Almost two years ago to the day I went to a Distant Worlds concert here in Toronto. I posted about it afterwards, but the basic idea is they get an orchestra to play music from the Final Fantasy games. Yesterday I got an email telling me that because I'd attended that concert I was able to order tickets now for the freshly announced concert in Toronto on December 6th. Last time around they also had a concert in KW (they used the KW orchestra after all) but either that isn't true this time or they haven't announced it yet.
I know there were some people last time who said they wanted to go if it ever came back... Well, here it is! I don't even know where I'll be living come December but I imagine I'd find a way to travel back to Toronto for it regardless. There are still tickets in the ~$36 price range, which seems pretty darn cheap. Sitting way up in the back wasn't a bad thing last time (there's a big screen showing the videos anyway and besides it's a MUSIC event) but I can see how people who would gain something from seeing the musicians up close might want to go down to the ~$130 range seats? Me, I'm pretty happy with the top.
So... Anyone else want in? It's unclear if this is a legit offer to returning visitors or if it's just how they worded an ad. Either way we should coordinate getting seats together if other people want to go. I intend on going alone again if that's what it comes down to, but I really think it's worth doing for other people too.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Friday, December 13, 2013
Top 10 First Songs
Last month I posted that I was going to work on Josh's song game and it's been great fun. I made a spreadsheet with every band and artist I could think of that I liked (using things like Jango and Youtube likes to beef the list up) and end up with 232 names in my spreadsheet. Then I went through each one on Wikipedia to find their first song off their first album and gave them all a listen. (I mostly did this while playing Path of Exile!) I assigned each song a letter grade and at the end of it all I had 11 S songs and 34 A songs. When I was putting the grades down I was mostly assuming I'd be listing all of the S ones and then have to pick through the As to make my top 10. Having more than 10 Ses was a little awkward but I decided to just run through all 45 of them again without caring about the initial grade. I made a Youtube playlist!
A lot of the bands on my list I only knew for one song. Typically these were 'one-hit wonders' from the 80s, and I was surprised to find their first songs tended to be the one I knew. In retrospect it shouldn't be that surprising. Most likely these people had one good song and then some label convinced them to make a full album or something. Stick the good song on first so people who pick it up recognize what's going on. I didn't know if I should discount these in the rankings or not. Ultimately I decided not, but mostly because while I liked these songs they just aren't as good as some of the other contenders.
I was also surprised at how many bands started off with either a song called 'introduction' or with a cover of someone else's music. I hate cover songs. Going through this exercise has made me realize it's more I hate things that are wrong and cover songs sound wrong to me. But it's not so much that it's a cover as much as it's different than what I know. So in some cases I do like a cover and the original song is wrong just based on the order I heard them. I know that's not very fair and I stand by the original assertion that I hate cover songs but it isn't quite as black and white as all that. The big one for me in this exercise, oddly, is Paul Simon's first song. I Am A Rock. It's my all time favourite song, but I mean the version done by Simon & Garfunkel. The original (which is really quite similar) just sounds wrong. So wrong I left it off my top 10 here. Which makes me a little sad.
The whole Paul Simon thing illustrates another tricky door... What actually counts as a first song? Should I only have been considering You Can Tell The World, which is Simon & Garfunkel's first song? Did his solo career open him up as a second category? What about the strange case of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship. Should they get three cracks at the list? If so, why shouldn't a band that changed significantly over time get a second crack at it? The Phil Collins led Genesis, or the Stevie Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac. I ended up allowing all second chances and such in, if the name changed, but I think I was a little too critical of them as only one ended up making my list. I think Tom Petty's Free Fallin' probably should have found a spot but I don't know which of the actual first cracks I'd drop for it.
I also wasn't sure what to do about bands I think are awesome but who had a less than stellar initial offering. Soul Deep by Roxette is actually a pretty good song, for example, but I don't know if it would even crack my top 50 Roxette songs. This is the other side of the 'one-hit wonder' coin I guess. I don't know if Animotion should get dinged for only having Obsession in their library and I don't know if Roxette should get dinged for being really awesome later on. I ended up deciding to just go with the song on its merits and in this case it didn't quite make it in. I like Soul Deep, but I suspect I like it because of the other Roxette songs and not so much on it's own.
At any rate... I'm going to include YouTube links for all of them which is going to make the post pretty long. So I'm sticking in a break. Songs to follow!
A lot of the bands on my list I only knew for one song. Typically these were 'one-hit wonders' from the 80s, and I was surprised to find their first songs tended to be the one I knew. In retrospect it shouldn't be that surprising. Most likely these people had one good song and then some label convinced them to make a full album or something. Stick the good song on first so people who pick it up recognize what's going on. I didn't know if I should discount these in the rankings or not. Ultimately I decided not, but mostly because while I liked these songs they just aren't as good as some of the other contenders.
I was also surprised at how many bands started off with either a song called 'introduction' or with a cover of someone else's music. I hate cover songs. Going through this exercise has made me realize it's more I hate things that are wrong and cover songs sound wrong to me. But it's not so much that it's a cover as much as it's different than what I know. So in some cases I do like a cover and the original song is wrong just based on the order I heard them. I know that's not very fair and I stand by the original assertion that I hate cover songs but it isn't quite as black and white as all that. The big one for me in this exercise, oddly, is Paul Simon's first song. I Am A Rock. It's my all time favourite song, but I mean the version done by Simon & Garfunkel. The original (which is really quite similar) just sounds wrong. So wrong I left it off my top 10 here. Which makes me a little sad.
The whole Paul Simon thing illustrates another tricky door... What actually counts as a first song? Should I only have been considering You Can Tell The World, which is Simon & Garfunkel's first song? Did his solo career open him up as a second category? What about the strange case of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship. Should they get three cracks at the list? If so, why shouldn't a band that changed significantly over time get a second crack at it? The Phil Collins led Genesis, or the Stevie Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac. I ended up allowing all second chances and such in, if the name changed, but I think I was a little too critical of them as only one ended up making my list. I think Tom Petty's Free Fallin' probably should have found a spot but I don't know which of the actual first cracks I'd drop for it.
I also wasn't sure what to do about bands I think are awesome but who had a less than stellar initial offering. Soul Deep by Roxette is actually a pretty good song, for example, but I don't know if it would even crack my top 50 Roxette songs. This is the other side of the 'one-hit wonder' coin I guess. I don't know if Animotion should get dinged for only having Obsession in their library and I don't know if Roxette should get dinged for being really awesome later on. I ended up deciding to just go with the song on its merits and in this case it didn't quite make it in. I like Soul Deep, but I suspect I like it because of the other Roxette songs and not so much on it's own.
At any rate... I'm going to include YouTube links for all of them which is going to make the post pretty long. So I'm sticking in a break. Songs to follow!
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Josh's Song Game
Earlier this week Sthenno posted about a 'game' my sleep Yoda Josh Bennett introduced him to. The basic idea is to come up with a list of your top 10 songs with the restriction that the songs have to be the first song on the first album by the band in question. This seemed like an interesting excuse to go listen to some music especially since I had no idea what the first song on the first album was going to be for pretty much anyone since I think I've only ever bought 4 or 5 albums total. (And two of them were the same one; it is a first album and I know the first song on it will make my list.)
I've decided to work through a huge list of bands and I'm still adding to it when I think of someone I want to listen to so I'm not sure when I'll actually get this done. I've taken to listening to songs on Youtube while searching for rare monsters in Path of Exile and it's been quite enjoyable. I encourage other people to do so! (Make a list, play Path of Exile, or both together!)
As a little spoiler here's one I had to check on to make sure it was a first song, and it totally is... ENJOY!
I've decided to work through a huge list of bands and I'm still adding to it when I think of someone I want to listen to so I'm not sure when I'll actually get this done. I've taken to listening to songs on Youtube while searching for rare monsters in Path of Exile and it's been quite enjoyable. I encourage other people to do so! (Make a list, play Path of Exile, or both together!)
As a little spoiler here's one I had to check on to make sure it was a first song, and it totally is... ENJOY!
Friday, June 21, 2013
Whoaah! Frakkin' Zeno's Paradox!
Zeno was a Greek philosopher who lived around 2500 years ago who came up with a bunch of paradoxes that seemed to show that movement was actually an illusion and nothing could ever move. One of the paradoxes essentially took the stance that if you tried to move from point A to point B you'd never actually reach point B. The reason is that halfway between A and B will always be a point C that takes some finite amount of time to reach. But once you reach C there's going to be a new halfway point between C and B that will take some finite amount of time to reach. Because you can keep dividing this path in half you're going to have an infinite number of points to cross before you reach C, and they all take some finite amount of time.
Now, I've taken a walk before, and I tend to actually reach my destination. I don't know the actual refutation but it probably has something to do with the fact that in one step I actually reach a pretty large number of points all at the same time so once the halfway point gets close enough to the end point I'll hit them both at the same time.
This works great for walking, but it turns out it doesn't work so well for getting promoted out of the Silver I division in League of Legends. I complained earlier about how games used to be worth 20+ points with more points for a win than a loss. The swing near the top of Silver I is more like 3-5 points either way. This meant that without going on a pretty big winning or losing streak I wouldn't be able to see a real change in my position. People kept saying that doesn't matter and I just need to keep playing and winning, either to improve my hidden matchmaker rating or just to grind out small numbers of points over a long enough period of time to get up to the 100 I need for a promotion series. Ok, fine, whatever. Play some games, go on a streak, sure.
Earlier this week I went on such a streak and, winning 4 points at a time, got my way all the way up to 96 points from the 76ish I had. Got into my next game and won it too. Yes! Promotion series, here I come. Nope. Turns out a win at 96 points was actually only worth 2, not 4, so I only went up to 98. Ok, fine, whatever. One more game, which I lost. I lost 3 in a row, in fact, and tumbled back down to 87 points.
Play some more the next day, win more than I lose, get back up to 96. Win again. A gain of 2 points, to 98. Ok, fine, whatever. I was sorta expecting that. One more win and I should be good, right? Wrong. I won my next game, for +1 point. Whooah, I'm halfway there. 99 points. There's no more spots between me and 100 so the next win is golden, right? Wrong. I won my next game too, for +0 points. Movement, it would seem, actually is an illusion. I will never get to the end point because I can't get from 99 to 100 without passing through a middle point which doesn't exist and can't be reached.
Maybe one more win would be enough? I don't know because my next game was a disaster and I lost 3 points back down to 96. One loss undid three wins worth of points. (Though one of those wins was worth nothing so can you really say it got undone?)
I no longer feel like just play a bunch of games and win more than I lose is good enough. I've won significantly more than I've lost in recent days but will need to maintain a 75% win rate just to tread water. Not even the pros win that much against equal competition. So the idea that I need to win that much to stay still in Silver I is ludicrous. Either I'm significantly better than my competition and deserve to be promoted or I'm in the right spot and my point gains should maintain parity at a 50% win rate. The way things are now is illogical to me, which makes it very frustrating, and makes me want to stop playing.
I understand how rating systems work in general. The old system made sense. If I went on a winning streak I could expect to see my number go up. If I lost a bunch it would go down. I played a bunch near the end of season 2, went on a winning streak, and grinded my number up to the point where I was gold status. The similar winning streak now has me making no progress at all and wanting to break something.
Even worse, there's a website that shows you where the players in your games sit divisionwise. I've been checking out all of my games and pretty consistently now I'll be on a team with people in the gold divisions. You can also tell who has the higher hidden matchmaker rating because you pick champions in rating order. I know my rating is higher than some of these gold people as a result. Probably not by much, but it does show that it isn't unreasonable for me to get promoted. The arbitrary barrier where I simply can't get more than 99 points doesn't make sense to me when other people, with worse ratings, are gold themselves.
And really, even if I didn't deserve to be gold, what does it hurt to make it possible to get promoted anyway? Will the world collapse if I'm Gold V instead of Silver I? It really feels like giving me something to play for has to be worth the risk that an unworthy person gets into Gold V. Especially since some people are already there! If I'm not worthy why are the people with worse ratings than me worthy? The answer is Riot changed the rules after some people got promoted and I'm caught in the backlash because I played Blood Bowl when season 3 started instead of League of Legends. If I can't see that number go up maybe I should just go play more Blood Bowl now...
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Audiosurf
Back at the start of the year I bought a big bundle of 'indie' vidoe games on sale on Steam. It turns out two of those games were games that made use of music files on your computer in order to build levels based on the music. I wrote about the first one, Symphony back in January and was not a fan thanks to difficulty level issues. Would Audiosurf fare any better?
Audiosurf is essentially a racing/puzzle game set to your music. You're on a three lane highway and different coloured blocks appear in the lanes. If you drive over a block you collect it and store it in a 3x7 grid of collected blocks. Get 3 or more connected blocks of the same colour in your grid and they disappear and score you points. Play a slower song and you drive uphill and get fewer blocks. Play a faster song and you drive downhill and get tons of blocks.
The game has many different modes/difficulty levels, and they're all unlocked right from the start. Considering that I gave up on Symphony because it wouldn't let me jump ahead in difficulty levels this is a very good thing. On the other hand I have a hard time processing which blocks I want to get and which I want to skip at the speed of the game, so I actually don't need the harder difficulty levels! I'm likely to just play the easier ones anyway. (One of the modes gives you extra random power-ups which help me clear out my grid without making a plan, so I'm liking that one so far.)
If there's one complaint I have with the game (and it's one that Symphony shares) it's that I have to keep picking a song each time I want to play. I don't want to have to choose my song; I want the ability to get a random song from my collection. MP3 players have had a random shuffle option for as long as I can remember! Why can't these games work that technology in? Also, I have to choose a game mode each time too. It would be really nice to have it keep the same game mode going unless I say I want to change in a menu instead of making me choose every time.
I currently have the high score for the medium difficulty across all people who have ever played "Dancing On My Own Ground - Gowan"! Woo! Don't you mind the fact that only 4 people have ever played it at all!
Audiosurf is essentially a racing/puzzle game set to your music. You're on a three lane highway and different coloured blocks appear in the lanes. If you drive over a block you collect it and store it in a 3x7 grid of collected blocks. Get 3 or more connected blocks of the same colour in your grid and they disappear and score you points. Play a slower song and you drive uphill and get fewer blocks. Play a faster song and you drive downhill and get tons of blocks.
The game has many different modes/difficulty levels, and they're all unlocked right from the start. Considering that I gave up on Symphony because it wouldn't let me jump ahead in difficulty levels this is a very good thing. On the other hand I have a hard time processing which blocks I want to get and which I want to skip at the speed of the game, so I actually don't need the harder difficulty levels! I'm likely to just play the easier ones anyway. (One of the modes gives you extra random power-ups which help me clear out my grid without making a plan, so I'm liking that one so far.)
If there's one complaint I have with the game (and it's one that Symphony shares) it's that I have to keep picking a song each time I want to play. I don't want to have to choose my song; I want the ability to get a random song from my collection. MP3 players have had a random shuffle option for as long as I can remember! Why can't these games work that technology in? Also, I have to choose a game mode each time too. It would be really nice to have it keep the same game mode going unless I say I want to change in a menu instead of making me choose every time.
I currently have the high score for the medium difficulty across all people who have ever played "Dancing On My Own Ground - Gowan"! Woo! Don't you mind the fact that only 4 people have ever played it at all!
Monday, November 26, 2012
Dancing With The Stars Finale
Tonight will have the final competition episode for this season of Dancing With The Stars. This season was special in that they brought back 13 stars from previous seasons to have an all-star season. Lots of past champions and such. One returning star in particular has been awesome this season and I found myself wanting to re-watch all her dances and link them on facebook. But since I'm probably going to want to watch them again later it would be useful to have them all in one place. So while this is pretty off topic for a gaming blog, I'm going to stick them all in here anyway.
Watching DWTS has taken away a fair amount of gaming time in recent weeks and Robb was confused as to why I'd choose to watching dancing over playing League of Legends. I donno. I really like precise, in sync movements. I don't get when the judges talk about the emotional connections or whatever. I think that's the Vulcanian in me. It's the sort of thing I like to imagine I could do myself someday if not for the whole needing a second person thing which just doesn't seem very likely, does it?
At any rate, Shawn Johnson is simply awesome. After the week 3 dance her pro partner was visibly exhausted from the dance and she didn't look winded at all. She hits every single step precisely and they're just able to go so high energy. Last week she finally got tired after an incredible bhangra dance. I really hope she wins tonight... I don't go crazy and only vote with one Facebook account so I'm not really doing all I could to help her win, but I hope she does anyway.
And now... Youtube videos! Try not to get as bitter about Len's scores and comments as I do...
Watching DWTS has taken away a fair amount of gaming time in recent weeks and Robb was confused as to why I'd choose to watching dancing over playing League of Legends. I donno. I really like precise, in sync movements. I don't get when the judges talk about the emotional connections or whatever. I think that's the Vulcanian in me. It's the sort of thing I like to imagine I could do myself someday if not for the whole needing a second person thing which just doesn't seem very likely, does it?
At any rate, Shawn Johnson is simply awesome. After the week 3 dance her pro partner was visibly exhausted from the dance and she didn't look winded at all. She hits every single step precisely and they're just able to go so high energy. Last week she finally got tired after an incredible bhangra dance. I really hope she wins tonight... I don't go crazy and only vote with one Facebook account so I'm not really doing all I could to help her win, but I hope she does anyway.
And now... Youtube videos! Try not to get as bitter about Len's scores and comments as I do...
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Final Fantasy VI: Kefka
Kefka is the big bad guy at the end of Final Fantasy VI, and he's my favourite villain from pretty much any source. Game, movie, book... No one else is as awesome, insane, or just plain evil. I really like the way Kefka works into the story of the game pretty much the entire time which is fairly different compared to most other games in the series.
Take FFIV, for example. The end boss of that game is Zeromus, a fellow you only learn exists shortly before the end of the game. For most of the game you're led to believe that Golbez is the prime evil but then it turns out he's actually your brother and has been mind controlled. Great twist and all, but it really doesn't leave much time for Zeromus to come into his own.
In FFV you do learn of the end boss pretty early into the game but you actually don't have much reason to hate the guy. X-Death was imprisoned by your father and I'm sure he was quite evil back then. But now? He's just trying to break out of jail, power up, and get some revenge. Heck, frame it a little differently and that actually sounds like the back story for a good guy.
In FFIII the end boss is just a cloud. It is pretty scary that there's this big cloud out there that wants to devour the universe and clearly you want to go stop it... But can you really call it evil? It's just doing what a giant void cloud does. And even then, it doesn't feature much, if at all, in the plot. It's kinda pulling the strings in the background but mostly it's just there.
Being present throughout the game, it turns out, is actually important for people. You can see this from the first couple World of Warcraft expansions. The initial game had no end boss to speak of. Kill some things, get some loot, wait for new dungeons to come out. Tons of fun, but no big bad guy to hate. The first expansion brought Illidan out as the big bad guy and he featured in the opening video as a guy you really wanted to go kill. And then he promptly disappeared from most of the game and most people never saw him again. But in the second expansion the Lich King was featured prominently in lots of leveling quests. At one point you even inadvertently help him conquer a tribe of trolls and get control of a zone. You really wanted to go beat him up!
FFVI really brings this angle out of Kefka. He keeps showing up in the plot during the events of the first world. You don't think he's the big bad guy at the time, but he's still kicking around and doing things that make you hate him. Square still gets to pull out their big twist when Kefka kills his emperor, destroys the world, and becomes a god. But because it's not the introduction of a new character as the god but the transformation of an existing character I feel it has more power. And oh, what an existing character...
Kefka starts out appearing like the comic relief. He has corny music, he dresses funny, and he's egotistical to the extreme. He's marching through the desert and makes his lackeys dust the sand off of his boots! Then he goes full on evil when he goes behind Leo's back and poisons the entire population of Doma. And that laugh... MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! After all, nothing can beat the sweet music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison...
Kefka kills off one of the other Empire generals, Leo. This shortly after you start to learn more about Leo and start liking him. He seems like a good guy, and then Kefka kills him on you. Kefka also does a decent job of turning the party against Celes by talking her up as a spy instead of a defector. It's things like these that make you really hate Kefka. I really liked Locke and Celes together and it angered me when Kefka drove a wedge between them!
Kefka fights the party over and over, but it actually makes sense that he's a rough but beatable fight each time. He keeps gaining power as the story progresses by killing more and more espers and absorbing their powers. (Which is actually how the player characters progress as well. Espers teach spells and give stat ups on leveling.) Eventually Kefka gets control of the goddess statues that created all magic and uses their power to become a god, at which point you stop fighting him. Then you have to live in a world he's destroyed. Kefka isn't someone you casually run into anymore but you're constantly faced with the consequences of his actions.
Kefka has tons of great lines, he's constantly in your face, and he's absolutely both insane and evil. And his path to power is actually quite believable given the game world. It's for these reasons I think he's the most awesome villain in any story.
And his music is great too... Check out both his normal theme music and his epic final boss battle music!
Take FFIV, for example. The end boss of that game is Zeromus, a fellow you only learn exists shortly before the end of the game. For most of the game you're led to believe that Golbez is the prime evil but then it turns out he's actually your brother and has been mind controlled. Great twist and all, but it really doesn't leave much time for Zeromus to come into his own.
In FFV you do learn of the end boss pretty early into the game but you actually don't have much reason to hate the guy. X-Death was imprisoned by your father and I'm sure he was quite evil back then. But now? He's just trying to break out of jail, power up, and get some revenge. Heck, frame it a little differently and that actually sounds like the back story for a good guy.
In FFIII the end boss is just a cloud. It is pretty scary that there's this big cloud out there that wants to devour the universe and clearly you want to go stop it... But can you really call it evil? It's just doing what a giant void cloud does. And even then, it doesn't feature much, if at all, in the plot. It's kinda pulling the strings in the background but mostly it's just there.
Being present throughout the game, it turns out, is actually important for people. You can see this from the first couple World of Warcraft expansions. The initial game had no end boss to speak of. Kill some things, get some loot, wait for new dungeons to come out. Tons of fun, but no big bad guy to hate. The first expansion brought Illidan out as the big bad guy and he featured in the opening video as a guy you really wanted to go kill. And then he promptly disappeared from most of the game and most people never saw him again. But in the second expansion the Lich King was featured prominently in lots of leveling quests. At one point you even inadvertently help him conquer a tribe of trolls and get control of a zone. You really wanted to go beat him up!
FFVI really brings this angle out of Kefka. He keeps showing up in the plot during the events of the first world. You don't think he's the big bad guy at the time, but he's still kicking around and doing things that make you hate him. Square still gets to pull out their big twist when Kefka kills his emperor, destroys the world, and becomes a god. But because it's not the introduction of a new character as the god but the transformation of an existing character I feel it has more power. And oh, what an existing character...
Kefka starts out appearing like the comic relief. He has corny music, he dresses funny, and he's egotistical to the extreme. He's marching through the desert and makes his lackeys dust the sand off of his boots! Then he goes full on evil when he goes behind Leo's back and poisons the entire population of Doma. And that laugh... MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! After all, nothing can beat the sweet music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison...
Kefka kills off one of the other Empire generals, Leo. This shortly after you start to learn more about Leo and start liking him. He seems like a good guy, and then Kefka kills him on you. Kefka also does a decent job of turning the party against Celes by talking her up as a spy instead of a defector. It's things like these that make you really hate Kefka. I really liked Locke and Celes together and it angered me when Kefka drove a wedge between them!
Kefka fights the party over and over, but it actually makes sense that he's a rough but beatable fight each time. He keeps gaining power as the story progresses by killing more and more espers and absorbing their powers. (Which is actually how the player characters progress as well. Espers teach spells and give stat ups on leveling.) Eventually Kefka gets control of the goddess statues that created all magic and uses their power to become a god, at which point you stop fighting him. Then you have to live in a world he's destroyed. Kefka isn't someone you casually run into anymore but you're constantly faced with the consequences of his actions.
Kefka has tons of great lines, he's constantly in your face, and he's absolutely both insane and evil. And his path to power is actually quite believable given the game world. It's for these reasons I think he's the most awesome villain in any story.
And his music is great too... Check out both his normal theme music and his epic final boss battle music!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Video Games Live
I had something on tv in the background yesterday while grinding away at my World of Warcraft daily quests (Big Bang Theory, probably) when an interesting commercial came on. It was for a music concert featuring music from Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, and more and was going to be touring through Canada at some point. It had a webpage listed in the commercial so I went to check it out. It turns out they're passing through the area next week! Toronto on Thursday the 25th, Montreal on Friday, Kitchener on Sunday, Ottawa on Monday. Seems like they'll be zig-zagging all over southern Ontario which seems a little inefficient but I suspect they use local orchestras in each location so it's just the sets and such making the trip so probably not actually a big deal. (They only currently list the KW orchestra for the Kitchener event so maybe they're doing all 4?)
Now, I _really_ enjoyed the Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds concert I went to earlier this year. Final Fantasy music is objectively the best so I imagine a concert with all kinds of video game music would have to be worse than one of just Final Fantasy music but I expect it would still be pretty good. So I decided to check out the website a bit more and see what the deal would be...
The first thing that jumped out at me is the ticket prices are a lot lower than the Distant Worlds ones were. $37.50 for the cheap seats this time which for more than 2 hours is in the same ballpark as going to a movie. I was a little leery about trying to get people to go with me to a $100 concert when they might not like it... But this seems cheap enough to take a chance on I would think! The Kitchener ones start at $35. In fact, I think the most expensive tickets to VGL are cheaper than the cheapest ones were for FF:DW.
The next thing was extra stuff. Distant Worlds had special VIP tickets where you paid a bunch extra to go meet with the performers afterwards. Now, they had Nobuo Uematsu so this was actually a pretty big deal for Final Fantasy music nerds. Video Games Live seems to run a pre and post show, for free, around every event. The webpage claims they run costume contests and sometimes have game booths and such set up beforehand. They encourage picture/video taking during the concert.
Apparently they have around 60 segments that they could play at each concert. They do about 20 each time and rotate around. Makes me wonder if there will be substantial differences between the Toronto and Kitchener events. If they're using the same orchestra in both places maybe not? It sounds like they have some core pieces (Mario/Zelda/Final Fantasy) and then sub in different things to fill up the 2.5 hours. That said, I don't know that 'filler' is going to be the right term. There's a lot of video games with awesome music out there. They may not have the flashy names, but I expect it'll still be pretty great.
I think it sounds pretty interesting. It'd be tight, but I'm pretty sure I can get downtown in time for the pre-show while leaving work at my normal time. I may even have time to pop home on the way and put on some overalls and a purple hat...
Anyone else interested in going?
Now, I _really_ enjoyed the Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds concert I went to earlier this year. Final Fantasy music is objectively the best so I imagine a concert with all kinds of video game music would have to be worse than one of just Final Fantasy music but I expect it would still be pretty good. So I decided to check out the website a bit more and see what the deal would be...
The first thing that jumped out at me is the ticket prices are a lot lower than the Distant Worlds ones were. $37.50 for the cheap seats this time which for more than 2 hours is in the same ballpark as going to a movie. I was a little leery about trying to get people to go with me to a $100 concert when they might not like it... But this seems cheap enough to take a chance on I would think! The Kitchener ones start at $35. In fact, I think the most expensive tickets to VGL are cheaper than the cheapest ones were for FF:DW.
The next thing was extra stuff. Distant Worlds had special VIP tickets where you paid a bunch extra to go meet with the performers afterwards. Now, they had Nobuo Uematsu so this was actually a pretty big deal for Final Fantasy music nerds. Video Games Live seems to run a pre and post show, for free, around every event. The webpage claims they run costume contests and sometimes have game booths and such set up beforehand. They encourage picture/video taking during the concert.
Apparently they have around 60 segments that they could play at each concert. They do about 20 each time and rotate around. Makes me wonder if there will be substantial differences between the Toronto and Kitchener events. If they're using the same orchestra in both places maybe not? It sounds like they have some core pieces (Mario/Zelda/Final Fantasy) and then sub in different things to fill up the 2.5 hours. That said, I don't know that 'filler' is going to be the right term. There's a lot of video games with awesome music out there. They may not have the flashy names, but I expect it'll still be pretty great.
I think it sounds pretty interesting. It'd be tight, but I'm pretty sure I can get downtown in time for the pre-show while leaving work at my normal time. I may even have time to pop home on the way and put on some overalls and a purple hat...
Anyone else interested in going?
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Final Fantasy VI: Zozo!
Today on the bus I talked to all of the nice people in Zozo and managed to deduce the correct time. They were a great help and the reward was the chainsaw tool for Edgar. I'm never going to use it because it's terrible. I'm not even sure why I got it since it's just going to clog up my inventory and I hate collecting things. Oh well.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Final Fantasy V: True Colours
I had a thought while playing Final Fantasy V last week that really shows the way I approach games... I'd just reached the second castle after the first crystal had shattered. We were on our way to warn the king that his crystal was going to shatter as well and terrible things would happen. We show up and start talking to him and he blows out concerns off. "Just because your crystal blew up doesn't mean mine is going to! My people like the power they gain by abusing the crystal." My party tries to talk some sense into him when suddenly a meteor crashes into the ground near the tower in which they store the crystal. The ominous sense of urgency music starts playing. A guard runs in and tells the king what happened. The kings freaks out, tells all his guards to come with him, and runs off to the tower. It's clear from the music and the story that I'm expected to rush after him too. Maybe if I get there in time I can save the crystal from the meteor!
Instead I think to myself "The king and all the guards are gone? Time to ransack this place!" and run off to scour every inch of his castle for fat loots. Must get all of the stuffs! (And I thought I might be unique, but in order to get the right sound clip I found a "Let's Play" for the game at this spot and the voice over from the guy playing it also immediately mentions looting the castle after the king runs off.)
A little further on you get stuck in an exploding castle. You have 10 minutes to get out but there are tons of monster-in-a-box treasures to get. I ended up playing through 3 times on the bus this morning to make sure I got all the relevant loot (skipping some elixirs). I only would have done it twice but the game actually locked up on me after my second try. (I had learned a hard to learn blue mage spell in that run as well so I'm a little bitter the game froze.)
Instead I think to myself "The king and all the guards are gone? Time to ransack this place!" and run off to scour every inch of his castle for fat loots. Must get all of the stuffs! (And I thought I might be unique, but in order to get the right sound clip I found a "Let's Play" for the game at this spot and the voice over from the guy playing it also immediately mentions looting the castle after the king runs off.)
A little further on you get stuck in an exploding castle. You have 10 minutes to get out but there are tons of monster-in-a-box treasures to get. I ended up playing through 3 times on the bus this morning to make sure I got all the relevant loot (skipping some elixirs). I only would have done it twice but the game actually locked up on me after my second try. (I had learned a hard to learn blue mage spell in that run as well so I'm a little bitter the game froze.)
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Music
One of the things that was mentioned a lot in reviews for Mystic Quest is how fantastic the music is. Time after time I'd see people lamenting that such a great soundtrack was stuck on such a terrible game. Now, I don't think the game is quite so terrible and it turns out I also don't think the soundtrack is so great either. I found a list of the soundtrack and could find all the songs on Youtube but I couldn't find a playlist containing just those songs. So I built one myself!
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the music is bad. It's just I spend a fair amount of time listening to OST's for the other Final Fantays games and they blow this one away. Nobuo Uematsu wasn't involved in this game (presumably he was working on Final Fantasy V at the time) and maybe that's my problem. I spend so much time listening to his awesome music that it may be clouding my judgment? I don't know.
Maybe the same sort of logic applies to the music as to the game itself. I hypothesized that Mystic Quest may actually be one of the better RPGs on the SNES but that it pales so much to the core Final Fantasy games that no one can look at it objectively. It could well be the same thing with me and the soundtrack. It could be the fourth best soundtrack on the system for all I know, but it's way behind IV, V, and VI that it's hard to judge.
Here's one of my favourite songs from the soundtrack. It's the theme song for one of the allies who joins your party. He's not a thief, he's a treasure hunter! His name in the US game is Tristam, but in the Japanese game it's Lock. Hmm...
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the music is bad. It's just I spend a fair amount of time listening to OST's for the other Final Fantays games and they blow this one away. Nobuo Uematsu wasn't involved in this game (presumably he was working on Final Fantasy V at the time) and maybe that's my problem. I spend so much time listening to his awesome music that it may be clouding my judgment? I don't know.
Maybe the same sort of logic applies to the music as to the game itself. I hypothesized that Mystic Quest may actually be one of the better RPGs on the SNES but that it pales so much to the core Final Fantasy games that no one can look at it objectively. It could well be the same thing with me and the soundtrack. It could be the fourth best soundtrack on the system for all I know, but it's way behind IV, V, and VI that it's hard to judge.
Here's one of my favourite songs from the soundtrack. It's the theme song for one of the allies who joins your party. He's not a thief, he's a treasure hunter! His name in the US game is Tristam, but in the Japanese game it's Lock. Hmm...
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Warriors of Rock: 2112!
After completing a hero's song set in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock their ability gets super powered. I've replayed a couple of their songs with the super ability just to play around with scoring obscene points on a level but fortunately the abilities don't carry over when you start in on a new hero's songs. (Being overpowered is fun for a while but it would detract from the game as a whole if it was always the case.) I did start wondering about how combining them could work as a big event. Clearly the game was building towards something since I was playing 'quest mode' and there was an intro with a legendary 'guitar in the stone' hidden in a cave somewhere.
Well, after picking up my 4th hero (conveniently the number of people in a video game band) I unlocked the guitar stage. I really should have picked up on the hints as to what this was going to be. (Especially since the upcoming song was featured in Ready Player One... I should really reread that book again and make note of all the things I don't understand so I can play/watch/listen to them!) Guitar hidden in a cave with world changing impact? Must be 2112 by Rush! Featuring extra commentary by the band explaining what is going on for newbs like myself!
The song itself is 20 minutes long which is a lot of extra guitar heroing. All four of the super powered abilities from my heroes were in effect for the duration and I'm pretty sure that was a very good thing. 2112 has some really crazy guitar segments in there and I doubt I could have passed it without the power-ups. Passing that stage unlocked 4 more heroes to power up and I imagine another super rock song of some kind after that. My fingers are crossed for Rime of the Ancient Mariner to show up at some point. I'd always feared it was too long for a rhythm game but if they're willing to put 2112 into a game then I have hope again!
Well, after picking up my 4th hero (conveniently the number of people in a video game band) I unlocked the guitar stage. I really should have picked up on the hints as to what this was going to be. (Especially since the upcoming song was featured in Ready Player One... I should really reread that book again and make note of all the things I don't understand so I can play/watch/listen to them!) Guitar hidden in a cave with world changing impact? Must be 2112 by Rush! Featuring extra commentary by the band explaining what is going on for newbs like myself!
The song itself is 20 minutes long which is a lot of extra guitar heroing. All four of the super powered abilities from my heroes were in effect for the duration and I'm pretty sure that was a very good thing. 2112 has some really crazy guitar segments in there and I doubt I could have passed it without the power-ups. Passing that stage unlocked 4 more heroes to power up and I imagine another super rock song of some kind after that. My fingers are crossed for Rime of the Ancient Mariner to show up at some point. I'd always feared it was too long for a rhythm game but if they're willing to put 2112 into a game then I have hope again!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Rogers (the telecommunications company) recently decided they were getting out of the movie and game rental business. They've put their entire stock at all of their stores up for sale on the cheap. Andrew and I only found out about this about a week after they'd started so there were slim pickings at the stores we went to. I almost bought a copy of Final Fantasy XIII-2 but it was still $40 used and there was a warning saying some of the online content might not work (likely it comes with a code that would have already been used by somebody). I figure by the time I want to play it I'll be able to get a new copy around that price if not cheaper so I passed.
One thing I did get was Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. I get a lot of these music games mostly because I like to have a wide variety of songs to play. They frequently added new features to these games (I guess to explain why they're putting out so many of them) but I really don't care about most of them. I just want more songs. I don't have a drum kit. Or a microphone. (Or any ability to use a microphone... I have no musical talent at all but I can fudge things with a guitar since it's really just hitting a button when it says to. Actually making the right sounds come out of my mouth? Not going to happen.) All the new games have 'band' features but all I play is the guitar tracks. Even when there are bass options I'll generally only play the guitar unless I _really_ like a song.
Warriors of Rock added a new twist that I'm actually enjoying. Instead of levels being vague locations that exist only to combine a bunch of songs together they're centered around a hero. Each hero has a special ability which modifies how the game is played! The three I've seen so far have been to gain 5% star power for every 10 consecutive notes hit, to gain double star power from completing a star power section, and to start at a full rock meter and earn bonus points if you overload it. None of these things fundamentally change what I'm doing (holding the buttons down that it tells me to) but they change up how points are scored in small but interesting ways. I'm liking it so far.
There's a second change I _really_ like to the interface. There's a meter showing how far into the song I am. So I can tell at a glance if it's almost over and I should blow my star power or not!
One thing I was afraid I wouldn't like was the song choices. In the first level I did I found myself hating every song that came up. I even thought to myself 'Is this what rock music actually is? Do I hate rock music?' The only song from the first set I liked at all was Alive by Flyleaf and I wouldn't have really classified it as rock. Then I went to the second song set and my fears went away. Red Rider, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, Edgar Winter, Aerosmith, Dire Straits, Neil Young, and Black Sabbath. Rock out! The third song set kicked off with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. So I guess it was just that first set with newer songs that bothered me. Most of the good stuff is older than I am, after all!
One thing I did get was Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. I get a lot of these music games mostly because I like to have a wide variety of songs to play. They frequently added new features to these games (I guess to explain why they're putting out so many of them) but I really don't care about most of them. I just want more songs. I don't have a drum kit. Or a microphone. (Or any ability to use a microphone... I have no musical talent at all but I can fudge things with a guitar since it's really just hitting a button when it says to. Actually making the right sounds come out of my mouth? Not going to happen.) All the new games have 'band' features but all I play is the guitar tracks. Even when there are bass options I'll generally only play the guitar unless I _really_ like a song.
Warriors of Rock added a new twist that I'm actually enjoying. Instead of levels being vague locations that exist only to combine a bunch of songs together they're centered around a hero. Each hero has a special ability which modifies how the game is played! The three I've seen so far have been to gain 5% star power for every 10 consecutive notes hit, to gain double star power from completing a star power section, and to start at a full rock meter and earn bonus points if you overload it. None of these things fundamentally change what I'm doing (holding the buttons down that it tells me to) but they change up how points are scored in small but interesting ways. I'm liking it so far.
There's a second change I _really_ like to the interface. There's a meter showing how far into the song I am. So I can tell at a glance if it's almost over and I should blow my star power or not!
One thing I was afraid I wouldn't like was the song choices. In the first level I did I found myself hating every song that came up. I even thought to myself 'Is this what rock music actually is? Do I hate rock music?' The only song from the first set I liked at all was Alive by Flyleaf and I wouldn't have really classified it as rock. Then I went to the second song set and my fears went away. Red Rider, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, Edgar Winter, Aerosmith, Dire Straits, Neil Young, and Black Sabbath. Rock out! The third song set kicked off with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. So I guess it was just that first set with newer songs that bothered me. Most of the good stuff is older than I am, after all!
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Distant Worlds Recap
By popular demand (my sister asked about it) I'm going to talk a bit about the Final Fantasy concert I attended on Saturday. Maybe other people will take interest in it from this post and will come along the next time one of these it put on so I don't have to sit by myself. As a bit of a spoiler I did think at one point that it was so awesome it would have been worth flying in from NB to attend if I'd been living out there instead of here in Toronto. Which makes me think it may make a worthwhile vacation to travel somewhere else at some point to catch a concert...
At any rate, I picked my ticket up at the Will Call booth thing and headed in. The theatre (Sony Centre for the Performing arts) was very nice. I was surprised to find cup holders on the seats like in a movie theatre. (Well, they were much smaller - big enough for a coffee or a bottle of pop.) I went to see if they'd sell something to put in the cup holder and got a $4 bottle of Coke. I wasn't sure how long it would take to find the place so I had about 20 minutes to sit around and wait for things to get started. Going in I was a little worried I was going to be underdressed for the theatre and I feel like I was. But I wasn't underdressed for the crowd that showed up. Some people were in fancy outfits but a lot of people were in jeans.
Eventually the lights went down and they started with Prelude. I'm not sure which Prelude it was, but it started off properly with just one woman playing a humungous harp. Eventually the rest of the orchestra came in and played out the rest of whichever Prelude it was. Then they jumped into Liberi Fatali from FFVIII. On top of the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony they also had a choir (TELUS Choir is what it sounded like they were called?) which was used to good effect in Liberi Fatali. There was also a projection running video on a big screen overhead which kicked in during this song.
Break for introductions from the conductor Arnie Roth. Huge applause for Nobuo Uematsu. No applause at all for the Sony Centre which was a little awkward.
Shift into Victory Fanfare from FFVIII. It was all of 10 seconds, just the little blurb that happens when you win a fight. Shift into Don't Be Afraid from FFVIII accompanied with a video replaying scenes from one of the first parts of FFVIII (where you have Seifer in your party and then get chased through town by a gigantic spider robot thing). Song ended as Squall made it to the boat and Quistis blew up the spider robot. Very nicely done. Now I want to play FFVIII again.
Break for more talking to say what they're playing next. You're Not Alone from FFIX and Blinded by Light from FFXIII. The video for You're Not Alone made me want to play FFIX again. I had to look away from the video screen during Blinded by Light because I haven't played all the way through that game and was afraid the video would have spoilers.
Break to talk about the next 3 songs. Theme of Love from FFIV, Ronfaure from FFXI, Zanarkand from FFX. Theme of Love used video from the DS remake which surprised me a little. I overheard a girl behind me say she wanted to have Theme of Love as the song for her first dance at her wedding. Ronfaure used a video sequence from FFXI that I don't think I'd seen. Maybe it's from cutscenes further along one of the city rank chains? I don't know. This song didn't really do it for me in orchestral form. I searched for it on youtube and the original is awesome, though. Zanarkand was great and the video, again, made me want to play the game. It featured the scene where Yuna comes out of a crypt and faints on the stairs and Kimahri catches her before anyone else can. Go Kimahri! (He needs experience, you know.)
Break to tell us intermission is coming shortly. But first, Clash on the Big Bridge from FFV and a Chocobo medley starting with the new FFXIV version. The video for Clash on the Big Bridge was various fights from the game against Gilgamesh. Awesome song. Chocobo had a cute little video on characters from different games riding Chocobos. Three of the scenes were from 'travel all around the world on a chocobo for a bonus'. It had a few scenes from FFXIII with Satz and his baby hair chocobo which was pretty great.
20 minute intermission. I pulled out my 3DS to play some Zelda and felt bad. I really should have brought FFIV or something so I could play a FF game at the concert instead of stupid Zelda.
Return to Bombing Mission from FFVII. Video appropriately is of the bombing mission at the start of the game. Then Fisherman's Horizon from FFVIII. Not one of the songs I think of when I think of FFVIII but it was pretty fantastic in orchestral form.
Break for some talking. Story about how Arnie keep trying to get Nobuo to play on stage but he doesn't feel worthy of playing with classically trained orchestras. Says he finally found a song where Nobuo's keyboarding would fit in enough, but Nobuo would only agree if Arnie also played the song. So he goes off stage and comes back with a violin and Nobuo comes on stage to man the double keyboard. The song? Dark World from Final Fantasy VI. Definitely a lot of ominous keyboarding going on there. I was too far back to really watch Nobuo do much of anything and the song is really plodding and depressing by nature so it wasn't the best. But having Nobuo there and actually doing anything at all was incredible. It also seemed weird to have the conductor be rocking a crazy violin solo one second and then conducting the orchestra the next. I don't understand anything about conducting but I can't imagine that was easy or optimal.
Long break as they put away Arnie's violin and the keyboards. Little discussion about how Cloud has a special message for us while we wait. Video screen starts up with Cloud lying on the ground and Aeris standing over him. (I think he falls through a floor and lands in a garden or something? I need to play FFVII again.) Then fakes speech bubble asking some lady to marry some dude. There's a big spotlight on the crowd a couple sections over and then a thumbs up appears. Lots of cheering. Lucky guy. His wife to be likes FF music!
Next up: Aeris' Theme from FFVII and The Man With A Machine Gun from FFVIII. The video for Aeris' Theme didn't show Aeris dying (I guess to protect people from spoilers? Maybe I could have watched the FFXIII one after all.) But did show right before Sephiroth jumps down and ended with the bouncing materia she drops. The Man With A Machine Gun had lots of clips of Laguna and friends in random encounters. It is such an incredible song, both in game and by an orchestra.
Break for some more talking about how this next song is a favourite. They introduce three classically trained soloists to sing the parts for Maria and Draco. The opera song from FFVI. This song in particular was obviously redone for an orchestra. What with the opera in game getting interrupted by Ultros and all... It was also much longer than any of the other songs. One of the opera singers wasn't loud enough to hear over the orchestra which was a little sad (and likely an issue with not boosting his mic enough?) but the other two were great.
More talking about how we're almost done. One last song to go. I'm thinking this has to be One Winged Angel or J-E-N-O-V-A since we haven't really had enough FFVII songs yet. Nope. It's Terra's Theme from FFVI. It's a great song to finish the evening since they're able to finish it off with the scene at the start of FFVI with the 3 magitek devices marching on Narshe while they post the credits from the show. PS: I really want to play FFVI now.
Crazy applause at the end. They bring out the opera singers and Nobuo for their bows. Nobuo gets a standing ovation. Then they mention that they probably have time for one more song. He says something about how if they didn't have a choir they'd need to get our help for this song. We do have a choir, but he thinks we should still help sing a three note word in the song. I'd done a little reading beforehand and knew what this had to be. (I'd read about people having to sing the latin words in One Winged Angel at other events.) He does a little spiel about what we have to do and gets the piano guy to play the tune for us. DE-DE-DOO. The video guy puts the letters SE-PHI-ROTH on the screen in case people hadn't clued in yet. Then he gets Nobuo to sing it just in case we can't read either. It was quite the production teaching us to sing SE-PHI-ROTH but was absolutely worth it.
Then they play One Winged Angel with the video showing lots of clips of Sephiroth and the latin words super-imposed. We let the choir (and Nobuo) handle the latin stuff and just chimed in with SE-PHI-ROTH. It was awesome.
Then another standing ovation. Arnie and Nobuo go off stage and comes back on for repeated bows a few times since we just won't stop clapping. Eventually they give up and just bring the lights up and we leave.
All told I believe the represented games were:
FFI - 1
FFIV - 1
FFV - 1
FFVI - 3
FFVII - 3
FFVIII - 5
FFIX - 1
FFX - 1
FFXI - 1
FFXIII - 1
FFXIV - 1
All but the song from XIII were composed by Nobuo. I'm happy and unsurprised that FFVIII had the most songs since the music in that game is really incredible. VI and VII also having more than one song makes sense, too. The opera and One Winged Angel are such iconic parts of the Final Fantasy music library that they pretty much have to do them and there's some other great stuff there too.
I was a little disappointed they didn't do Dancing Mad, Maybe I'm A Lion, or the three awesome songs with actual lyrics (Eyes on Me, Real Emotion, 1000 Words) but the ones they chose were so good I can't complain.
Who wants to hit London in November?
At any rate, I picked my ticket up at the Will Call booth thing and headed in. The theatre (Sony Centre for the Performing arts) was very nice. I was surprised to find cup holders on the seats like in a movie theatre. (Well, they were much smaller - big enough for a coffee or a bottle of pop.) I went to see if they'd sell something to put in the cup holder and got a $4 bottle of Coke. I wasn't sure how long it would take to find the place so I had about 20 minutes to sit around and wait for things to get started. Going in I was a little worried I was going to be underdressed for the theatre and I feel like I was. But I wasn't underdressed for the crowd that showed up. Some people were in fancy outfits but a lot of people were in jeans.
Eventually the lights went down and they started with Prelude. I'm not sure which Prelude it was, but it started off properly with just one woman playing a humungous harp. Eventually the rest of the orchestra came in and played out the rest of whichever Prelude it was. Then they jumped into Liberi Fatali from FFVIII. On top of the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony they also had a choir (TELUS Choir is what it sounded like they were called?) which was used to good effect in Liberi Fatali. There was also a projection running video on a big screen overhead which kicked in during this song.
Break for introductions from the conductor Arnie Roth. Huge applause for Nobuo Uematsu. No applause at all for the Sony Centre which was a little awkward.
Shift into Victory Fanfare from FFVIII. It was all of 10 seconds, just the little blurb that happens when you win a fight. Shift into Don't Be Afraid from FFVIII accompanied with a video replaying scenes from one of the first parts of FFVIII (where you have Seifer in your party and then get chased through town by a gigantic spider robot thing). Song ended as Squall made it to the boat and Quistis blew up the spider robot. Very nicely done. Now I want to play FFVIII again.
Break for more talking to say what they're playing next. You're Not Alone from FFIX and Blinded by Light from FFXIII. The video for You're Not Alone made me want to play FFIX again. I had to look away from the video screen during Blinded by Light because I haven't played all the way through that game and was afraid the video would have spoilers.
Break to talk about the next 3 songs. Theme of Love from FFIV, Ronfaure from FFXI, Zanarkand from FFX. Theme of Love used video from the DS remake which surprised me a little. I overheard a girl behind me say she wanted to have Theme of Love as the song for her first dance at her wedding. Ronfaure used a video sequence from FFXI that I don't think I'd seen. Maybe it's from cutscenes further along one of the city rank chains? I don't know. This song didn't really do it for me in orchestral form. I searched for it on youtube and the original is awesome, though. Zanarkand was great and the video, again, made me want to play the game. It featured the scene where Yuna comes out of a crypt and faints on the stairs and Kimahri catches her before anyone else can. Go Kimahri! (He needs experience, you know.)
Break to tell us intermission is coming shortly. But first, Clash on the Big Bridge from FFV and a Chocobo medley starting with the new FFXIV version. The video for Clash on the Big Bridge was various fights from the game against Gilgamesh. Awesome song. Chocobo had a cute little video on characters from different games riding Chocobos. Three of the scenes were from 'travel all around the world on a chocobo for a bonus'. It had a few scenes from FFXIII with Satz and his baby hair chocobo which was pretty great.
20 minute intermission. I pulled out my 3DS to play some Zelda and felt bad. I really should have brought FFIV or something so I could play a FF game at the concert instead of stupid Zelda.
Return to Bombing Mission from FFVII. Video appropriately is of the bombing mission at the start of the game. Then Fisherman's Horizon from FFVIII. Not one of the songs I think of when I think of FFVIII but it was pretty fantastic in orchestral form.
Break for some talking. Story about how Arnie keep trying to get Nobuo to play on stage but he doesn't feel worthy of playing with classically trained orchestras. Says he finally found a song where Nobuo's keyboarding would fit in enough, but Nobuo would only agree if Arnie also played the song. So he goes off stage and comes back with a violin and Nobuo comes on stage to man the double keyboard. The song? Dark World from Final Fantasy VI. Definitely a lot of ominous keyboarding going on there. I was too far back to really watch Nobuo do much of anything and the song is really plodding and depressing by nature so it wasn't the best. But having Nobuo there and actually doing anything at all was incredible. It also seemed weird to have the conductor be rocking a crazy violin solo one second and then conducting the orchestra the next. I don't understand anything about conducting but I can't imagine that was easy or optimal.
Long break as they put away Arnie's violin and the keyboards. Little discussion about how Cloud has a special message for us while we wait. Video screen starts up with Cloud lying on the ground and Aeris standing over him. (I think he falls through a floor and lands in a garden or something? I need to play FFVII again.) Then fakes speech bubble asking some lady to marry some dude. There's a big spotlight on the crowd a couple sections over and then a thumbs up appears. Lots of cheering. Lucky guy. His wife to be likes FF music!
Next up: Aeris' Theme from FFVII and The Man With A Machine Gun from FFVIII. The video for Aeris' Theme didn't show Aeris dying (I guess to protect people from spoilers? Maybe I could have watched the FFXIII one after all.) But did show right before Sephiroth jumps down and ended with the bouncing materia she drops. The Man With A Machine Gun had lots of clips of Laguna and friends in random encounters. It is such an incredible song, both in game and by an orchestra.
Break for some more talking about how this next song is a favourite. They introduce three classically trained soloists to sing the parts for Maria and Draco. The opera song from FFVI. This song in particular was obviously redone for an orchestra. What with the opera in game getting interrupted by Ultros and all... It was also much longer than any of the other songs. One of the opera singers wasn't loud enough to hear over the orchestra which was a little sad (and likely an issue with not boosting his mic enough?) but the other two were great.
More talking about how we're almost done. One last song to go. I'm thinking this has to be One Winged Angel or J-E-N-O-V-A since we haven't really had enough FFVII songs yet. Nope. It's Terra's Theme from FFVI. It's a great song to finish the evening since they're able to finish it off with the scene at the start of FFVI with the 3 magitek devices marching on Narshe while they post the credits from the show. PS: I really want to play FFVI now.
Crazy applause at the end. They bring out the opera singers and Nobuo for their bows. Nobuo gets a standing ovation. Then they mention that they probably have time for one more song. He says something about how if they didn't have a choir they'd need to get our help for this song. We do have a choir, but he thinks we should still help sing a three note word in the song. I'd done a little reading beforehand and knew what this had to be. (I'd read about people having to sing the latin words in One Winged Angel at other events.) He does a little spiel about what we have to do and gets the piano guy to play the tune for us. DE-DE-DOO. The video guy puts the letters SE-PHI-ROTH on the screen in case people hadn't clued in yet. Then he gets Nobuo to sing it just in case we can't read either. It was quite the production teaching us to sing SE-PHI-ROTH but was absolutely worth it.
Then they play One Winged Angel with the video showing lots of clips of Sephiroth and the latin words super-imposed. We let the choir (and Nobuo) handle the latin stuff and just chimed in with SE-PHI-ROTH. It was awesome.
Then another standing ovation. Arnie and Nobuo go off stage and comes back on for repeated bows a few times since we just won't stop clapping. Eventually they give up and just bring the lights up and we leave.
All told I believe the represented games were:
FFI - 1
FFIV - 1
FFV - 1
FFVI - 3
FFVII - 3
FFVIII - 5
FFIX - 1
FFX - 1
FFXI - 1
FFXIII - 1
FFXIV - 1
All but the song from XIII were composed by Nobuo. I'm happy and unsurprised that FFVIII had the most songs since the music in that game is really incredible. VI and VII also having more than one song makes sense, too. The opera and One Winged Angel are such iconic parts of the Final Fantasy music library that they pretty much have to do them and there's some other great stuff there too.
I was a little disappointed they didn't do Dancing Mad, Maybe I'm A Lion, or the three awesome songs with actual lyrics (Eyes on Me, Real Emotion, 1000 Words) but the ones they chose were so good I can't complain.
Who wants to hit London in November?
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Final Fantasy Concert
Today was a great day for discovering things about Final Fantasy music. I stumbled across two amazing discoveries but one of them is relatively time sensitive so that's what today's post is about. The other one will wait until tomorrow...
Distant Worlds is a series of Final Fantasy music concerts that have been going on since 2007. I don't know how they choose orchestras to do the performances but it looks like it changes based on location. The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony did a show a month ago in Waterloo that I was tempted to travel to attend but I got apathetic and didn't get around to it. I found out today that they're doing a second show, in Toronto, this weekend. Even better, they've managed to get Nobuo Uematsu to come along, likely to play keyboards for some FFVI songs. That's insane! Nobuo is the composer for almost all of the music for almost all of the core Final Fantasy games. He's awesome and I now have to go.
There are still around 600 tickets available on Ticketmaster so I figure there's still a bit of time. I'll likely be buying a ticket tomorrow night. Does anyone else want to shell out ~$100 to go to an awesome concert?
Distant Worlds is a series of Final Fantasy music concerts that have been going on since 2007. I don't know how they choose orchestras to do the performances but it looks like it changes based on location. The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony did a show a month ago in Waterloo that I was tempted to travel to attend but I got apathetic and didn't get around to it. I found out today that they're doing a second show, in Toronto, this weekend. Even better, they've managed to get Nobuo Uematsu to come along, likely to play keyboards for some FFVI songs. That's insane! Nobuo is the composer for almost all of the music for almost all of the core Final Fantasy games. He's awesome and I now have to go.
There are still around 600 tickets available on Ticketmaster so I figure there's still a bit of time. I'll likely be buying a ticket tomorrow night. Does anyone else want to shell out ~$100 to go to an awesome concert?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Black Mages
A couple months ago I started on a bit of a Final Fantasy music binge. I'd search YouTube for random playlists of music from the games and listen to hours on end while doing other things on the computer. (Including Final Fantasy Legend II since the music quality from my emulator was giving me a headache.)
One thing I kept noticing every now and then were songs that were covers of iconic Final Fantasy music. Now, I hate covers in general. I find they often butcher the songs. Some of the covers popping up in these playlists were like that but I kept running into covers that were actually pretty awesome. I started paying attention to who was doing the covers I liked and it turned out they were all from the same band: The Black Mages. This prompted me to do some Googling about them...
It turns out one guy (Nobuo Uematsu) was the composer for practically every Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy I, II, Legend, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, and XIV seem to be solely done by him. He also had a hand in Legend II, X, XI, and XII. And a whole ton of other games on top of that. To put it mildly, he is the man.
Two other composers at Square-Enix got together to do the music for a wrestling game and decided to put a rock spin on it. They liked how the rock spin turned out and started experimenting with doing other things in a rocking way. The toyed around with redoing some of Nobuo's Final Fantasy stuff as rock songs and got his approval. They convinced him to join them in a rock concert of some of those songs and had a great time. They ended up forming a band (The Black Mages) which went on to release three albums full of redone Final Fantasy songs. And it's all awesome! I guess covers can be good when it's the original artist redoing them?
I just beat The Four Fiends in my Final Fantasy IV game and the music in that fight is fantastic. The redone music by The Black Mages is also pretty great. Both versions are linked below, check them out!
One thing I kept noticing every now and then were songs that were covers of iconic Final Fantasy music. Now, I hate covers in general. I find they often butcher the songs. Some of the covers popping up in these playlists were like that but I kept running into covers that were actually pretty awesome. I started paying attention to who was doing the covers I liked and it turned out they were all from the same band: The Black Mages. This prompted me to do some Googling about them...
It turns out one guy (Nobuo Uematsu) was the composer for practically every Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy I, II, Legend, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, and XIV seem to be solely done by him. He also had a hand in Legend II, X, XI, and XII. And a whole ton of other games on top of that. To put it mildly, he is the man.
Two other composers at Square-Enix got together to do the music for a wrestling game and decided to put a rock spin on it. They liked how the rock spin turned out and started experimenting with doing other things in a rocking way. The toyed around with redoing some of Nobuo's Final Fantasy stuff as rock songs and got his approval. They convinced him to join them in a rock concert of some of those songs and had a great time. They ended up forming a band (The Black Mages) which went on to release three albums full of redone Final Fantasy songs. And it's all awesome! I guess covers can be good when it's the original artist redoing them?
I just beat The Four Fiends in my Final Fantasy IV game and the music in that fight is fantastic. The redone music by The Black Mages is also pretty great. Both versions are linked below, check them out!
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Final Fantasy IV: Mysidian Legend
One to be born
from a dragon
hoisting the light
and the dark
arises high up
in the sky to
the still land.
Veiling the moon with
the light of eternity,
it brings
another promise
to mother earth with
a bounty and mercy.
from a dragon
hoisting the light
and the dark
arises high up
in the sky to
the still land.
Veiling the moon with
the light of eternity,
it brings
another promise
to mother earth with
a bounty and mercy.
There are scenes in games/movies which really resonate with me. The one that takes place in Final Fantasy IV when the Mysidian elder recites the legend and then 'wishes' for the spaceship is one of those for me. The music that plays as the ship rises out of the ocean is truly epic (and is found in the video below). The music really encapsulates the idea that we're going to fly to THE MOON! And once there we're going to SAVE THE WORLD!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Band Hero: American Pie
One of the things I really like about various rhythm games is when a truly awesome song is available. Often, especially in the earlier days of the genre, it would just be a bad cover of the song. Or it wouldn't be the whole thing for various reasons. Walk Like An Egyptian was in Dance Dance Revolution Universe 2 (and is by far my favourite song in that game both in terms of the steps and the original song) but it was cut down to about 1:38 from the original 3:24. That's great and all, but it would be better if it was the whole thing! (Well, except I can barely stay on my feet for 1:38... I'd probably die if it was a full 3:24!)
I finished off the story mode of Band Hero last night. The reward for beating it was the credits scrolling across a new song... American Pie by Don McLean.
American Pie is my favourite song. And they seem to have the original version in the game. The whole original version. All 8 minutes and 36 seconds of it. A full 1427 notes! It's glorious!
I finished off the story mode of Band Hero last night. The reward for beating it was the credits scrolling across a new song... American Pie by Don McLean.
American Pie is my favourite song. And they seem to have the original version in the game. The whole original version. All 8 minutes and 36 seconds of it. A full 1427 notes! It's glorious!
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Band Hero: YMCA
I turned my xBox 360 on last night in order to rock out a little in Band Hero. I don't have a band (or any instruments beyond a guitar) but it at least has a new selection of songs to play on the guitar. Unfortunately I find the band type games tend to be easier than the straight guitar games. I play on the hardest difficulty and still most songs are completely trivial. That bothers me from a challenge standpoint but just having new songs to play once is a worthwhile trade-off.
One of those songs is the old disco classic, YMCA by The Village People. The song itself (on guitar at least) is pretty easy, but it there was an added twist that made it hard to get a really good score. At one point in the song the band yells out Y - M - C - A and as a human being I've been conditioned to make those letters with my arms. There were no guitar notes to hit at the time so there's nothing wrong with jumping around in letters, is there? Well, it turns out that making jerky motions is enough to trigger the star power multiplier. Which was wasted since it was a guitar note light area. Boo!
One nice thing about Band Hero is that they're able to add in songs mostly known for their lyrics instead of just the guitar track. I've never seen an Evanescence song in a straight guitar game, for example, but there is one on Band Hero!
One of those songs is the old disco classic, YMCA by The Village People. The song itself (on guitar at least) is pretty easy, but it there was an added twist that made it hard to get a really good score. At one point in the song the band yells out Y - M - C - A and as a human being I've been conditioned to make those letters with my arms. There were no guitar notes to hit at the time so there's nothing wrong with jumping around in letters, is there? Well, it turns out that making jerky motions is enough to trigger the star power multiplier. Which was wasted since it was a guitar note light area. Boo!
One nice thing about Band Hero is that they're able to add in songs mostly known for their lyrics instead of just the guitar track. I've never seen an Evanescence song in a straight guitar game, for example, but there is one on Band Hero!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Dissidia: Final Fantasy Intro
One of interesting aspects of running Final Fantasy music playlists is I sometimes come across music I haven't heard before because it's from a game I haven't played. This clip started with some speech which got me curious enough to alt-tab over to Chrome and check out the video in Youtube. Apparently it's the intro to the Dissidia Final Fantasy game that came out in 2009. I don't know much about it except it pits one hero from each of the main Final Fantasy games against the end bosses of the games. It's a PSP game and this video is the first thing that has ever made me want to own a PSP...
Check this video out. I love the little onion knight dude from FFIII. My favourite part though is probably Squall dueling with Sephiroth. I was actually yelling at the screen when it looked like Terra was going into a morph animation but I think it was just spells landing near her.
Check this video out. I love the little onion knight dude from FFIII. My favourite part though is probably Squall dueling with Sephiroth. I was actually yelling at the screen when it looked like Terra was going into a morph animation but I think it was just spells landing near her.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)