Tag: Nintendo

#WeeklyGameMusic: Fungi Forest (Donkey Kong 64)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

Do you hear that?  Yup, I’m late again.  Anyway, this week’s music is a nice and pleasant composition from Donkey Kong 64, written by the infamous Grant Kirkhope.  While Grant is more known for his jaunty, bouncy compositions, Fungi Forest is a tame music more focused on silence.  A soothing music fitting to a large and epic forest.

Donkey Kong 64.  Well, that’s another game that needs almost no introduction.  Basically, King K. Rool kidnaps Donkey Kong’s 4 friends and their golden bananas, so it’s up to the lazy Kong himself to save the day.  Ah, those were the good times.  Anyways, Donkey Kong 64 is a 3D platformer that’s known to be one of the worst offenders of its genre, collecta-thon.  From the hard-to-find golden bananas to the color-coded bananas that only a specific Kong can collect, it’s only natural that many people criticized the sheer amount of plot coupons they needed to collect to progress through the game.  Still, most critics agree that it is a solid platformer that has tight controls, fascinating worlds to travel through, and a good fun to be had.

Donkey Kong 64 was originally made for, you guessed it, Nintendo 64.  It is available on the WiiWare as a downloadable retro game.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Snowy Valak Mountain / Night (Xenoblade Chronicles)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

A bit late, but this week’s (last week’s?) music plays on Valak Mountain during night in the cult classic Xenoblade Chronicles. ACE+’s composition is simple, calming, almost silent tune that fittingly brings awe to a snowy mountain lit by glowing crystals. It’s one of the many beautiful pieces cleverly placed in the game that can be described as Nintendo’s answer to Skyrim.

In a very unique premise, Xenoblade Chronicles‘s world is actually two massive giants that stands still after a long battle eons ago. In the present, the denizens of one giant, the Hums and Bionis respectively, is defending against the Mechons from the other giant, Mechonis. While the majority of the Hums cuddle at the back of the leg of Bionis for safety, the bookworm Shulk discovers how to utilize the magical sword, Monado. Not only are Mechons weak against the Monado, it also doesn’t physically harm Hums, and even provides the user the power to see the future. Feeling powerful, Shulk and his best friend, Reyn, attempts to defend their colony from a surprise Mechon attack. Naturally, by JRPG logic, this causes their next-door neighbor/girlfriend(?) to die, leaving the two in grief. Thus, the duo to go on a long journey in a revenge mission against the Mechons.

Exploration is the highlight of this real-time action JRPG where taking on over 700 side quests, fighting area-specific enemies, or even just walking up to a check point gives you experience points. In battle mode, standing close to an enemy causes your character to automatically attack them in regular intervals. More important are the magic system: every playable character can use their magic as much as they want, as they don’t have an MP gauge, but every magic suffers from a cooldown where they are rendered unusable. This allows for a surprising amount of magic combos your party can dish out. For example, Reyn uses a lot of defensive and attention-seeking magic that causes the enemies to focus on him, while Shulk has a lot of position-based magic that are more effective on the sides or backs of enemies. Certain status effects, such as stuns, require a certain sequence of moves to be executed as well, requiring one to carefully configure their party for optimal use.

Xenoblade Chronicles was originally developed for the Wii. There is a port available for the 3DS, and a Switch remake is in the works.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Sunny Side Up (Toki Tori 2+)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

Wait, a simple, jolly music in this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic? What is this madness!? Yup, it’s time to enjoy an easy-on-the-ears music called Sunny Side Up, composed by SonicPicnic and featuring the Royal Eggbert Choir. I’m glad relaxing tunes and cute graphics define Toki Tori 2+‘s presentation, because the game’s puzzles are incredibly difficult. Gah! You thought those later levels in Candy Crush Saga are hard? You’ve seen nothing.

Toki Tori 2+ tells a simple tale: dark, evil matter encompasses the world, and you have to save your flightless friends and bring back peace to the world. What, were you expecting something more than that? Hey, I like this simple story structure, and how the game actually narrates through gameplay instead of giving you huge chunks of text. Anyway, Toki Tori 2+ uses a simple platformer-like control scheme: arrow keys to move, a button to sing, and another to stomp. The latter two are critical for solving puzzles, as they have various effects in the environment. Singing for example, attracts platform crabs, while stomping repels them. Using this simple system, Tori has to navigate through complex platformer puzzle without jumping once. And it’s insanely good at making your head scramble. I highly recommend it for puzzle lovers.

Toki Tori 2+ was originally released on the Wii U. It is also available on Steam for PC, Mac, and Linux.

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Weekly Game Music: Opening Theme (Super Smash Bros. Melee)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

New week, new music.  This week, we drop all the subtle music for one that’s obviously epic.  That’s right, it’s the Opening Theme from Super Smash Bros. Melee.  And not just any sort of music, but an actual live performance of Hirokazu Ando’s greatest composition.  Enjoy!

For the uninitiated, Super Smash Bros. Melee is the second game in the outrageously popular Nintendo series, Super Smash Bros.  Popular, because it’s a fighting game starring Nintendo’s most popular mascots.  Hard not to like it, really.  In Melee‘s irrelevant story, each mascot are initially plastic figures made “real” when played on a table-top game.  An elegant way to explain why characters from different universes can exist in the same game.

Super Smash Bros. Melee is an unusual 2D fighting game in that fighters do not die from depleted health, but rather, from being knocked out of the level.  The more damage the player accumulates, the easier it is for him/her to be smacked out of the level.  As a consequence of its objective, Melee has a very strong platforming aspect, too.

Super Smash Bros. Melee  was released on the Gamecube in 2001.

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Weekly Game Music: Machine Passage (Kirby Air Ride)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

New week, new music.  Nintendo is generally known for its cute and adorable characters.  While the Kirby series are no exceptions to this, Machine Passage from Kirby Air Ride would make you think otherwise.  This creepy, jarring, and melancholic composition by Hirokazu Ando, Shogo Sakai, Tadashi Ikegami and Jun Ishikawa stands in stark contrast to an otherwise cheery, happy racing game.

Kirby Air Ride is a cartoon racing game where Kirby, a pink puffball, and his gang races on Warp Stars across different themed courses.  Unique to this game are the controls.  Instead of holding a button to accelerate, vehicles in Air Ride automatically moves forward.  Instead, one holds the A-button to brake, while also charging the vehicle’s booster.  Gliding are also an important component to this game, allowing one to take many different aerial shortcuts.  Lastly, much like the Mario Kart series, Kirby can suck in enemies scattered each course to use their abilities to hinder rivals’ progress.

Kirby Air Ride  was released on the Gamecube in 2003.

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Weekly Game Music: Theme (Bomb Jack)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

New week, new music.  Lets look back to a time when black-and-white was expected on a handheld device.  That’s right!  It’s time to look into Gameboy music.  Here’s Bomb Jack by Alberto Jose Gonzalez.

Bomb Jack is a simple 2D platformer where one guides the superhero, Bomb Jack, to collect bombs scattered across the course in order.  Bomb jack can jump really high and glide to make the collection more easier.  Don’t get hurt by any of the enemies, though!

Bomb Jack on the Gameboy was released in 1992.  It’s been ported on numerous old-school consoles, including Wii’s Virtual Console.

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