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Not much for soundtracks, but Nier: Automatas is beautiful
- Thread starter Mikey Jr.
- Start date
Isaac Otherworld
Member
NieR: Automata OST - Blissful Death (Vocals)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNJ6LO1QIyk
This is one of my favorite tracks in the game. It's pretty understated and I don't think it will top too many people's top 5 song lists, but it resonated with me so much.
Maybe it's the location, the difficulty and danger and heading deep into this unknown area, but this song is so quiet, and lonely sounding. I don't think I've ever heard a more lonely sounding song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNJ6LO1QIyk
This is one of my favorite tracks in the game. It's pretty understated and I don't think it will top too many people's top 5 song lists, but it resonated with me so much.
Maybe it's the location, the difficulty and danger and heading deep into this unknown area, but this song is so quiet, and lonely sounding. I don't think I've ever heard a more lonely sounding song.
kqedequalsvolvo
Member
For sure - first Nier soundtrack is more memorable and gets more of an emotional response out of me but the Nier Automata soundtrack is still absolutely beautiful. Hoping the CD set is delivered soon!
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
I just find most of them forgettable.
Obviously there are exceptions.
Like fuck me if i can recall any music from a cod game.
And a lot of western aaa games just meld into a generic orchestral mush.
I don't think this is true?
I thought that scene was more about a2 getting rid of the infection in 9s by crumbling the machine consciousness that is connected within him due to the infection? My interpretation is that she says sorry when she heard child noises from that post of light is because it's meant to show the machine children who still resides in the machine consciousness, and it reminded her of her experience with Pascal.
Is there anyone who like this one End of the unkown
Isaac Otherworld
Member
I love it. It's so different from everything else on the soundtrack it really stands out and I got hella pumped every time I heard it in game. I'd really like more information on the vocals, if they're derived from or a reference to anything. It sounds like some kind of prayer.
Saint of Killers
Member
NierA OST will be the first videogame soundtrack I've bought. (Pre-ordered via SE Europe store.)
Yes finally found someone true it is different what made memorable to me when you face Adam and even for the first time and this music kick in maaan
Don't know if the vocals are reference to something or not but I highly doubt it
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Majmun
Member
Except for one song.
I'm not a fan of Weight of the World. ENG or JPN version. Don't listen to those. They sound very basic and pop.
FFVIII is also one of my favorite gaming OST's.. But I HATE Eyes on Me. It ruined the ending!
True but listening to the one where it mixed all 3 languages was magical.
When it kicked in in the
Adam
Yes. Keiichi Okabe also does work on the Tekken soundtracks.
If you want more songs like that in more of his Tekken style check his Tekken tracks out.
Oh, I completely agree in regards to it sounding both lonely, foreboding, and dangerous in regards to the location it plays in. As if you're venturing to come across a well-kept secret, this last remnant of innocence that would be better left untouched, lest your very presence taint and corrupt it.
It did.
Not enough people repping Peaceful Sleep in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpCCvNcnCi8
SomewhatGroovy
Banned
Sorry is asked already but is the OST coming to Android/Google Play anytime soon?
Leona Lewis
Banned
Dragon1893
Member
Fortunately it's just as good as the first game which makes it the best of this generation.
or the music box version
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
No, if you want MP3s there's amazon I believe, but yeah I was kinda annoyed that it's not on google play.
Got the disc set anyway.
Kain-Nosgoth
Member
now we just need a Nier World Tour Concert!
Come on Square-Enix!
Come on Square-Enix!
Digital Savior
Member
Haven't played Automata yet. But those songs are good. Listening to the playlist right now.
avrophantasm
Member
It's probably my favorite video game soundtrack ever. For reference, my other all-time top favorites are Ocarina of Time, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and Drakengard.
For me it's been a long, long time since a video game has felt this "scored," for lack of a better term. The music in Automata is constant, and the dynamic mixing manages to underscore the emotion of both the story sequences and general action/exploration equally. Funnily enough, I'm typically not a fan of this approach. One of my major complaints about the Final Fantasy XV soundtrack was that it was constantly at 100% - everything was the most dramatic thing that had ever happened thanks to the bombastic score there. It turns out that in Automata, this approach works because, well... everything happening is the most dramatic thing ever.
The soundtrack is just constantly flexing in this game. It does work that the medium-budget visuals can't. More expensive games would have a far more detailed post-apocalyptic landscape for you to pick over, but the music in Automata fills in the gaps for you plenty. Action sequences are tragic because you know from the first second of the game that something is amiss with everyone's "the machines aren't alive!" attitude, but the music consistently hammers it home. Even the less overtly melodramatic songs - the City Ruins themes, the camp music, the Bunker theme - still have a real sense of melancholy weight to them. It's a mood that permeates the entire soundtrack, and by extension, the game. It serves as the internal monologue Automata mercifully does not literally have.
Obviously the context of the game and story is what really makes the soundtrack special, but it is really just stellar on its own too. I'm a big fan of 4AD Records style late 80s/early 90s neoclassical/neofolk music, and Automata is like... basically the closest thing to a lost Dead Can Dance album I can think of. The first Nier also excelled here, but Automata really runs with the idea. The percussion work and vocals would turn heads in any setting, I think. One of my main gripes with major game soundtracks right now is how safe they all are; I've just about had it with western wannabe-Hans Zimmer scores and the incredibly common orchestra-with-guitar-and-rock-drums thing that is really popular in a lot of JRPG soundtracks. There's so much variety and detail in Automata's music that I could probably write an entire article on weird little details I love, but here are just some:
-The slower, traditional-southeast-asian sounding beat buried underneath the faster tribal drums in Birth of Wish (also appears in Alien Manifestation!)
-A Beautiful Song's use of that very low synthesized bassline
-That Twin Peaks-ass synth in Forest Kingdom
-The incredibly uneasy violin melody that loops throughout Copied City. Actually, shit, Copied City in general is wild because it's a song that only plays in one area of the game that you could potentially only hear for like... a couple of minutes total? There's so much emotion in that track it could easily be the centerpiece of another score
-Two things in Wretched Weaponry (actually three - yay, a callback to Wretched Automatons!) that I love: the hi-hat loop that sounds a bit like a sample of a skipping CD, and the very quiet inhaling/exhaling sample that plays all the way throughout the first half track. You can only really hear it with headphones or if you turn up a nice stereo very loud, but listen for it in the right channel. It's there.
-Not really a small thing to notice, but here's a detail about Possessed by Disease: it fucking whips ass and if you don't go absolutely apeshit at the shift at 2:21 I don't know what to tell you
-Mourning (end game spoilers)-Weight of the World. Folks you have two options, you can cry listening to the English lyrics or you can cry when the Japanese singer also starts crying while singingThis only plays in two places - the first is during the Unit E sidequest, and the second is when you are A2 inside of 9S's brainbox finishing him off in Ending C. Fitting!
-The escalation of the YoRHa theme through Fortress of Lies -> Crumbling Lies -> Sound of the End
-Vague Hope (Spring Rain)
-Blissful Death's reversed bassline
-The Sound of the End, for all of its drama, has an egg shaker keeping time all the way throughout the track.
-I brought up a comparison to an internal monologue before; I don't think this completely holds water but I think the use of almost exclusively female vocals adds to this idea for me, whether intentional on the composers' parts or not. I mean, in many ways (end game spoilers).the whole game is 2B's story in a way, even when it's not - she hangs over the proceedings even after she's gone. Also, the Vague Hope tracks, which play during key 9S and 6O scenes, are mixed as duets. ¯\_(ツ
There's just so much about this score that gets me excited. It would get me excited as an album (well, three albums, I guess) but I'm grateful for the context it's in, because it elevated an already good game story into something that still has me fucked up almost two months after playing the damn game.
Aside from its variety and just general quality of its composition, I think one of the things that makes it succeed as a soundtrack is how "zoomed out" it sounds, for lack of a better description. It's a very general soundtrack, with big, broad emotional statements. A range of things can happen in any given area ranging between dialogue and action, but by simply adding and removing stems the feel of the music stays widely relevant to what's happening, but doesn't shift wildly to suit specific things. There's not a separate battle theme, for example. I think that helps solidify each motif. Many different things can be happening in the nitty-gritty of the story, but the tone of the music is pretty resolutely grand and melancholy.
God I love this soundtrack. It's too much.
Fantastic post! I really liked reading your analysis of the OST. Listening to the Nier Automata's music was already a sublime experience, but now I'm appreciating new details I hadn't noticed before.
As for my favourite tracks,it's tough to pick, but they'd have to be:
City Ruins
Wretched Weaponry
A Beautiful Song
Pascal
Birth of a Wish (8-bit)
Possessed by Disease (8-bit)
End of the Unknown (8-bit)
It's too hard to pick just one, really...Of course, the returning tracks from Nier 1 are still resplendent. Song of the Ancients is wonderful no matter what.
Also, when I saw that the bg music would blend seamlessly into an 8-bit remix during hacking sequences, I was thrilled. I love chip tunes.
The best Nier 1 returning track in Automata is BY FAR Faltering Prayer because it's fucking Disposession but with vocals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaPGANqBLT0
That's more effort than any other remix the game has (for those that don't know Nier 1 OST, basically a remix with vocals of an instrumental track). It does help that Disposession is already was beautiful song in Nier 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaPGANqBLT0
That's more effort than any other remix the game has (for those that don't know Nier 1 OST, basically a remix with vocals of an instrumental track). It does help that Disposession is already was beautiful song in Nier 1.