Songs without Words

Good old platforming games like Super Mario or Banjo-Kazooie focus much more on traps, puzzles, and secrets than on character development. Nevertheless, I’ve come to realize that when you play such a game, you are forced to assume a certain personality – headstrong, risk-taking, meddling, for better or for worse. Without pressing forward, nothing changes. In real-time strategy games, you can play defensively (”turtle”); in RPGs you can endlessly train to become stronger and thus minimize the risk of defeat. But in the platformer, you are left naked, with minimal verbal/written instruction and a usually comparatively small amount of “health.”

When I was younger, it was very easy to play these sorts of games. I would just keep going, and frequently, I would die in the process of figuring out what to do. But having recently picked up Banjo-Tooie (the sequel to Banjo-Kazooie), I’ve realized that I’m a lot more unwilling to just blindly charge forward as I was before. I am more drawn to the “hometown.” It takes a conscious effort to force myself into the crushing machine or to enter a new tunnel while still transformed into a “detonator” (which can only attack by self-destruction which is eventually fatal).</p>

<p>I think the more enmeshed I become in society, the more my aspirations become public, the less I am willing to invest myself in risky propositions.  I turn more to the people I know best, rather than counting on strangers; I reveal personal secrets and thoughts to a smaller circle of people rather than using online forums.  But in an age where progress in incremental, only people who hop on the risky limbs have a chance of making any sort of splash.  Hopefully by continuing through this game, I can regain some of that adventurous spirit I used to have, rather than deferring to someone else to test the waters.</p>

No wasted weekend is complete without a bit of city-building simulation.  I’ve been working on a new city (subsection of a city) called South Spyristais.  I’ve become a lot less interested in metropolises with towering skyscrapers, although having a downtown is nice.  But the focus of this suburb-y city is color and space.  I uncovered the PEG PPond & Stream kit (plugin – you build the scenes tile-by-tile) and constructed this “artificial” lake surrounded by seasonal trees (the game’s default trees are green year-round).  Even though natural spaces waste valuable land (and hence potential tax revenue), there’s no character to a place that lacks them.

Continue reading ‘[726] Labor Day Weekend, IV’ »

After struggling with lighting 3D models, I finally came across a nice and simple tutorial that explained how to set up a basic three-point lighting scheme.  What a difference it makes … .  Eyes are still creepy though.

Swift 3D v6.  Temporary eye texture from renderosity tutorials (by nezbitten)

The main exercise was the head, so here are side and front views in wire and flat shading:

The back of the head is deformed because once I drew in the hair, it was no longer a priority.  Swift 3D is somewhat more difficult to use for this purpose because it is difficult to “grow” a mesh bit by bit, and the polygons are strictly triangle-based, as opposed to quadrilaterals as seen in other programs.  Large arrays of triangles are just conceptually much harder to visualize in 3D.

I fashioned this head out of a box which was 4h x 2w, duplicated across the midline.

… hug everyone who helped to make something this spectacular … for a free product.  Ten years ago, I would never have believed that a map could look like this.  This is a view of Beacon Hill and the Commons, which I walk over whenever I get off the T at Park Street to get to lab in the morning.

Released just over a week ago, Luka MEGURINE already has quite a few songs to her name (I can’t imagine such a quick turnaround unless users already had synth tracks prepared long before Megurine’s release).  Despite the fact that Vocaloid2 “raw” technology has not improved dramatically since the release of Miku HATSUNE in 2007, composers and arrangers have been able to apply more and more realistic editing techniques while also identifying unique niches for Vocaloid which capitalize on effects that cannot be achieved through the human voice (such as the blending of Vocaloid with synthetic background and extended range or stamina).  Below are a few links to Megurine songs that I liked:

Lost My Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=JP&hl=ja&v=4nfmkDe1Rk0&fmt=18

A cover of the Suzumiya Haruhi insert song, remixed in a really nice bossa nova style.  This song, while not an original, exemplifies what you can achieve through careful sound editing.  Just typing in some notes and words does not yield anything near this quality of voice emulation.

Reality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAu0T2dIc84

One of the more unique aspects of this third iteration of Vocaloid2 is the shift towards a more mature voice, and correspondingly a company-suggested shift in repertoire.  Noticeably, while Miku Hatsune controls the bubblegum pop / techno niche, Megurine’s voice suits the character of jazz and rock more comfortably.  I think this song is well-done.

Ave Maria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3yewffHPB8&feature=related

This is a bizarre and haunting “remix” of Schubert’s Ave Maria, capitalizing on the main “new feature” with Megurine Luka, namely English support.  Realistically, what this means is that she’s able to terminate on consonants, which was not previously available.  This arranger, who also did a curious arrangement of Debussy’s Reverie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0leOP6W-6Co&feature=related), focuses on the grand effect rather than the shooting for the lofty goal of convincing the listener that the singer is human (which is near impossible at this stage).

Neighbor Lawn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0K5iTRD34&feature=related

The ‘video’ to this song is really beautiful, which is my main reason for including this song here.  I like the chord progressions, although the voice touch-up quality is rather poor.

Transient Future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfoIYrqrqPE&feature=related

Pretty standard Vocaloid pop fare, but like “Lost My Music,” I think this is among the best examples of sound editing to come out.

One of the greatest challenges in Spore is to make something that resembles a human.  I think this is the best I can do without using the Creepy and Cute expansion.  While it’s a somewhat silly to be trying to make humans in the one game that lets you play as anything BUT a human, there’s a marvel associated with creating the human likeness, especially when you’re starting with a little vertebrate blob as a starting point.  My Spore models are nowhere near as complex or fine-tuned as many I’ve seen, but I have to say, this doesn’t look too bad.  Now, if only Spore actually had *female* voices in the Tribal/Civ/Space stages @_@ it’s so messed up hearing that same old MALE voice.

I’ve recently been replaying Final Fantasy VII with my girlfriend, which has gotten me thinking about all the Square games I’ve played.  I think it’s worth going through and quickly reviewing them all, just to put in perspective the opposing hordes, one of which laments the fall of the “golden age” of console RPGs and the other which is enamored by the newest tales in their respective series.

The Square games I’ve played are: Chrono Trigger (finished), Chrono Cross (finished); Final Fantasy IV (unfinished), VII (finished), VIII (finished), IX (finished), X (finished), X-2 (unfinished), XII (finished), Tactics (unfinished), Legends II (finished), and Legends III (finished); Xenosaga Episode I (finished).  I of course wish I’ve played Xenogears and Final Fantasy VI, but nope, I haven’t.  I have also watched The Spirits Within and Advent Children.

Itemized reviews:

Chrono Trigger

There is an incredible fan-following for this game, and I think its many quirks and innovations and intriguing storytelling technique do justify the hype, although I don’t feel like it’s quite as life-changing as some make it out to be.

Battle 85 – the battle system which makes use of physical arrangements of characters (not utilized by the FF series, but also appearing in the Lunar series) is refreshing, and it’s fun to see people actually move around instead of sitting in place.  Also, one of the marvelous parts of 2-D RPGs is that the battles are quick – they focus on strategy, not pizzazz of pre-rendered sequences which are the equivalent of TV – enjoyable but unchallenging.  I take off points because the spells do get old and so do the common enemies.  But the bosses have some of the greatest “gimmicks” (that’s my term for unexpected behaviors and patterns that force you to adapt).

Gameplay and Graphics 85 – Quite nice environments and straightforward layouts.  The sprites were very detailed and conveyed a lot of emotion which I think actually has since been lost as the difficulties of recreating emotion in 3-D models has presented a persistent paucity of character depth.

Music 75 – there are some great songs, such as Frog’s theme, Spekkio’s theme, and the Zeal kingdom theme, but there is also a fair share of bland tracks.  And there’s an inevitable comparison to Chrono Cross’s soundtrack, which I feel is where Mitsuda really found his niche and perfected his art.

Story 80 – The story is fun and compelling, but I didn’t find it all that memorable or breathtaking, either.  The time-traveling device is the high point of creativity here.

Characters 85 – The characters are fun .. didn’t ring a close emotional tone with me, though.

Chrono Cross

Battle 75 – Unfortunately does away with the battle system from Chrono Trigger in favor of a pretty standard battle system that I didn’t particularly find exciting.

Gameplay and Graphics 85 – A very lush and beautiful world.  It’s a great pleasure to travel through all the different places.

Music 90 – An outstanding, breathtaking soundtrack that really immerses you in a world and flavor that seems to come from another world than other Square games.

Story 80 – I actually quite enjoyed the storyline of this game.  It has its share of intriguing twists, and I feel there was this air of enigmatic mystery throughout.  However, I wonder about this lasting impression of something missing from the way the story concludes itself.

Characters 75 – There were WAY too many playable characters and far too little time spent developing them.  If there were more job “classes” or specialties, I would have more support for this large cast, but as it stands, there were just too many.  Way too many.  It felt like Pokemon at times.  But, the main characters are pretty cool!

Final Fantasy VII

Battle 80 – Not great, not terrible.  The weapons and armor system is underwhelming and largely ignorable through most of the adventure, with materia being the main focus.  The idea of materia leveling up is refreshing, and the plethora of summons which do not have excessively long animation sequences is also rather nice.

Gameplay and Graphics 85 – I don’t understand why people complain about pre-rendered graphics.  I actually highly prefer pre-rendered graphics, which often have artistic renderings, unique touches, and gorgeous coloring palettes, to the new fully 3-D environments which are made up of redundant motifs, endless sands/identical grass, and bland architecture.  Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX have, in my opinion, the most beautiful background images of all RPGs I’ve ever played.  The playable sprites are atrocious blobs that look like Michelin men, but I actually prefer them to the popsicle sticks in FFVIII and whatever the heck Zidane was supposed to be in FFIX.  Only in Final Fantasy XII do I think the 3-D characters actually look as good as my imagination can make out of Final Fantasy VII’s coarse brush-strokes, which at least are kind of cute.  And I really don’t mind running around without being able to see my character.  Not everything in this world of value is visible.

Music 90 – There are very few bad tracks in this expansive score.  The use of themes and leitmotifs is on par with Star Wars, and never since have I been so in tune to the subtle and overt uses of sound cues to signal characters and ideas.

Story 90 – The scripting is sometimes poor – but then again, Final Fantasies don’t usually sport outstanding scripts (at least FFVII isn’t as pretentious about its script as FFVIII).  The strength lies in the story itself, which is brilliantly paced and which has so many twists and turns as well as compelling elements.  The humor is also top-notch.  Although individual elements are certainly not original, I feel like the final product is hard to dislike.

Characters 90 – The characters, with the exception of the optional ones, have decently well-developed personalities.  Although they fall into clear archetypes, I think they really are the cream of their respective crops.  The introspective nature of the game and dialogue can be a turn-off to some, but I think it makes for a fun marvel.  Especially fun is the psychology behind Cloud and Sephiroth.

Final Fantasy VIII

Battle 70 – Ugh, there were many things wrong with the battle system.  Despite great spells, this system is really done in by (a) the difficulty of obtaining money, (b) the enemies that get stronger and stronger, (c) the inane magic “drawing” system, and (d) the eventual imbalances in the different party members.  The summons are great fun, though.

Gameplay and Graphics 90 – Stunning and leaps and bounds beyond FFVII.  The cutscenes were shockingly realistic and detailed when they came out, and still set the standard for cinematics in games.

Music 95 – I regularly go back and listen to tracks from this CD.  While many taut FFVI as the pinnacle of Uematsu’s work, I instead think that this is his greatest masterpiece.  From the 5/4 battle theme to the gorgeous renditions of Eyes on Me and the Sorceress motif to the quirky organ and harpsichord piece (”The Castle”) to the dizzying “Compression of Time,” there is just such variety and unbridled emotion that really lends character to every locale and event.

Story 80 – The story is a bit messy and the love focus can be forced at times, but it wasn’t bad … except the random Laguna alter-ego “flashbacks” which got plain tedious.  Overall, I don’t think the story flowed as well, perhaps owing to the over-dramatic but ultimately uninspiring dialogue at times.  Still, it’s not a bad story by any means, and I definitely played from beginning to end without feeling like I had lost interest in what happened to the characters.  Moreover, the decision to incorporate love as a central theme makes for a rather fuzzy and heartwarming experience, even if Squall’s misanthropic character is irritating at times.

Characters 85 – With the exception of Squall and Seifer, the characters were actually pretty fun.

Final Fantasy IX

Ah, the very first RPG I ever played!  And boy did it inspire me :)

Battle 85 – The battle system goes old-school … which in this case I think was a good move.  The battles are on the whole fun and fast (as long as you don’t summon too much), and whoever was complaining about Auto-Potions …  just don’t use it!

Gameplay and Graphics 95 – Taking place in a high-fantasy world devoid of the industrial clutter of FFVII and FFVIII, there is a color palette here that I think goes unmatched.  I found the environments to be tastefully and congruously designed, and meticulously detailed.  The super-deformed characters can be a bit jarring, but aside from Zidane and Eiko, I think the effect is actually quite pleasant.  The cutscenes are great fun.

Music 90 – You can sort of tell that Uematsu was probably getting ready to move on to something new.  The soundtrack is gorgeous as always, but not quite as memorable.  Aside from Melodies of Life, which I think is the best vocal theme for any Final Fantasy released thus far, a lot of the songs seem like imitations of previous game themes used to similar effect.  Nevertheless, the chocobo theme is amazing, as is Kuja’s final battle theme.

Story 85 – A simple story that wasn’t going for anything complicated or dark or twisted.  I think it’s pleasant and cute and never really overbearing.  Minus a few points for a poor final boss choice, though.  Final Fantasy VI and VII probably have the best “villain storytelling” and continuity.

Final Fantasy X

Battle 80 – They wanted to try something new that wasn’t ATB-based.  But of all things to turn to, why a turn-based battle system??  I do think the Sphere Grid was an innovative idea and definitely a fun incorporation of a more “table-top” kind of feel which is not as artificial as a level system.  Still, it was excruciating at times to try to traverse the Sphere Grid, and Final Fantasy XII definitely made much better use of the concept.  Being able to switch your members in and out eliminated the awkward excuses previously made for having only a small part of your party active at any point in time, and also helped to iron out the gross level inequalities inherent in small-party adventure.

Graphics 80 – I’m giving points mostly for the cutscenes which were mindblowingly awesome, from Blitzball to Yuna’s death ceremony.  More than just eye-candy, I genuinely felt emotionally moved by the sequences.  The voice acting was … unnecessary, though.

Unfortunately, with the end of the overworld and the end of pre-rendered graphics, I feel like there was a MAJOR problem: the difficulty of capturing the quirky and sometimes Escher-like worlds that used to define Final Fantasy.  Everything became so … regularized and repetitive.  The colors became literal and the whole world was so linear.  There was no sense of scope and expanse and unknown that characterized the previous games, including the 2-D ones.

Gameplay 90 – I’m making this a separate category because gameplay starts to become more of its own thing after the PS2 transition.  Of note is Blitzball, which is actually kind of fun but which should have been in 3-D, not 2-D.  More importantly, though, the puzzles!  The fight-free puzzle sessions before every dungeon were a real treat and genuinely challenging.  For me it became a whole-family affair, with my mom joining in, too.

The entire body of human knowledge has long since surpassed the point where any one person could ever hope to understand any significant proportion of it. This is apparent from the greater and greater levels of specialization in people’s everyday lives, despite surface appearances that the general populace is becoming more well-rounded in its knowledge. The truth is, people individually do not know much more (in quantity) than people really have; the knowledge that is gained of new technologies and such replaces knowledge that is perhaps less useful. What passes as broad knowledge is actually the accessibility to that knowledge, not the possession of it: humans are learning more methods of archiving and subsequently finding information, rather than better methods of retaining it within the mind.

The externalization of knowledge is hardly a new innovation. As I have often mentioned in conversations, I believe that evolution works in self-similar stages – think of the zooming-out sequence in Men in Black or, if you’ve seen it, the narrated preview for the upcoming game “Spore.” Basically, single cells, each of which used to know everything about day-to-day cell life, came together in a cooperative society, and the repository of knowledge turned into the ganglion or brain of the larger animal. The ganglion cells themselves – the brain cells – have no intrinsic knowledge of the knowledge that they store; the other cells access and use this information through signals, but they do not hold the knowledge within themselves.

Likewise, multi-organismal society is now at a point where it can no longer be like a brainless jellyfish. What is arising naturally are large repositories of knowledge, such as libraries, succeeded now by the larger internet. Knowledge is not only a sitting body but a dynamic conversation that exists on a time-scale and size-scale so large that people may view it as being a fixed entity.

The current methods of information exchange are very nice, but there is one fatal flaw: no meta-analysis outside of our own selves, the fundamental “cells” of the organism of humankind. The genius of human existence is the ability to take the “wikipedia” of inputs from all the five senses, compounded over many years, and distill out higher-level conclusions and theories.

Current knowledge databases such as, say, PubMed or ISI, which compile more research than any person could ever hope to even click on, not to mention read or understand, are rapidly becoming unwieldy. In the rush to create knowledge, there is not enough sustained effort to remold it. I am confident that many secrets and patterns of humanity and human disease already have enough research put in, if only that research were combined effectively and the correct connections made. And if the published literature is insufficient, then it is the combined knowledge and observations of the researchers themselves that would hold the answers. The “scientific hero” model dating from just a century ago, and epitomized by the Nobel Prize, is completely out-of-date, and the gradual lifting of the proprietary attitude towards science through the greater availability of full text publications, wikis, copyleft / free software, and wide-ranging collaboration confirms that the new era of knowledge will be built not by forefathers upon marble pedestals but by the average Joe.

Who, then, will be charged with the requisite meta-analysis that I alluded to earlier? In my belief, the entity to serve such a function is none other than a computer. Robotics has its triumphs in automated arms and belts that power current manufacturing by rapidly and accurately processing raw materials towards the production of just about every product – this is the only way production has been able to keep up with design and demand. The corresponding state-of-the-art for data which exists virtually rather than physically (virtual information being both encoded in computers and in human minds) is basically only indexing and searching. Wikipedia does not, to my knowledge, try to sift through its cross-references to discover the meaning of human existence or better ways for physics to inform biology or evaluate the best system of government. But the data is already there! For a human being, it takes so many years to write a single dissertation which looks upon a sliver of the pie of knowledge, and in turn is read by only a sliver of the people who ought to be reading it.

What is needed for this project is not artificial intelligence that mimics human thought, per se – the brain does not think in the manner of cells. What is needed is a new paradigm of thought, which is simpler yet more powerful than human thought. Whereas cells are concerned about the minutiae about particles and neighboring cells and fluid flows, the brain ignores most of that and considers the hunger level of the entire body, the status of sheep in the meadow which none of the cells know about, and the relative attractiveness of members of the opposite gender, which certainly cells would not understand at all. Not just the scale, but the nature of the thoughts transcend the capabilities of any contributing member of the knowledge.

The idea of a “brain” for an entire species has been entertained many times before, but usually in the context of some dominating hive-queen. There is nowhere in the description above that suggests that such a central unit would ever have to be dominant in function; nor that it even has to be “alive” in the way we understand it. It is just that, now with humanity trying to deal with problems of the entire body of its billions of people and with the Earth as a whole, there must be a better way of thinking globally than using our feeble minds which have yielded brazenly useless solutions such as the recent agreement to cut emissions by 50% by 2050 (what human can conceive of 42 years of future events? And why is only one small part of the problem being addressed)? Without a guiding mind that can at least put together the crises in fish, bees, the atmosphere, forests, rivers, trash, toxic chemicals, radiation, soil quality, and so forth, in a meaningful way, how will the environmental issue ever be tackled effectively?  All of these issues are interconnected, but people only become interested in them one at a time, or in all of them with no particular plan or comprehensive understanding.  Synthesizing the next layer of knowledge is probably the only way the human race can make peace with the world and with itself.

In the standard console RPG, due to the fact that the standard battle theme is played 10,000 times and the final boss theme is played just once, it’s easy for a composer to come to the conclusion that the standard battle theme deserves more attention and careful composition. But the great video game composer understands the gravity of the final boss theme. Ask any video game music aficionado, and you can probably squeeze out the actual titles of several final boss themes.
As with any extended epic, the RPG storyline at this point has reached the denouement: while there is still conflict, the path to the resolution is very clear and has been since the climax, when the ultimate villain is revealed or the final battle strategy is drawn. Here is the catch: while the story-telling climax comes probably 7/8 of the way through the story (generally speaking – I never understood those symmetric models presented to us in middle school, because I think it’s pretty stupid to have your climax in the middle of the story, just as reaching orgasm halfway through sex is pretty much a letdown), the musical climax has to come at the very last instant. The transition from final battle theme to the ending theme has to be extremely powerful. Here’s how some great composers were able to achieve this in their own unique way:

Nobuo Uematsu’s Final Boss Themes:

Final Fantasy 6: “Dancing Mad” – this multi-part final boss theme begins with an off-balance 12/8 but constantly switches between rapid, romantic-techno fusions and, as Kefka moves towards godhood, increasing bouts of Bach-inspired organ chorales and fugues.

Final Fantasy 7: “One-Winged Angel” – a nearly atonal piece that may be the most famous of them all, employing full orchestra plus chorus. My middle school friend once took away a bit of the drama by transliterating the lyrics of the chant as “Seph, Seph, Sephiroth: he’s a man, he likes cheese, Sephiroth!” (it’s actually in Latin)

Final Fantasy 9: “Dark Messenger” – I really dislike the actual final boss theme, so this is the penultimate boss theme. This jazz-rock arrangement begins with Kuja’s theme, an ascending organ prelude accompanied by ridiculously dramatic “We Will Rock You” drums – a purposefully cheesy combination that makes it point. Then, an electric guitar countertheme is introduced that is later played simultaneously as the organ themes, once again proving Uematsu’s mastery of cross-genre counterpoint. Among rock battle themes, this is my personal favorite.

Hitoshi Sakimoto’s Final Boss Themes:

Final Fantasy 12: “Battle for Freedom” – I think maybe this is the easiest “entryway” into final boss themes, because this dissonant, full-orchestra work clocking in at 8 minutes, 51 seconds has all the makings of a theatrical soundtrack. It’s really hard to believe at times that this is a synthesized piece. Beginning with a solemn introduction with just a touch of non-standard dissonance that places it squarely into the modern musical traditional, it transitions into an unstable string of eerie melodies over pulsating bass in the form of low horns and timpani. There are quotes here and there of earlier themes, as in Dark Messenger.

Noriyuki Iwadare’s Final Boss Themes:

Grandia II: “Fight!! Ver. 4″ – One of a series of Iwadare’s peppy rock battle themes.  I think the regular boss theme is better, but they’re all pretty catchy and energizing, with none of the dark, sinister undertones that Final Fantasy battle themes usually have.
Grandia III: “Final Assize” – Iwadare’s GIII final battle theme is one of a handful that dares to be ironic by instead being peaceful and light-hearted. The other main one I can think of that pulls this off successfully is the final boss theme of “Legend of Dragoon.”

Yasunori Mitsuda’s Final Boss Themes

Chrono Cross: “” – There isn’t one. You fight the final boss with only the sound of distorted wind in the background. To defeat this final boss, you have to play out a melody using your spells, which produce a tone based on their element (you learn this sound-based element when you first visit the crystals, which produce the sound – and Lavos has the crystals mounted on his back). So, all you hear is the haunting quality of the individual notes that you play out, and when you successfully execute this sequence, you trigger the ending, regardless of how much physical damage you have dealt (you can also kill it normally, too, if you want, but you have to be considerably stronger). The melody turns out to be one of the ending themes, which is extremely beautiful.