Tag: Wii

#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: Ryoshima Coast (Okami)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

This time, we visit ancient Japan from this brilliant piece from Okami. Make way for the epic music, Ryoshima Coast by Hiroshi Yamaguchi! It’s a wonderful composition most fitting for a game that re-tells numerous Japanese fairy tales.

Okami starts with feudal Nippon (“Japan” in Japanese) getting swarmed by monsters and other evil spirits. With the country in peril, the guardians summon the sun goddess, Amaterasu, to rid of all evil. The problem? She’s a lazy wolf, and since the citizens of Nippon doesn’t have faith in their gods, she’s also very weak. Alas, it’s up to (?) the one-inch-tall Issun to wake her up, and encourage her to beat up monster to save the day!

Okami is an action-adventure game, frequently compared to the Legend of Zelda series, that not only manages to stand on its own, but even excel beyond its original inspiration. The game features tight combat system and dungeons with puzzles that even left a Zelda veteran like myself scratching his head. Special to this game is the brush power-ups: “items” are spawned by literally drawing them into the world. Not only does this make puzzle quick to resolve once a solution is found, it also makes the said powers convenient for use on combat. A lot of experimentation is possible in this vast, oriental fairy-tale world.

Okami was originally developed for the Playstation 2. It was also ported on the Wii, complete with wand-based drawing controls. Lastly, a HD remix is downloadable on the Playstation 3.

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Weekly Game Music: Corruption With Rage and Melancholy (ObsCure II)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

New week, new music.  Ready to get scared?  Here’s an excellent sad music from the horror game, ObsCure II.  Corruption with Rage and Melancholy by Olivier Deriviere is the type of music that’s exactly what’s written in the title: a swing of two linked emotions.

ObsCure II narrates the misadventures of 4 college friends who discover mutated monsters in their university.  They quickly discover the Black Pores from the previous game has started to spread among the students, mutating them into monsters.  The students attempt to uncover the source of the vile plant products.

ObsCure II is a horror game, complete with bad weapon handling and uncomfortable camera angles.  Differentiating itself from many games of the same genre is the American college theme and the inclusion of co-op play.

ObsCure II was released on PC, Playstation 2, and Wii in 2008.  It was later ported to PSP and PSP Go.

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Weekly Game Music: Co-op (Magnetis)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

New week, new music.  More techno, now with 90% more jazz.  Here’s a music from Magnetis, Co-op.  It’s composed by Romain Gauthier, the same composer as Edge.

Magnetis is a Tetris-based puzzle game that involves dropping a pair of blocks to clear more blocks.  Unlike Tetris, however, you clear blocks by creating a line segment where two like-colored magnet blocks faces towards each other.  This eliminates any blocks in-between the two magnets.  If, however, two magnets of different colors are matched together, everything in-between becomes garbage blocks, potentially blocking any other formations.

Magnetis was released on the Wii in 2009.  It was later released on the PC via Steam.

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Weekly Game Music: Title Screen (Animal Crossing)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

New week, new music.  Here’s yet another piano composition from the famed Nintendo music composer, Kazumi Totaka.  The calm, jazzy Title Screen music is quite appropriate for this laid back game, Animal Crossing.

The story behind Animal Crossing is very simple, if lacking.  You (yes, you) decide to leave home and travel to a town full of animals.  As you set yourself for a new, independent life, you encounter the main plot of the game: the local shopkeeper, Tom Nook.  Or, more precisely, the debt you owe for buying one of his houses.  Thus begins your quest for trying to pay-off this sneaky businessman, as he slowly inflates the haunting debt.

Fortunately for you, though, Tom Nook is in no hurry.  As a communication RPG, that’s rather critical.  The majority of the time is spent on talking with your randomly-generated neighbors and taking care of their errands.  The main draw of the game are its collectibles.  It allows you to customize your house with various furniture and accessories.  Since the game grades you on your content, it’s implied that you make it look as pretty as possible!

Animal Crossing was released on the Gamecube in 2001.  Its sequels were released on the Nintendo DS and Wii.  A sequel for the Nintendo 3DS is currently in the works.
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Weekly Game Music: You Can’t Handle My Style (Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

New week, new music.  I’m feeling the summer laziness, so lets go with a silly song this time.  Here’s a really long song title, You Can’t Handle My Style from the equally ridiculously titled game, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People.  By now, it should be no secret that the song was sung by Matt Chapman himself, the voice of Strong Bad from the comedy flash website, Homestar Runner. The music itself was penned by Jared Emerson-Johnson from Telltale Games.

Strong Bad’s life is…certainly abnormal, even for a cartoon character.  From beating the snot out of Homestar Runner; taking over other character’s self-declared countries; proving himself to be the best rock band; making an indie (in this case, horrible) action spy movie; and fighting a dragon created by his skills of an artist, Strong Bad is all about awesome(ly bad).  The humorous game makes mischief and naughty tricks an essential necessity to progress.

True to Telltale’s style, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People is an episodic point-and-click adventure game that, surprisingly, contains little text.  Dialog trees and items are represented by icons, and observations are made almost always through a dialog.  In an interesting twist, traveling to different locations involve “unlocking” them via conversations, plotting them on any location of the map, and teleporting there.  Much like the flash website, the cartoony game contains hilarious and witty dialog (if we disregard the first episode, that is…)

Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People was originally released on the Wii and PC in 2008.  It was later ported on the Playstation 3.
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