Favorite Tunes #57: Villain's Stronghold

Ah, the villain stronghold. Their hideaway. Their trap factory where they plan their many misdeeds. Also the place where the player can expect to lose a lot of lives. From castles, fortresses in the sky, craters and even space stations, this is the bad guy's spotlight edition of Favorite Tunes.

Koopa's Road - Super Mario 64 (N64, DS)

Running towards a huge picture of Princess Peach that slowly morphs into Bowser as you get closer. Before you know, you've fallen for the old trap door trick and you're plunged into Bowser's dark world. Unlike many of the open ended courses you've been playing, Bowser's worlds tend to have more straightforward paths with death all around you. With Super Mario 64 Koji Kondo crafted another winning Mario score with Koopa's Road ranking as one of the best themes to ever be associated with Mario's arch nemesis.

Pete's Castle - The Magical Quest Staring Mickey Mouse (SNES)

I don't know what it is with villains and castles but they just love to use these places as hideouts. I guess it's no surprise that Pete also holds himself up in one as well. Pete has been antagonizing Mickey Mouse since the early days of the mascot's career. He's taken on just about every villain role imaginable. In The Magical Quest, he's a dognapping sorcerer. A bit of trivia. Debuting in 1925, Pete is older than Mickey Mouse by three years as Mickey's first cartoon wasn't aired until 1928.

Exdeath's Castle - Final Fantasy V (SNES, PS)

He may not have the same popularity as Golbez or Kefka, but I've always been quite fond of Exdeath. He has the best villain theme of the entire series (screw Sephiroth) and his castle is positively eerie. Exdeath spends a great deal of his encounters with the heroes merely swatting them aside like insignificant pests. But in one highly memorable scene where he decides the time has come for their lives to end, he shows just how frightening he can truly be.

Castle - New Super Mario Bros. (DS)

When this game was released, it had been more than 10 years since we'd seen Mario in a new 2D platformer that wasn't a port. New Super Mario Bros. was designed with the 2D Super Mario Bros. games in mind, with many of it's levels paying homage to Super Mario Bros. 1-3 and Super Mario World. The music wasn't scored by Koji Kondo, but I think Hajime Wakai and Asuka Ota did a fine job giving us new, catchy themes. In particular, I love  NSMB's Castle theme. I'm surprised that it didn't get any remix love in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Black Fortress - Bomberma 64 (N64)

Bomberman 64 is no easy game. Much of the game's world's leading up to Black Fortress will make you want to pull your hair out and if you do manage to make it here, you'll be in for some of the toughest challenges this game has to offer. Remember what your parents and teachers told you as a kid? Look both ways before crossing the street. Black Fortress is filled with traffic. If the copious amounts of enemies don't kill you, those buses will.

Judgement Day - Final Fantasy VII (PS, PC)

The final showdown between the heroes and Sephiroth takes place beneath the planet, inside the Northern Crater. If this madman isn't stopped, countless lives will be lost all so Sephiroth can become a god. I think this score is one of Nobuo Uematsu's lesser works but there are a lot of great tracks in Final Fantasy VII. Judgement Day, or The Last Day as it's also known as, doesn't get the attention it so rightly deserves. It's one of the series' best final dungeon themes and really gives you a feeling of "This is it. Everything is on the line."

Last Duel - Lufia & the Fortress of Doom (SNES)

This tune actually plays at the very start of the game. Your party are in their late 70s in levels. The Sinistrals are already stupidly powerful and unless Maxim and company stop them, well, everyone and and planet Earth is screwed. Confused? I was, too when I first started this game as a teen. It seemed strange to have the final confrontation take place at the start of the game. Turns out what seemed like the ending was only the beginning. It was a different, albeit, fantastic way to start off the adventure.

The Castle - Final Fantasy VIII (PS, PC)

After a long and perilous journey, you arrive at Ultimecia's Castle. It has a classy look to it and is quite enormous. The first 24 seconds of this theme has light, happy feel to it. Then those low organ notes come in, as if to scream in your face, "SUCKER!" I love how this song misleads players, lowering them into a false sense of security. There's a fair bit of complexity to this one and like FFVII's Judgement Day, it's an under-appreciated song. I'm happy to see it was chosen as DLC in Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.

Castle Theme - Super Mario World (SNES, GBA)

For the most part, I find a lot of castles in Super Mario World to be some of the most devious levels in the game, so this Castle Theme is rather fitting. There's the slow, tense build up that last for nearly a full minute. I usually hate it when a song takes forever to get to the main course, but not a second of this build up is wasted. It all adds to the tense platforming that's present in each castle. The main course is quite good, too.

Deep in Space (Dr. Wily Stage 5) - Mega Man 10 (WW, PSN, XBLA)

There were some questionable Robot Master designs (what Mega Man game doesn't have those?) and some of the weapons were weaksauce (again, there's at least one in every game), but I still loved Mega Man 10. I'm only bummed that Roll didn't go crazy. Missed opportunity, Capcom. Anyway, this is actually a remix of Future World, one of the game's opening themes.

Favorite Tunes Database

Game Art #55: Metal Gear Gallery

Metal Gear hasn't been prominently featured on Game Art since Game Art #45 and that was dedicated to the series official artwork. This time, fan works are getting time in the spotlight. Enjoy.

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The Greatest Cartoon Openings Ever Part 4

Megas XLR

This wonderfully hilarious show got so many things right. It spoofed popular anime and western animation. It did away with the played out hero archetype by giving us Coop, a fat, video game loving slacker of protagonist that tricked out MEGAS with a muscle car for a head. And this show absoultely nailed it's opening. This show tells you everyone that loves giant robots. You, me, chicks, EVERYBODY. Show me someone that doesn't like giant robots and I'll show you a liar.

C.O.P.S.

No, there wasn't an animated version of Fox's reality TV show COPS (at least, not to my knowledge). I'm talking about the 1988 C.O.P.S cartoon featuring one of the coolest black guys in the history of animation, Bulletproof. The name alone is awesomesauce but it's quite the literal name since his chest can deflect bullets. Along with fellow cops like LongArm, Mace, and Highway, Bulletproof protected the city from Big Boss and his gang of flunkies. Yeah, the show was made to sell toys but I was always in front of the TV to see this show before school.

Garfield and Friends (Opening 2)

I know that you're thinking. The Garfield comic strip is a bore so why would one even bother watching this? Well, for one, the late Lorenzo Music provided a spot on voice for the world's laziest cat. And the show was genuinely funny, running for seven seasons, a rarity for cartoons these days. The " and Friends" portion of the show includes the residents fro US Acres, a short live comic strip by Garfield creator Jim Davis, which in animated form, was much more well received. I do like the opening used for seasons one and two, "Friends are there", but "We're Ready to Party" used from season three and onward has always been my favorite.

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Action cartoons of the 1980s were great and all, but Winnie the Pooh was a nice diversion from all of that. Of course Pooh and the gang still went on the occasional adventure here and there, it was still a show where most of the events took place in the Hundred Acre Woods. Of Disney's Pooh Bear adaptations, I firmly believe this to be the best of the bunch.

Kim Possible

For most teenagers, getting through a day of high school is an event in and of itself. Kim Possible has to juggle classes, homework, and keeping the world save. Good thing she has help from Ron Stoppable, her best friend since preschool, his naked mole rate and tech wizard, Wade. In a time where Disney cartoons were at a 65 episode limit, fan demand got Kim Possible a fourth season, which explored the relationship upgrade that Kim and Ron got at the end of the third season. Another Disney animated show, another sweet vocal performance for the opener.

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F-Zero X-Style Arrangements

I do enjoy a good dose of rock, metal and some heavy metal tunes in my video games. The F-Zero franchise has excelled in game music since the SNES days back in the early 1990s. 1998 saw the release of a second installment in the series, F-Zero X. The game dished out insane 3D racing speed, 30 racers on the track at once in single player and a smooth 60 FPS frame rate. There was also some four player action thrown in for good measure. As if all that wasn't good enough, the soundtrack also took a giant leap forward. The Nintendo 64 often gets accused of having inferior sound capabilities when compared to the Saturn or PlayStation, but there were plenty of games that had standout soundtracks with F-Zero X's rock/metal score ranking high among them. There were a few arrangements of classic F-Zero themes like Mute City and Big Blue, but most of the music consisted of original compositions. The sound font used for F-Zero X's soundtrack gives it a truly unique feel. Tony Thai took it upon himself to arrange most of the original SNES F-Zero's music using FLStudio 7 to produce a sound font that's dead-on to that of F-Zero X. The results is F-Zero X-Style Arrangements, and it the words of Mortal Kombat Annihilation's Shao Khan, it is GLORIOUS!

The music was this baby was recorded in 2007 but the album wasn't released until 2009. I really should have talked about this baby eons ago. There really aren't that many F-Zero arranged albums and the few that exist are not easy to come by. F-Zero X-Style Arrangements is not only easily accessible since it's free, but it's also got high production values. This is easily one of my favorite game soundtracks to listen to.

As stated above, the music in F-Zero X-Style Arrangements are mostly tracks from the SNES F-Zero score made to sound like F-Zero X music. This is what the F-Zero SNES Silence sounds like and this is Tony Thai's X-Style arrangement of Silence. The woefully under-appreciated Sand Ocean. Now check the X-Style Sand Ocean. Port Town is a huge fan favorite and the X-Style Port Town is pretty sick, so sick that a Live Guitar version of it was even included. Even though Mute City and Big Blue were already given the rock treatment in F-Zero X, Tony Thai still went through the trouble of arranging them in X-Style. The X-Style Mute City even uses the SNES Mute City start up. I actually think the X-Style Fire Field is better than the original Fire Field. The only track that doesn't come from the original F-Zero is Illusion, a theme that was used in F-Zero Climax on the Game Boy Advance, the third GBA F-Zero that sadly, didn't get a release outside of Japan. Hearing the X-Style Illusion makes me wish more GBA F-Zero songs were given the X-Style treatment. I can only dream of what Lightning, Empyrean Colony, and Mist Flow would have been like in F-Zero X sound font.

As you've probably gathered, I LOVE this album. It feels like a companion album to the original F-Zero SNES and F-Zero X's music. And it's free! I cannot think of any reason why anyone wouldn't want to have this album on their computer or iPod. At the risk of sounding terribly cliche and predictable, F-Zero X-Style Arrangements rocks. On a related note, where was our F-Zero Wii or F-Zero DS?! Better yet, how about F-Zero U or F-Zero 3D? Come on, Nintendo!

F-Zero X-Style Arrangements

Does Game Journalism Suck?

If you happen to work for the gaming press or did at one point, please forgive the rather rude title of this editorial. I really couldn't think of a better way to put it. Maybe I was living under a rock or just wasn't paying enough mind, but it's become increasingly apparent that a plethora of gamers believe that video game journalism is an joke and has been that way for quite some time. Why is that? By no means am I an expert or some industry professional. I'm just a someone who loves to game and write about games. What I can do is present some reasons as to why many believe video game journalism is in the crapper.

Decline of Print Media and the Rise of the Digital Age

Nintendo Power, GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Informer. One of my favorite pass times growing up was picking up a video game magazine and reading through it from start to finish. I would even read about games I had no interest in just to stay informed. The aforementioned gaming mags were some of the ones I loved reading the most. I'm aware that more than a few think GamePro isn't fit to wipe their anus and that Game Informer is a major GameStop plug. Lots of gamers have praised GameFan as the greatest game mag on the planet. I never believed that for a second, but that's just me. My point is, for a long time, game mags were our primary source for game info and month after month we would gobble up every thing we could. 

But then came the explosion of digital age. The internet makes getting news, shopping and staying in touch with old friends super simple. Lots of newspapers are still around but every single published paper has it's own website for up-to-the-minute news. What was once something we had access to every thirty days is now something we can easily get a hold of at any given time. If there's a news story breaks about a new game or a closing development studio, expect the story to be spread all around the net without hours. Lots of game mags have bitten the dust thanks to digital media. While I'm very grateful to get gaming news every day, there's nothing quite like having a well-made game magazine in your hands, complete with in depth articles on interesting topics that most websites don't even touch upon. For many, the "true spirit" of game journalism fizzled out as digital media blew up.

Ads, Ads and More Ads

Ads are everywhere. In magazines, newspapers, TVs, and billboards. You cannot escape the all mighty ad. For all the good digital media has given us, it's also responsible for the onslaught of ever increasing ads, something that greatly hinds your web surfing experience. What should be a relaxing experience for us turns into aggravation because we have to sit through so many ads or have the page's scrolling speed bogged down by an over abundance of ads on the top, bottom, left and ride side of the page. Needless to say ad assault is at it's worst in digital form. Ad blocking software was invented for the sole purpose of making our web surfing experiences less frustrating. But game sites need those ads to get money so they are a necessary evil. When said ads are game-related, they may even have some sway on reviews and scores. "What?! That's impossible!" If mainstream  news media can be convinced to have a different opinion based on the all mighty dollar, what makes you think video game journalism is an exception? When game journalists lose their jobs for giving their honest opinion and a game that was originally given a mediocre rating is given a great rating, it doesn't take the world's greatest detective to know that things aren't kosher. 

Big Name Games/Stories

Which of these do you think will get the most attention, a review on the latest Call of Duty or a review on one of Cave's shooters that's actually getting an English release? The former, of course. Hating on the Call of Duty series is a popular pass time for the hardcore gamer, it's an enormous franchise that makes truckloads of cash and grabs gamer's attention. It isn't uncommon to see a Call of Duty title get multiple page reviews in magazines or webites while lesser known titles will be fortunate enough to get a single page review and if it's in a magazine, sometimes they only get a small space. Demand for a game dictates how much attention it will receive. Lots of haters may not want to believe it, but TONS of people play Activision's first person shooter and that's why it gets all the attention shined on it that it does. So gamers themselves have an tremendous effect on how much or how little focus a game gets in the press. Most of the time. 2011's Rayman Origins was given glowing reviews but it was released around the holiday season and was up against some pretty stiff competition Despite the rave reviews, it still didn't sell nearly as many copies as it should have. 

Then you have huge headline stories. When Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto expressed his desire to retire from his current position in a Wired interview in 2011, many just saw the single word "retire" and thought he was leaving the game making business. Because many people didn't read the article carefully, Nintendo had to make clarifications the very next day that the interview went up that Miyamoto wasn't going anywhere. Big name stories goes along with my next point.

Article Views

It's all about hits, or page and article views. Many websites live and die by this. Make no mistake, ads help a lot but page views are of equal importance. Games with big names attached or stories with headlines sure to grab attention usually get lots of views. Even in the digital age, there's still a rush to get stories out before rival websites. This can lead to stories that contain gross inaccuracies because the writers didn't bother to check their facts. The biggest example I can offer on this is an incident with fake PS Vita games. A little over a year ago, a forumite on 4chan did some Play.com retail forgeries for upcoming Vita games. Among the titles were Grand Theft Auto, Tales of Innocence R and an English version of Final Fantasy Type-0. And wouldn't you know it, GameSpot, Kotaku, and IGN among others, jumped on the chance to print the story. But hey, as long as they get the story up first, who cares? When a site article is sitting on over a million views, who cares if the writer made him/herself and by extension, the whole site look like complete morons? 

For the record, I don't think every game journalist professional is a tool. Retro Gamer is one of the finest gaming magazines on the face of the Earth and a shining example of what great game journalism can be. I've also been fortunate enough to talk via e-mail to some industry professional. Joe Fielder, former EIC of GameSpot was a great help to me when I wanted to break into the professional game journalism when I was in my late teens and Jeff Grestman is one of the coolest guys around. So while I personally don't think all of game journalism is facade, I can see why lots of gamers think it is. 

Sonic Classic 2: Original Soundtrack

Sonic Classic 2 is a freeware game in development for PC by HezMan and is the sequel to surprise, surprise, Sonic Classic, also for PC. I don't think the game is fully available yet. The only thing I've been able to come across are gameplay demos that were posted in early 2012. What it available is the Sonic Classic 2: Original Soundtrack.

The music for Sonic Classic 2 was composed by Karl Brueggemann, the same gent responsible for the three lovely Sonicesque albums. Like the Sonicesque series, the soundtrack for Sonic Classic 2 has completely original music done using Genesis instruments. From the sound of things, it takes it's audio cues from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which is never a bad thing.

My favorite tracks on this album are Drill Base Act 1, Special Stage, Crystal Cove Act 2, Jupiter Jungle Act 1 (love the jazzy feel this one has), and Glistening Glacier Act 1. The entire album is pretty solid and the music is a love letter to music from my all-time favorite Sonic game, Sonic 3 & Knuckles. This a name your price download so you can make a donation for the album or get it for free. If you need some more game tunes to jam to on your iPod, you can't go wrong with this baby.

Sonic Classic 2: Original Soundtrack

Currently Playing #15

Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii)

This is another one of those games I've had for some time. I started playing it about a week ago. I've always been fond of the WarioWare series but the Wario platform games are also quite enjoyable. The last one I played was Wario Land 4 back in 2002 so needless to say, I've been away from the series for a very long while.

As the subtitle implies, there's a good deal of shaking going on in Shake It! Wario is in the Shake Dimension looking to fatten up his wallet. He's also there to help rescue some of the world's inhabitants but we all know he could care less about helping anyone but if it helps him get rich, he's game. There are lots of money bags to shake to unleash coins. Seems simple enough and it is, but I found that you really have to be careful just where you're shaking that bag of cash. It's easy to lose coins to a lava pit or have them get shaken to where they fly out of your reach. These coins don't stick around for too long either so you gotta be quick about collecting your reward.

The game also has other motion control use. The Wii Remote can be swung back and forth to help Wario swing on vines. A quick flick of the remote makes Wario slam the ground to cause an earthquake and you even control Wario's aim with the Wii Remote. The most taking use of motion controls I've come across so far is shaking for coins and even then, it isn't that bad.

I just reach Area 3 (yeah, I'm moving at a slug's pace) and the best implementation of motion controls I've seen thus far was the boss of Area 2. Wario's gunning for some speed demon in a convertible who chucks wheels and monkey wrenches at him. Wario's only means of fighting back is using a mounted boxing glove on his car to bounce the projectiles back at his opponent. This is of course done by means of tilting the Wii Remote to aim up or down. I got a bit frustrated on this boss but that mainly due to trying to rush things. It's a pretty cool boss battle.

Each level has three treasures for you to find and like Wario Land 4 you have to escape each stage before time runs out or you won't get to keep any of the cash or treasures you've collected. A lot of these treasures aren't in plain view and I've already repeated levels numerous times trying to find each treasure. This game was made by Good Feel, the same developer of Kirby's Epic Yarn, a game I needed little to no help finding each stage's three items. You'd think it'd be much easier to find these treasures but no, you really gotta work for 'em here. But then, Epic Yarn was Kirby game, so things are supposed to be a lot easier. There are also extra goals you can meet in every level like making it back to the start of the level at a set time, finishing a stage without getting hit and so on. I'm not sure if these extras count as 100% completion but if they are, getting 100% in Shake It! won't be easy.

Still Playing...

Punch-Out!! (Wii) 

I started a new game because I actually lost to Great Tiger. Great Tiger! Granted, he's a lot tougher in this Punch-Out!! but still! I did learn one thing when I started over: I have a terrible tendancy to always dodge left and because of this, I was getting hit by a lot of punches. I'm not sure why I always go left when dodging but I found myself doing it so much that it was like a reflex reaction. Once I started mixing up how I dodged, I was taking less hits.

I'm also still adjusting to how each boxer works. With a guy like Glass Joe, you have all the time in the world to dodge his punches so if you dodge too soon, you can still dodge again and be fine. Do this on a guy like Disco Kid and you're screwed. In a lot of ways, it feels like a have to learn how to play Punch-Out!! again even though I played the NES version and Super Punch-Out!! to death eons ago.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (3DS)

For the record, I have not stopped playing this game since I started playing it a little over two months ago. I've gotten Terra, Cloud, and Warrior of Light up to level 99 and Cecil is almost there with them. My current party consists of Cecil, Lightning, Bartz and Vaan. I've gotten an all critical on The Sunleth Waterscape (Final Fantasy XIII) on Expert mode and a lot of Expert mode level songs aren't as tricky as I thought they'd be. Though some require good eyes and lots of timely taps and swipes. I think this is the first 3DS game I've invested nearly 50 hours into.