1 vs 1, combo-based fighting game, similar to Street Fighter series and the like. Just choose one of your favorite characters, each with their own unique moveset, and dish it out with another player or AI. Unique to the series is the game’s stark art style: at first glance, one could mistake it for a well-animated 2D Japanese animation. In fact, the game is completely in 3D, including the characters. Lastly, Strive is planned to streamline many of the complications born from added features in prior titles, thus hopefully creating a more beginner-friendly control scheme.

As of this writing, Guilty Gear Strive is still in development. It’s planned to be released on Playstation 4, 5, and PC via Steam.

Leave a Comment | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

#WeeklyGameMusic: Mamazon (Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada)

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Taro Omiya

This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic, to be honest, leaves me more baffled than I can ever describe. Here’s Mamazon‘s theme, composed by Hirofumi Taniguchi from the very meta mobile game, Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada. And yes, for those listening to it now, I, too, have no idea what’s going on. But it sure sounds special!

True to the Onion Games brand, Dandy Dungeon is a bizarre and at moments, creepy game featuring a 30-something programmer developing a game in only his underwear. In a prior life of just-yesterday, Yamada skipped over going to work to instead delve into his own pet project just a bit longer. The very next day, he’s fired. He takes his ~~self-fulfilling prophecy~~ newfound freedom to go right on ahead to finish his dungeon crawler game, and asks you, the player, to beta test it.

Dandy Dungeon is a rogue-like, touch-based RPG where the player traces a path for the hero (who else?), Yamada, to defeat monsters, collect treasure, and exit the floor. While the gameplay itself is nothing to write home about, it’s the bizarre nature of real life and fantasy slowly blending into each other that defines this game’s quirkiness. For example, the “princess” virtual Yamada is rescuing in-game is none other than Yamada prime’s next door neighbor. The great evil boss is none other than the same manager who fired Yamada prime. And despite the virtual game’s fantasy, the very-final-dungeon looks eerily similar to Yamada’s old office.

Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada was originally released for iOS. It’s now available for Nintendo Switch, PC, and Mac via Steam.

Leave a Comment | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

#WeeklyGameMusic: Servants of the Mountain (Final Fantasy X HD Remaster)

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Taro Omiya

In a bit of a twist, we visit this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic to a rearrangement of a mainline Final Fantasy game that wasn’t originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Servants of the Mountain, originally composed by Masashi Hamauzu, is perhaps an underrated gem that doesn’t get called out very often. This remix also gets a helping hand from Junya Nakano to give Final Fantasy X HD Remaster the fresh coat of pain it needs for modern hardware.

Final Fantasy X story is…rather confusing. It begins with the sports star, Tidus, heading out to a thrilling match of Blitzball, only to be swept up by a gigantic monster named Sin (…subtle). From there, he gets thrown with a group of aquatic scavengers to pick out some machine parts, then gets swept up again to the calm Besaid island. Thoroughly disoriented, he gets laughed at by the locals when he claims he’s from Zanarkland, as according to them, that civilization has perished a long time ago and only exists in folklore. In the midst of all this craziness, he’s invited by Yuna, the local’s summoner, to join her pilgrimage. He agrees, given he really doesn’t have much better to do, and Besaid was giving him a depression pretty quickly, anyway.

Interestingly, Final Fantasy X uses a turn-based combat that doesn’t utilize time like past entries. Instead, the player decides what moves to make to all party members during one turn: in doing so, an indicator regularly updates who will make which attack first. Naturally, all moves, both by players and enemies, are executed accordingly. This allows the player to easily swap out their party members in the middle of any turn, given each character specializes in exploiting a specific enemy weakness. Otherwise, exploration is the usual Final Fantasy fare: find keys, open doors, activate switches, trade items, etc.

Final Fantasy X was originally released on the Playstation 2. It’s HD Remaster was bundled together with its sequel, and is available on Windows via Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 3 and 4.

Leave a Comment | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

#WeeklyGameMusic: Little Jack (Skies of Arcadia)

Posted on October 12, 2020 by Taro Omiya

Power through this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic with a energy-boosting track from the SEGA Dreamcast classic, Skies of Arcadia, developed by Overworks! The wonderfully adventurous track, Little Jack, composed by Yutaka Minobe and Tatsuyuki Maeda, is one of the earliest tracks that plays in the game, especially when your party ventures off of your own floating home island, and into the skies on your own sky ship. A fantastic introduction to get you pumped in this retro, turn-based JRPG.

I’ve previously covered Skies of Arcadia in an older post (before the 2020 blog post series refresh), but to help everyone catch up: in this game world, you control the sky pirates, Vyse and Aika, to explore all the floating, airborne islands across the vast skies. That’s right, there’s no planetary ground in this fantastical universe! The plot kicks off with the duo rescuing Fina from the scrupulous Valuan army. Upon returning to their Robin Hood-like home base, Fina reveals that her mission is to collect the Moon Crystals, powerful magical crystals that comes from the six moons, before they fall into the wrong hands. Immediately sensing adventure, the three teenagers team up to recover these crystals.

While Skies of Arcadia shares a lot in common with any retro turn-based JRPG — maze-like exploration, HP bar for health, MP for magic — one of it’s more unique features in its normal battle system is the Skill stat. Unlike all the other meters, Skill is shared between all party members in the field, and is the primary resource consumed for dishing out the most powerful attacks. Recovering skill can be done by sacrificing a character’s turn with Focus, and/or simply letting the party’s turn end. A large majority of the player’s decision-making will focus on how to best allocate Skill points during battle to balance hitting hard, and defending.

Skies of Arcadia was originally released for the Dreamcast. It was later ported to the Gamecube as Skies of Arcadia: Legends.

Leave a Comment | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic