With October practically upon us it means Halloween shall soon be upon us. And with Halloween comes our obsession with horror. So, what better way to celebrate it than to dedicate the month to one of the most beloved series in the genre?
Silent Hill.
Yes, the next three entries will deal with spoilers.
The Stop and Swoop of Horror Games. This phrase means nothing.
Sad to say it’s a somewhat slow week for me. No big ideas this week, so have a somewhat filler article this week. It’s not like I’ve been somewhat focused on other things this week, no sir. This week let’s pick apart easily one of the worst people in this industry, Tetsuo Nomura. Another week another new series, welcome to my collective rants on Nomura’s terrible character designs.
I think this is probably the most important part of video game music to be analyzed, and probably the last part of this particular series: the effect that music has on the player of the game itself. Just take a moment, and think of your favorite game, right off the top of your head. Now think about the general feel and environment of that game. Think about gameplay, story, everything about it BUT the music, if you can. Now think SOLELY about the music of that game. Does it remind you of the feel of the game? The setting, thinking back to playing it, everything about it?
Quite recently several members of The Otaku ensued in a bit of a debate; namely, the supposed quality between two standout, and very different titles that were released for the DS relatively recently. The quirky puzzler that brought a breath of fresh gameplay, Ghost Trick, and the story heavy 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors being the ones in question. Thus, I have taken it upon myself to identify their objective pros and cons and see which comes out on top. This may become a new series of mine.
Have some androgeny!
Last time we covered Kanji Tatsumi, a character from Persona 4 notable for his homosexuality or bisexuality. This week, we’re going to touch upon Naoto Shirogane, also from Persona 4 who is notable for the struggles with gender identity the character goes through.
Kanji Tatsumi, a fantastic example of well done writing to create a character that is likable, entertaining, complex, and relatable. He is also one of the few examples of a homosexual character that is written in a way that is neither pandering to stereotypes nor ironic.
Think of your favorite character from any video game ever. Does that character have a theme? It doesn’t even have to be titled that character’s theme, it can just be a piece of music that plays often whenever that certain character comes around. A lot of video game a lot of video game characters have their own theme music, or just music that generally seems to fit them. The difficulty lies in creating a musical piece that accurately fits along with and sort of “describes” the general personality of a character, so-to-speak. Read more »
