If the Zestiria trial dungeons were nothing special, then the rest of the series's dungeons are simply nothing. The same 4 gimmicks (teleporters, ice block, light puzzle, use sorcerer ring on switch) with some semi-static camera angle and absolutely 0 life to any of the dungeons.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
One of the biggest issue I have with JRPGs: Insistence on Battle Themes
- Thread starter K.Sabot
- Start date
If the Zestiria trial dungeons were nothing special, then the rest of the series's dungeons are simply nothing. The same 4 gimmicks (teleporters, ice block, light puzzle, use sorcerer ring on switch) with some semi-static camera angle and absolutely 0 life to any of the dungeons.
witchedwiz
Member
because you could get tired of this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2SvMkKwr-A&list=PLCE0B024FBB06A192&index=67
or you could get tired of listening to the 3-5 battle themes that cycled in baiten kaitos?
cmon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2SvMkKwr-A&list=PLCE0B024FBB06A192&index=67
or you could get tired of listening to the 3-5 battle themes that cycled in baiten kaitos?
cmon
witchedwiz
Member
the issue with this song, is just that the boss fights in blue dragon could go on for quite long, so this "rushing" music, I'd say it would be a better fit to short boss fights where you are running against a counter (like, if you don't finish before 5 mins you die pronto)...
but to each his own..
At least the overworld themes resume where they left off after a battle in XCX. The fact that the flight theme resets them and you lose the ability to jump in your Skell really annoyed me.
sixteen-bit
Member
I'd like to see more JRPGs use the Dragons Dogma approach if they're sticking with one main battle theme. You have three variants, one when the player overpower the enemies in terms of strength, one on equal footing, and one where the enemy overpowers the player.
It helps that the game uses special themes for unique enemies like Griffons and Chimeras and a theme that also plays when you gain the upper hand in battles.
Sure it's not dynamically evolving, but it really helps prevent music fatigue a lot and is very enjoyable in my experience.
It helps that the game uses special themes for unique enemies like Griffons and Chimeras and a theme that also plays when you gain the upper hand in battles.
Sure it's not dynamically evolving, but it really helps prevent music fatigue a lot and is very enjoyable in my experience.
I like adaptive soundtracks, whether it's switching instrumentation or blending between tracks that are similar in tone. There's so much fighting in most RPGs that it becomes annoying to switch to a completely different track every so often. That works best for boss battles, imo.
Of course it's easier said than done to compose alternates for a large amount of music in a game.
Of course it's easier said than done to compose alternates for a large amount of music in a game.
Shauneepeak
Member
Chrono Cross may be the worst. Sound track was freaking phenomenal but then only had that one single battle theme that got boring fast. =S
Best part of Atelier is this.
Unfortunately making it default boss music made it come up so often it got stale. Which actually goes back to this thread. :'(
King Gilga
Member
Yeah, hearing 'baby baby baby baby' cut into that chill tartarus music everytime does get pretty jarring.
clay_ghost
Member
It never got stale for me haha.
Indeed, enemy design can be a lot more effective when you're using an appropriately toned background theme rather than your run of the mill high octane "let's kill the enemies" battle theme. There's a lot of underrated horrific monster designs in JRPGs that are wasted by throwing high tempo rock / violin music on top of a battle.
Yep, that's where i stand on this issue as well. The world ends with you and the Mother series do this quite well.
The worst ones imo are Final Fantasy X and Dragon Quest 8 but that might be because I have spent way too much time on those games.
Ryouji Gunblade
Member
Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates blend and transition between the map and battle themes for great effect.
At least FFIX doesn't use the battle music for one part of the game and it's a really memorable part because of it.
Road Taken is such a good theme and I absolutely love how it was implemented with the map and battle.
Super Robot Wars is way ahead of the curve. They have all these options for what song gets played and when, and they let you set whatever song you want for every single character, even music that you have on external memory.
Also, Tales of Innocence was only playable for me because the battle theme is the best battle in the entire series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHzpoEYg9m4
The blending of the overworld and battle themes is one aspect I quite enjoy in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. The fact that the music in those games is great also helps, naturally, but not switching theme really helps set the mood at times.
While not a JRPG, Zelda: Twilight Princess is infamous for Midna's Lament getting interrupted by enemies.
While not a JRPG, Zelda: Twilight Princess is infamous for Midna's Lament getting interrupted by enemies.
Fimbulvetr
Member
XIII-2 almost had a nice compromise with its Aggressive Mixes, which the game would seamlessly transition into and out of when enemies appeared on the overworld:
Village and Void
vs
Village and Void(Aggressive Mix)
Unfortunately, they still relied on separate battle tracks when fights actually started.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Yeah, exactly what I meant. And double because there are a couple repetitive lyrics in the song itself.
Mechanized
Member
Can't say I agree, love battle themes in jrpgs. I even had an add on that put them in WoW once. Lol
I'm not sure how people are coming away from my OP with this.
The scenario I attempted to present was:
"Ooh this song is nice, I'll probably only hear it in this single area in the entire game, time to cut it off with the battle theme I've heard 200 times already every 20 seconds." And then you continue to do that for the rest of the game.
I like battle themes, Cold Steel's is good, it's the implementation of them is very stale and ruins other perfectly good songs I won't have as much chance to ever hear again.
Gormless Noodle
Member
Usually I loved battle and boss themes the most in these games. I'm not against making things optional though for the people that would like it. But seeing how it's such a staple of the genre I don't see it changing, even in such a small way, all that soon.
This is probably where the sound mixing should go in the direction of. It's only been used in one JRPG I can think of, and that's Resonance of Fate.
There were multiple composers for RoF, so the task was slightly alleviated, but in the dungeon there was an [A] track that played while traversing the dungeon and it wasn't interrupted when an encounter started. When you started executing your battle commands however the music would switch up to a track that matched the [A] track but was more bombastic. After your actions are completed, the track plays a bit longer but settles back down into the [A] track if the action doesn't continue.
Hughes Power Station - Night [A] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIrpm2GY724
Hughes Power Station - Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL-5tziYz0E
You can hear how it works in the first 15 secs of this vid.
I thought this was a great way to do 'battle music' along with 'field music', but obviously it takes more work and even for RoF they probably needed to ease in and out of each track better.
Mexen
Member
If a battle theme gets to me, it's usually out of frustration from wanting to get to the next area as quickly as possible but being hounded by random encounters. Almost always, it means that I have been playing for too long and am simply in need of a break. Otherwise, I hardly notice battle themes, unless they are exceptionally good... Or bad.
Mechanized
Member
Yes, and that isn't a big deal to me. You can get the soundtrack easily enough. There's something to be said for experiencing it in the game, but it wouldn't annoy me to this extreme.
Mingledorff
Neo Member
See I was thinking the opposite. I loved this song. It was so ridiculous. Though I'm also the type of person who thinks Crazy Chocobo is great.
How do people feel about Bravely Default's normal battle theme? As far as I remember there's only the one and after many hundreds of encounters I never got bored of it whereas a quickly got annoyed at ones like Ni No Kuni's as previously mentioned. I guess it helps that BD's soundtrack is pretty much all killer and no filler so there's never really a song that's unremarkable.
http://youtu.be/S1ClcFbMk0o
http://youtu.be/S1ClcFbMk0o
Jawmuncher
Member
My biggest issue is when the battle music isn't to my liking. Since you're going to hear it for such a long time, if it's not catchy it'll end up annoying you. The stuff I play usually lets you lower the volume of music though.
I haven't played it but my brother did for months and the music was really annoying.
Because of the thread title..you should know by now that some people don't bother reading the OP.
Leafhopper
Banned
Evolution, Evolution 2 and Evolution Worlds handled this well I think.
Since there was no random battles you had enemies on the map but, there was a dedicated song for a normal battle, a song where you successfully ambushed an enemy and when you were ambushed. They aren't 3 versions of the same song either which was a good thing. Honestly I am surprised post Persona 2 didn't do this in that series.
I do enjoy battle themes but, I understand where you are coming from OP. It also depends on what kinda music you want to hear as well.
Since there was no random battles you had enemies on the map but, there was a dedicated song for a normal battle, a song where you successfully ambushed an enemy and when you were ambushed. They aren't 3 versions of the same song either which was a good thing. Honestly I am surprised post Persona 2 didn't do this in that series.
I do enjoy battle themes but, I understand where you are coming from OP. It also depends on what kinda music you want to hear as well.
It was great. In fact the entirety of the soundtrack was so well-thought-out.
Tangential, but I think you're far more likely to get tired of the boss battle themes (esp. the asterisk bearers because of 2nd half, and esp if you're like me and turned off random encounters except specifically for grinding, which is when I'd probably be listening to other stuff for work purposes anyway)
That boss theme is also a very, very well-crafted piece in terms of flow and long enough that it doesn't hit you over the head like Ni No Kuni. It's definitely in a class of modern JRPG battle theme that has a lot of thought put into it, like Blinded By Light.
The fact that the game kicks into character theme renditions during their specials breaks up the monotony even further.
Speaking of The World Ends With You, they really did a good job at having a variety of battle music, even for just typical random encounters. There had to be have been over 5 different themes that played at random
I like how it was handled in FFXIII series.
Great battle music that starts off well and quiet unlike Ni no Kuni and then progresses, so if the fight is small you don't find it annoying. But the best part was that the battle music would not play in every battle, at times you'll just have the background music continue onto the battle and later.
XIII-2 took it a step ahead by having aggressive mix of most background music that would start playing when you were about the enter the combat and during.
It was well done imo.
Great battle music that starts off well and quiet unlike Ni no Kuni and then progresses, so if the fight is small you don't find it annoying. But the best part was that the battle music would not play in every battle, at times you'll just have the background music continue onto the battle and later.
XIII-2 took it a step ahead by having aggressive mix of most background music that would start playing when you were about the enter the combat and during.
It was well done imo.
This is something Square/Sakimoto nailed with FFXII. The music of the field was not interrupted by battle, which contrasts pretty starkly with Xenoblade (a game people often consider a similar-playing title). Sakimoto (and co) composed themes that cover the full spectrum of required sentiment...you have your bombastic adventurey parts, the danger/combat, quiet/thoughtfulness/contemplation, etc. Stuff like the Giza Plains, Phon Coast, Ozmone Plains, etc. are really masterful in how they hold up over hundreds of hours of play.
Cool, I didn't know that this had been tried out in an RPG specifically (my go-to examples are Monkey Island and some Zelda games). For some reason the last video's audio is garbled to me, but I can imagine that it works well from the tracks. When the music works like this you get a nice sense of unity in the game.
Slightly related, I often just stand still in an RPG when a nice track comes on to not switch from it.
SMT: Nocturne handled this pretty well, because there were different battle themes depending on the situation.
Normal battle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQhgTN7bNH8
Fierce battle (versus tougher enemies):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO6LWQhvzRw
Town battle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RiHmQcHa84
Two themes from Labyrinth of Amala (an optional mega dungeon):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoSkvI3wPUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-NbsUNCnck
And of course the boss theme which screams "shit just got real":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmqbhyS-BK8
Plus there were several special boss themes, inlcuding one for the fight (possible Amala network spoiler, but mostly a harmless joke)
.
Normal battle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQhgTN7bNH8
Fierce battle (versus tougher enemies):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO6LWQhvzRw
Town battle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RiHmQcHa84
Two themes from Labyrinth of Amala (an optional mega dungeon):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoSkvI3wPUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-NbsUNCnck
And of course the boss theme which screams "shit just got real":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmqbhyS-BK8
Plus there were several special boss themes, inlcuding one for the fight (possible Amala network spoiler, but mostly a harmless joke)
featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series
Speaking of Bravely Default, the encounter slider option actually helped with this, because picking when you want to grind vs when you just want to run around in an area picking up stuff. This meant that most of the time, I'd be hearing dungeon music in its entirety.
Sure, it kinda breaks immersion in that being able to assault a final dungeon without enemies if so you wish, so it'd be something I feel is left for smaller titles and/or director's cuts/rereleases (which BD English is - it's a localization of For the Sequel, not the original BD) but as someone who has less and less free time as the years go by, it's very welcome.
Overall, though, I do feel like the whole thing is a relic of the roots of the genre. Historically, with a precedent set by DQ and FF through the early 90s, combat has always been in this self-contained space and was in fact completely separate sections of code, and it made sense for a hard change in everything from graphics to music.
Fast forward to the PSX era, and this still persists with FF7, where combat is in a different 'reality' vs field maps, with realistically proportioned characters, etc.
I think now, with the advent of hardware which is allowing for seamless transitions, which we can see adopted by everything from Tales of Zestiria to SO5 to FFXV, it's probably high time that how JRPG battle music works is re-thought again.
FFXV as an example maybe is an iffy one, considering it's more of a seamless action RPG than an un-instanced combat scenario like ToZ/SO5, and we've already got a long history of this going back to Secret of Mana, to KH and FFXII, but its position as an entry in the mainline series, like FFXII, is an important one.
protomouse
Member
Persona: the thread.
BABY BABY BABY BABY
BABY BABY BABY BABY
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I'm glad you mentioned FF7.
Listen to this OP: if you ever get an urge to (re)play FF7, I highly recommend you do not play any console version. There is a mod for FF7 called New Threat which, among other things, lets you keep the dungeon music for battles. The normal battle theme still plays for certain scripted story battles and the world map, and of course the various boss themes play for those. And if you get tired of the dungeon music, you can switch back to normal battle themes at save points.
It is a continuously updated and supported mod too. Last update was just a couple days ago. Check it out: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14938.0
You could switch to Tartarus music, including even the custom music you can set via Fuuka, and Persona 3's dungeon crawling is still an irredeemable slog. You know what would really help Persona 3 and Persona 4 in the sound department? An option for the in-battle characters to shut the fuck up.