The Notes and Sounds: Matching and Mismatching the Genres

Have you ever played a game where the music was just…catchy, or felt perfect for the game, or wasn’t the type of genre you were expecting in the game and yet never felt so out-of-place? Like it was a “weird that they choose that music for the game, but I like it” kind of thought? Has that happened to you?

Most likely, yes.

There are sometimes were the music in a game is what we expect from it or vastly different, either way somehow surprising us with its overall effect. We’ve come to expect what type of music will go with certain mediums such as films and television, and it being ok or mundane. It has become to the point were we sometimes expect what the music will be without any basis or facts, and it being sadly true. But there even times were are predictions, being right are wrong, are easily disproved. In fact the soundtrack to a game that we expect to be, is either what we expected but exceeding those preexisting ideas or completely surprise us to how vastly they from what the genre is.

To illustrate my point, when listening to the music from either MadWorld or Okami, one can see how the music for each of the games either matches or doesn’t to the games style and presentation. In MadWorld, the style of the game and its presentation leave people to imagine a score resembling that of Heavy Metal, but those presumptions are thrown away and are replaced with a soundtrack easily described as mix of rock and underground rap or hip hop. And with such style, the use of it is done quite excellently and more importantly, its catchy. For what its worth, the style that was chosen for the game manages to somehow match the games presentation, even if we didn’t think of it actually working.

As somewhat of a contrast to MadWorld‘s music choice, the music for Okami fits it Japanese inspired theme perfectly. From the soothing sounds of nature to moments of distress, the music for Okami manages to capture every little detail of its environment; the music almost sounds authentic in some cases.

For every game, one must find what works and what doesn’t, and the music for game is no different. We want to listen to beautiful and engaging music, mot have our ears bleed.

The Notes and Sounds: Emotional Connection

Music is beautiful, it enables us to express our deepest emotions, from utter joy to bitter sadness; the music for a game shouldn’t be any different. When we see a moment of pure happiness we expect to hear music in a joyous tone while hearing a slow and dramatic piece when see a moment of complete sorrow. Music for a game must, when the time demands, capture the essence of a scene or moment, no matter how long the event lasts. Even its barely a minute or an hour, the music must fit to what is going on, and match the emotion that is portrayed.

As cheesy and geeky as this sounds, every time I listen to the “Song of Healing” from Majora’s Mask, I can feel this sense of liberating sadness, as if my pains and sorrows where lifting away. I never been so entranced by a piece of music, and from a game at that, as I have been with the “Song of Healing” but the emotion that is expressed from it is almost tangible and real. It was soothing; it was calming; it was sad; it was that and more. Seriously, I could listen to that song after a loved one has passed away and almost feel like all the sadness was vanishing; it was just that good.

And this leads to point I want to make about video game music: when was the last time you heard good game music that you just had to listen to, no matter where or when it was in a game? When has that happen now a days? There are songs that are catchy and you like the way they sound, but when was the last time you felt any emotion connection to the song that was playing? Now a days, I almost feel like video game music tend to loose the fact that they are their to at least make me feel some sort of emotion. Well, that’s my opinion at least. But I haven’t felt any sort of emotion when I listen to any video game music, the last time I felt any sort of emotion via the music was in Okami.

Music is there to make us happy or sad, to move or to stand still, to remember or to forget; when it comes to the music of a video game, the expectations of an emotional connection to the piece of music and the moment its complimenting should be as well though of as the game itself.

Music is an invisible beauty, and that’s something that people should easily feel.

The Notes and Sounds: Complimentation By the Invisible Beauty

Music has been know as the invisible beauty in part of its intangible essence; in other words, we can’t see it, but we can instantly admire its beauty. When it comes music as a whole, it is one of the harder, at least to me, art mediums to explain and understand, just like paintings. And when it comes to the discussion of music and its role in video games, its description and use is just as hard. Musical scores for mediums such as films, have always been composed to capture a certain the emotion of certain point in a film, from a scene depicting a depressing moment or to a joyous occasion; music in films have always been there to compliment the overall experience, and music in games shouldn’t be any different.

When composing a musical score for a game, one must take the same approach as composing a musical score for any film. The difference, though, is when composing a musical score for a game, the song you are writing must be played over a longer period, if not for an exaggerated amount of time. Just imagine yourself in a struggle to the death battling a fierce foe with the most annoying song being played in the background, it might just agitate you. Or being in a picturesque field with the flowers all around while a heavy rock theme plays. There are times when one can dabble with music, creating a vibe that may not fit the game, but having it work; however, the success of that is never that easy. When one is to create music in a game, it must be so to enhance the overall experience, to match in some way what the player will be doing in a certain point, and having the music withstand the fickle mistress known as time.

It is hard to explain how to compose music for games as its more diverse and more expansive than say films; there is a lot to in games sometimes, and the music shouldn’t be one of the things we need to battle with. It is there to compliment the overall experience, just as a game’s art direction, never being overpowering.

Music, just as in films, is there to compliment it, not to hinder it.

The Notes and Sounds: Music to the Ears

Is there no more iconic piece of game music than of the theme for Super Mario? Well, is there? I think not. In all seriousness, one of the five factors of what makes a good game, a musical score should compliment the game, not by style, but the emotion; in other words, the music should compliment what is going on in the game, just as any score in a movie. But its not easy; unlike movies, in where a composer is supposed to match the emotion and essence of a scene, those that compose music for games must capture the essence of an occurring scene and emotion; more clearly, the music for game must be heard for a longer period than in movies while still having a lasting affect on the player. Can you imagine hearing dramatic sounding music for an extended amount of time?

To use the “Super Mario Brothers Theme” as an example, one if the reasons of its lasting affect is just how catchy it was; the theme never got old no matter how long it was heard. But it also managed to capture the colorful world that was Mario’s, having a melody that was upbeat and of course colorful.

But how do we differentiate the music for a movie to that of a game? Take it like this: have you ever played any game were you are in area or in a part of a game in where you heard a piece of music that no matter ho long you heard it it just never got old, no matter how long you heard it, the melody was still enjoyable? The reason it never got old was because it was the responsibility of the composer to compose music that should have its lasting affect on the player without ever getting old or repetitive; every little single note must be feel refreshing to the ears.

When discussing The Five, Music is always the one to be slightly overlooked and one of the harder subjects to talk about as most of us take it for granted. I hope to make this topic as simplistic as possible without compromising what needs to be learned; this is the hardest thing I have ever had to explained, so please bare with me.

I really doubt any of us have ever composed any music, or even played an instrument, but we at least know what good music sounds like.

Unexpected Creativity: We Can Change Things!

Here is where I say one thing I have never said before about HUDs and controls in any game; in The Conduit, the HUD and the controls layout of wiimote is completely customizable. Yeah, I know!

One of the aspects that really I appreciated in The Conduit, was the fact that the game’s HUD, along with the controls, where easily customizable, a feature rarely even thought of. How many times has it occurred to you where you find yourself frustrated with layout of the controls? Well, in The Conduit you change that. Sick of having the life gauge in a place that you find to be kind of a hassle? Well you can change that too. It was rather interesting of an idea, something that as much as I know was never been done, or even thought of. I have the chance to change how do something or see information in a game, count me in!

When it comes the creativity expressed in games, no one ever expects for such creativity in how a game works or handles. We expect to be dazzled by the games visuals, dynamic story, or the spectacular score, but we never really expect to see one’s imagination in something as mundane as the HUDs for games, and we do find it sometimes more creative. Is it when an artist manages to think of every little aspect of their work that their true talented emerges? Is an artist creative by delivering something expected or something unique? I can say here that the developers gave me something that I never seen, something I have never ever thought of, and something that most people can at least appreciate about the game.

Looking at games such Kingdom Hearts II or The Conduit and how they manage to do something creative, be it by having unique designs for the command menu every time you visited a different world or having the option of changing how the game controls and even looks, we should begin to learn that any little detail is greatly appreciated, no matter how small. You can have the best graphics, an awesome story, and one of the bests score ever, but if the game doesn’t control well and the dedication for how the game controls is lesser than for the other elements of a game, then all the hard work is for naught.

A successful game relies more on how it plays than how it looks, how it tells the story, and how it sounds. That’s why we play them in the first place.

HUDs and Menu Navigation: Creativity In the Mundane

Command Menu for Agrabah

HUDs and menus can be simplistic and can lack any sort of “sparkle” to them, as we really don’t expect any form of creative mindset behind them. It can catch us of our guard when even the design of the HUD in a game looks as if it was meticulously crafted with care and though; at least I was when I saw the command menu for Kingdom Hearts II.

For those who aren’t familiar with the series, in the original Kingdom Hearts, the main protagonist executed attacks and actions via a command menu with four slots: one for attacking, one for magic which had a slot for summons as well, one for items, and one for interaction with world and people and dually for performing special attacks in battle. The design of it was kind of ok, it wasn’t anything special and was there to do what its supposed to do; it was there to work not look pretty. But, even though I liked the idea, it still was a little hard to use, summons had to be navigated within the Magic slot, there was no way to switch between players, and some the special attacks where hard to activate sometimes. The game was good but was just lacking a bit in the gameplay department.

Luckily by the second iteration of the series, or third of your picky, the command not only was made more to suit for navigation, but also garnished a more pleasing design. Every world that was visited, the command menu changed in its design to match the world’s theme; for example, when visiting Agrabah, the world based on the Disney movie Aladdin, the command menu changed into a more Arabian type design, where the slots were carpets, an allusion to the flying carpet, perhaps? When visiting worlds like that the Land of Dragons, based on the movie Mulan, the command menu once again changed to a Chinese-inspired design and when visiting Beast’s Castle, based upon the movie Beauty an the Beast, the design changed to that of the style of French Rococo Architecture, having veins and rose petals appear every time one navigated through the command menu. It was nice to see something as the command menu in Kingdom Hearts II have has much of attention as the whole game itself, it was a creative approach to something that normal no one cares much about.

Doing simple things as dedicating attention to even the design of the HUD and making it look pleasing to the players, can game ever more plaesing to play, and look at.

Command Menu for The Land of Dragons

Command Menu for Beast's Castle

HUDs and Menu Navigation: Usage in Gameplay

It may be weird to discuss the following topic when it comes to gameplay, but things like HUDs and Menus and navigating through them fall into how a player interacts with the game, and should be considered when developing a game. It may seem as aspects as HUDs and menus seem so unimportant and can easily be added and modified quickly, but not at least paying any attention to development of HUDs and menus and their navigation can leave the player feeling frustrated trying to find the simplest of info. Also don’t want to crowd the screen with useless displays; we need to display everything that is important and nothing that is. To illustrate proper usage as HUDs and menus, I will use the The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker as an example as it gameplay revolves in having a display of items and toggling between them in game and in the menu.

I presume those who read this article are by now well aware of Wind Waker and the Zelda series as well, so I see now reason to describe this further than I need to; nevertheless, I will just go on and describe the basics of the HUD and its usage within the game. As we now, the Zelda series is know for having the main protagonist use items such as bombs, arrows, lanterns, and the like in order to progress through the game. The player is given the option of having three items at their disposal freely choosing one by pressing the corresponding button that was assigned by the player via the menu. For example, lets say you wanted to use that nice little bow and arrow you had, in order to use it you had to first had to go the game’s menu and assign the bow to either the [Y], [Z], or [X] button. Once you assigned the bow to either of the buttons, for this example let us say we assigned the bow to the [Z] button, while playing you simply press the [Z] button to equip it and use it. In the case of the bow, the viewpoint changed from a third-person perspective to  third-person one to better accommodate the usage of the item.

This format of equipping items and using them was never complicated and was really implement, which has been a standard since Ocarina of Time. When using HUDs, in this case for the usage of items, it imperative to make them user friendly and not overwhelmingly complicated. Their there to help, not hinder the game.

The Control of It: Make it Fresh

I can’t help to bring up the following next game in this section as the gameplay mechanics where not only new to the genre, but a new take for the company as well; The World Ends With You’s gameplay mechanic utilized not only the the DS touch screen but the top screen as well, creating a more, oddly, refreshing experience.

For a RPG, The World Ends With You left behind the turn based gameplay for a more active, and sometimes hectic, gameplay. When it came to the actual controls of The World Ends With You, in order to attack, the player had two characters to use each with different methods of executing commands, varying from character to character and screens. The control types came in four types: the main character, using the touch screen, would attack via different types of moves of the stylus or using the mic, on the top screen, the second character control type involved matching symbols that were displayed above the character and where hidden, the third type included matching numbers that where displayed above, and the fourth character had to match cards like spades and hearts to execute a greater attack. When it came to choosing the command on the top screen, the D-Pad was used to navigate through the options that were given. On the touch screen, the main protagonist attack method was executed by doing several moves of the stylus, depending on what Pins where equipped. For example, attacking enemies with standard attacks was done so by either moving the stylus over the screen in a horizontal or vertical slash, even varying more on the pin that where equipped. In some cases, to execute certain attacks, the player either had to scream or blow to produce an attack such as speaker appearing and cauing damage to the enemy.

Now all that that I described had to be done at the same time; that’s right, not only where you controlling the main character and using the stylus and mic to attack but you also had control of another character using the D-Pad. It sounds hectic and probably frustrating, which can be, but luckily the game allows for only playing the main character while the secondary character is controlled automatically.

As you can see, the control scheme for The World Ends With You is borderline insane but more seriously, different and quite frankly, new. For an RPG, the controls where really a departure from what most gamers expected from the genre and even the developer. The gameplay was not also new, but more importantly fun to play through, never feeling like a hassle or frustrating as one can imagine. It was a risk on the part of the developers to implement such a control scheme, but was well worth it, leaving such a mechanic fresh to the expected crowd and satisfying it. Never have I seen such a control scheme on the DS, or any other console, that felt that it was taking full advantage of the very platform it was on.

To expand upon the above sentence, it was nice to see a game that used what the console offered as controls. As with games such as No More Heroes and Twilight Princess, the developers created a gameplay mechanic that utilized the consoles controls in order to create a fun experience.

And really, a game works best when the gameplay is considered ever so greatly.

The Control Of It: Make it Fun and Not Tedious

And yet, even if the gameplay is solid and controls magnificently, if the only thing your doing is pressing a button over and over or wailing your arms for nothing, the entertainment just goes south and the effort is wasted. There needs to be reason and stimulus from doing an action to hold anyones’ attention; even having something as combo finishers on attacks can liven up the gameplay a little.

Lets take the controls from No More Heroes as an example of controls being used more effectively, dare I say it.

Really, when it comes down to it, the only thing you are doing in No More Heroes is pressing the [A] button over and over to perform an attack, but when performing a combo finisher, on the screen appears a command that ask of you to move the wiimote in a either up, down, left, or right direction or move the wiimote in a spiral motion. The concept of finish a combo by moving the wiimote in a given direction was well placed and honestly made the game even more enjoyable, compared to games such as Twilight Princess where to attack one need to move the wiimote in the vain of swinging a sword, the controls of No More Heroes where minimal in respects to the implementation of the wiimote and where never, to me at least, much of a burden. It was just right.

Problem is, the open world was one of the games more annoying faults. One of the problems was the lack of any interactivity within the fictional city, Santa Destroy, having only a few side missions to do, it just felt for the size of what Santa Destroy was, there was nothing to do. It was annoying of course, but was never tedious enough for it to completely ruin the game. What really saved the game from complete failure was more in due to the game’s story and of course, it’s control.

Having solid controls with something to liven it up so as to make it fun and more enjoyable leads to the overall success of a game.

The Control of It: Gameplay and It’s Importance in Games

As we move from the importance of the art direction of any game, the second element you notice in any game is its control, how said controls are implement, and how they immerse the player into the game. The way I see it, when it comes to The Five, without gameplay, no matter how good the other factors are, it just won’t be fun or enjoyable. Gameplay is far exceedingly the most important factor and should never be ignored.

When discussing gameplay and what it is to a game, the way I see it gameplay is how the game controls and how responsive they are; I also included things such as HUDs and the use of menus and the like as part of gameplay. More clearly, gameplay tends to be more of the technical aspects of a game. But really, the way the game physically controls should be taken with care, and of course be worked upon heavily, just as a game’s art direction, music, and story. If gameplay is sacrificed over better looking graphics, high quality music, or a great story, no matter how compelling the other factors are, its just won’t be fun to play, which is by far the point of games after all. The last thing you want is for your game to be bad just because it doesn’t work properly.

Implementation of such things as HUDs and menus and interacting with whatever environment that is created for a game, not only should work properly, but if one is to implement such elements, there needs to be reason for them. You can’t have a life meter in a sports game, now can you? If your going to include elements such as an open world, or sandbox as it is referred some times, there needs to be reasons for it and there needs to be something that makes the player feel need to explore it. Even not working on a proper menu screen can create frustration and can even agitate the player; we don’t want to find ourselves looking tirelessly for something so simple. Every little technical aspect should be thought of and executed effortlessly, the whole game depends on it.

There is no point in making a great game if it doesn’t handle well.