In this weekly feature, I recommend game soundtracks. I share a few of my favorite tracks, talk about why everyone should listen to the soundtrack, and a little bit about the composer. This week's choice is NieR: Automata by PlatinumGames.
THE STATS
Name: NieR: AutomataDeveloper: PlatinumGames
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date: February 23, 2017
Genres: Action role-playing, hack and slash
Composer(s): Keiichi Okabe
MY FAVORITE TRACKS
(The titles link to YouTube videos... and I highly recommend some good headphones to best enjoy all of the subtle elements of the music!)An Important Note! The NieR: Automata soundtrack is over 3 1/2 hours of music on 3 discs, so I selected 3-5 tracks from each disc for this entry. There were a lot to choose from, so I hope you enjoy my selection!
City Ruins - Rays of Light
(Length: 6:23) Beginning with light piano and guitar, it eases into something lyrical with vocals and percussion after a minute. The piano maintains the same repeated theme, and along with the percussion keeps the track moving--running forward.
Amusement Park
(Length: 6:19) I selected this track because I tend to be a sucker for great use of minor keys and progressions. Various elements of it reminded me of the Eternal Poison soundtrack and snippets of The 7th Guest. There's a playfulness to the composition, but also a lamentation.
Voice of No Return - Guitar
(Length: 3:52) As the title suggests, this is vocals and guitar. Don't try to understand the words, because the "words" are simply based on French phonetics (and still other tracks use Japanese or English). The combination makes for something romantic and forlorn sounding.
Pascal
(Length: 4:47) Everyone loves a moving marimba line, right? Digitally-altered vocals remind us that the theme of the game involves androids and enemy robots. I selected this track because of the flowing rhythm. It's just a pleasure to listen to!
Dark Colossus - Kaiju
(Length: 6:06) My favorite track *would* have the word 'kaiju' in the title. This track is a fantastic musical sandwich. The first two minutes and last two minutes are percussive, punctuated with epic strings, singing brass, and operatic vocals. The middle two minutes are a sinister pipe organ carrying the melody with further emphatic vocals standing out brighter (and more desperately?) in this quieter span of time.
Mourning
(Length: 4:51) The power of this track is that it is almost entirely vocals layering upon one another, with mournful strings entering just after two full minutes to fill a gap where the voices go silent. A minute later, the voices rejoin the strings and take on a wider, sweeping flow. The last minute is a powerful combination of the voices and full strings pushing out the melody at the same time and then diminishing.
Fortress of Lies
(Length: 2:49) The shortest of my track selections, this is a simple one that manages to stand out. It begins with an ethereal sound and sustained chimes, then adds vocals and subtle digital distortions. It has a very chillhop kind of sound, and I can only wish it was a couple minutes longer.
Vague Hope - Spring Rain
(Length: 4:40) You have to be a fan of breathy vocals to appreciate this track. If you spend the first 30 seconds wishing the vocalist would push with her diaphragm already, you might just want to move on. The melody of the strings, however, reminds me a great deal of musical themes I have often heard in Studio Ghibli movies. That is redemptive enough for me to appreciate the balance between instruments and vocals.
Song of the Ancients - Atonement
(Length: 5:10) Right off the bat you can hear this is an epic piece with the percussion, strings and brass laying a foundation for the harmonizing vocals. Having not finished playing the game, I don't know what the atonement is for in the track title, but the chord progressions in this piece do a good job of conveying a mounting struggle and attempt to succeed at something. Given that they fade out the end rather than give it a conclusive end, I imagine this is probably a backdrop for an intense and climactic boss fight that is pivotal to the story.
Faltering Prayer - Starry Sky
(Length: 3:44) Music box? Yes, please. I will listen to just about anything played by a music box. It is my weakness. (Which may be part of my attraction to wanting a kalimba...) This track will make you sad if you listen to it for too long. It's one of those pieces. A minute and a half in, a breathy voice is added to the mix for 30 seconds. I still don't know if it adds or detracts -- I'll leave that to you. But the music box continues on in a slower, heartbreaking fashion -- as music boxes do when they run out of torque.
The Tower
(Length: 7:44) I'm a big fan of this track, even though I'm not entirely sure why. It's the longest in the bunch, and it starts off with almost 80's-sounding ethereal sounds and vocals for almost 3 minutes before some percussion and more 80's sounding digital elements are added. It's a fantastic combination and reminds me a lot of epic ending scenes from many animes. As a bonus, there's a bonus 8bit version that should excite chiptune fans.
You can listen to the full soundtrack on YouTube:
WHY I RECOMMEND IT
This soundtrack was recommended as one I should cover, and I readily agreed since I have played the beginning of it on PS4. Further research on it has only convinced me that I need to play the rest of it, and that I also need to add some of the tracks into my regular rotation of music. This soundtrack also won the award for "Best Score/Music" at The Game Awards 2017. The quality of the soundtrack is up there with those of some of my favorite composers, and I can only urge you to listen to the rest of the tracks yourself... whenever you have 3 or so hours to spare. Better yet, go play the game.
THE COMPOSER: KEIICHI OKABE
This is a name I didn't know until I started working on this blog entry. Despite that, I am quite familiar with many of the works Okabe has contributed to over the years. His video game works include the Tekken series, Super Smash Bros., Final Fantasy XV: Episode Gladiolus, and the "City Ruins - SOUL" piece in SoulCalibur VI. His anime contributions include Sekirei, Black Butler and Assassins Pride. He's the founder of the music production studio Monaca which composes for a lot of video games and anime. I'm sure we'll continue to see more from him in the future!
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