Playstation 4 Archives

#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.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 (Sonic Mania)

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Taro Omiya

Time to go old-new school, with retro-new game, Sonic Mania, developed by Christian Whitehead, Headcannon, and PagodaWest Games! OK, if I’m not making too much sense, here’s a simpler way of phrasing it: let’s enjoy this remix of Chemical Plant Zone theme by Tee Lopes, the track originally featured in Sonic 2. The new track, Chemical Plant Zone Act 2, is just as bopping as the original was on the old SEGA Genesis game!

Dr. Eggman (…or Robotnik, for purist) is at it again! After detecting strong signals from Angel Island, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles investigate to find the mad scientists and his robot army steal the Phantom Ruby gems. In an attempt to retrieve them back, the games suddenly activates, warping all the involved characters to past levels. You know…the usual Sonic plot…

Of course, the meat of Sonic Mania is it’s faithfulness to past 2D Sonic titles. Created by fans, for fans, Sonic Mania combines some of the best parts from each past entries. This includes adding unique twists to the momentum-based platformer, such as new power-ups, remixed boss battles, new environment hazards, and more. Played a 2D Sonic game before? You’ll be right at home here!

Sonic Mania is released on Playstation 4, Switch, Xbox One, and PC via Steam, Microsoft Store, and Origin.

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#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.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Undertale (Undertale)

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Taro Omiya

This theme needs no introduction: it’s Undertale by Tobi Fox. This particular piece of music is a bit of a stand-out for #WeeklyGameMusic, given its clear story-driven composition. The gradual crescendo in this theme helps build up to the final moments of your character journey.

Undertale starts with a bit of a legend: long ago, after a war broke out between the monsters and the humans, the monsters lost and ended up hiding under a deep cave. The two specious never encountered each other again. There’s still a hole, however, that humans sometimes accidentally stumble upon, and as luck may have it, today’s lucky winner to fall into said hole is you, the player!

Advertising itself like an old-school JRPG, Undertale utilizes a turn-based battle system when fighting against random encounters. Unlike old-school JRPGs, the battles plays out more like a visual novel where the player negotiates with the monsters. Monsters can attack via a shoot’em-up-like play-field where the player must dodge the bullets being fired. Ultimately, the player can choose to kill or befriend the monsters they encounter, with the latter concluding the fight peacefully. Naturally, the narrative updates itself to take these information into account in subtle ways.

Undertale is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: A Quick Break (Cuphead)

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Taro Omiya

Ready for a hard-to-find tune in a hard-to-play game? This week’s WeeklyGameMusic has you covered with A Quick Break by Kristofer Maddigan from the indie game classic, Cuphead. This acapella piece from Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc.’s debut title encourages the player to…put the game down. Huh. Interesting.

Cuphead‘s story takes the 30’s animation approach of starting awfully dark. Our titular character, Cuphead, and his brother, Mugman, goes off one day to do what all kids love to do: gamble. Well, OK, neither kids nor adults should gamble, and to really drive home that lesson, the devil himself raised a deal with the pair that should they lose the next game, he’ll be taking their souls. Not being the brightest lightbulb in the Christmas tree, Cuphead gleefully accepts this deal, and promptly finds himself losing the very next game. Begging for forgiveness, the pair makes a deal with the Devil (which, again, this blog does not endorse doing) where they need to collect all the soul contracts out there on Inkwell Isles before the end of the day.

Cuphead is a action-platformer in the same vein as the Megaman series. Both Cuphead and Mugman runs, jumps, and fires bullets from their fingers to fight against a wide cast of bosses and levels. Unique to this game is the counter mechanic: an aerial attack that defuses projectiles of a specific color, and regenerates the pair’s special-attack. That said, much of the accolade this game has revolves around it’s animation quality, and its utterly-uncompromising difficulty.

Cuphead was released for Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, and Mac via Steam.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Whetfahrt Cheesefunk (Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien)

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Taro Omiya

You’d think a jazzy composition wouldn’t work too well on a game that requires paying close attention to the music’s rhythm, but the auto-runner Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (phew!), developed by Choice Provisions, throws away all common sense and just makes it happen. Whetfahrt Cheesefunk, composed by Matthew Harwood, takes a nice, soft swinging beat, and crescendos it to a deliciously chaotic composition. An interesting decision for a game that demands every single fiber of the player’s attention, lest they get hit, and be forced to replay from the beginning of the level.

The game’s album is available on Bandcamp, by the way: choiceprovisions.bandcamp.com/track/whetfahrt-cheesefunk

Runner2 is a bizarre side-story the happens between two Bit.Trip series entries, Runner and Fate. In short, series villain Mingrawn Timbletot fires a laser at Commander Video, thus whisking him away into a new dimension…the 3D realm! Tired plot point aside, this leaves Commander Video doing what he already does best in Bit.Trip Runner: keep running right in hopes of finding an exit out of this world.

While an auto-runner in the same vain as Canabult, Runner2 has multiple levels with a clear ending, collectibles, and even boss battles. Naturally as the music would imply, the audio design is the primary highlight of Runner2, making it a stand-out among other games in the same genre. Obstacles and collectibles are deliberately placed to create a sense of rhythm and memorization one would expect from music games. On top of this, each successful action is awarded with a note that, stung together, creates a procedurally generated music matching with the composition already playing in the background. In essence, the player gets to feel like they’re composing music.

Runner2 is available on Windows, OS X, and Linux via Steam; Playstation Vita, 3, and 4; iOS, Xbox 360, and finally, Wii U.

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