Tag: Microsoft Store

#WeeklyGameMusic: A Song for Eternal Story (Phantasy Star Online)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Following up with a SEGA music from last week, we’re moving right along to their lesser known IP, the Phantasy Star series. More specifically, the first online-connected entry in the long-running JRPG sci-fi franchise, Phantasy Star Online (PSO). Fans of this game from the Dreamcast and Gamecube era could probably immediately guess which track I’ll be introducing for this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic: the iconic title music, A Song for Eternal Story, by Hideaki Kobayashi and Fumie Kumatani.

Phantasy Star Online begins with a start of a new hope. With the home planet ravaged and inhospitable, your civilization journeys across space in an effort to discover a new planet to call home. When one of these colony-carrying spaceships, Pioneer 2, receives a message from Pioneer 1 of an excellent candidate they dub, “Ragol,” the former immediately beelines to the new destination. By the time they arrive, however, communication with Pioneer 1 — which up to this point has been regular with updates on their progress colonizing Ragol — suddenly ceases. Readings on the planet indicates a sudden large explosion occurred on the newly built city just before Pioneer 1 went silent. Suspicions high, the Pioneer 2 government asks for highly qualified soldiers, “Hunters,” to scout the planet and discover what dangers might lurk in this lush, unexplored land.

As a Diablo-inspired action-JRPG, Phantasy Star Online greatly diverges from past entries’ turn-based roots. A typical play session involves taking the following steps:

  1. Form a party of a maximum of four real players in Pioneer 2, which acts as the lobby.
  2. The leader of the party picks a quest from the quest counter. This prompts the game to procedurally generate a dungeon, themed under the environment the quest takes place in.
  3. All party members meet at the Ragol teleporter (after making preparations, of course) to start the dungeon-crawling adventure.

Combat in PSO is in real-time, where the player can customize their button inputs on what attack or spell to execute when pressed. The weapon the player equips dictates what action they can assign to their input pallet (weapons can be quick-swapped with a simple menu). Finally, the player’s class — chosen during the character creation screen — determines what weapons they can equip, thereby limiting what actions they can take. Given the game was originally designed with dial-up internet connection in mind, some technical limitations were enforced in the game that appear archaic to online games today. For example, players walk very slowly, and are unable to jump in PSO, making melee-heavy characters incapable of hitting flying enemies, and forcing them to rely on their gun-trotting or magic-wielding allies to handle the job.

Phantasy Star Online was originally released on Dreamcast, Gamecube, and PC. While official servers for the game has been put offline for quite a while now, the fan-supported PSO: Blue Burst Ultima Server is still online as of this writing. Of course, the other route is simply to check out the game’s free-to-play spiritual sequel, Phantasy Star Online 2, available on Xbox One and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store; which after 8 years since release, is still getting content updates as of this writing.

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

Posted on 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: Heavenly Star (Lumines II)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

The next #WeeklyGameMusic is a popular track that has appeared in quite a lot of games, ranging from No More Heroes to Child of Eden. As far as this writer can tell, though, it originated from Q? Entertainment’s block-based puzzle game, Lumines II. Sung by Genki Rockets, it tells a story of “an artificial space girl” and her rather optimistic understanding of what Earth (which, in lore, she has yet to visit) is like.

Lumines II is the second game in the Lumines series: a color-block-based puzzle game where one drops blocks to create a 2×2 same-colored square to score points. The innovation comes from how the game calculates combos: the 2×2 same-colored squares doesn’t get eliminated until after the Time Line — a vertical line which swipes from the left of the screen to the right in regular intervals — passes over it. In other words, clever players can rapidly drop a ton of blocks to create more 2×2 squares before the Time Line makes a full pass over their formation, thus aggregating to a larger score.

While the basic premise of Lumines is simple, the game excels on presentation, and in particular, it’s dynamic music generation. Much like Tetris Effect, each and every action the player takes creates a sound effect and instrumental that affects both the background music and visuals. As a consequence, playing Lumines often feels like sketching music on the fly, just as much as thinking through the puzzle that you’ve created for yourself.

Lumines II was originally released on the Playstation Portable. While this sequel is no longer in print, its predecessor, Lumines Remastered is available for PC on Steam and Microsoft Store.

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