If you think about the first No More Heroes (and, well, its sequels), I'm sure a certain tune comes to mind, the one Travis Touchdown used as his mobile phone ringtone. It was the work of synth ace Masafumi Takada, who also composed other acclaimed soundtracks such as Killer7, The Silver Case, EDF, Digimon Stories, Danganronpa and even some tracks for Super Smash Bros. Now, the multi-talented Japanese musician is celebrating the release of the soundtrack for The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (his latest work) and has taken the opportunity to share his opinion on current video game composition methods.
"Lately, something that's been bothering me a bit is that even though game music is often very rich and high in quality, there are more and more instances where it doesn't really align well with the actual gameplay experience," the Japanese musician criticises in statements to the local website Automaton. "To be honest, it sometimes feels more like they're just making good music instead of actually making a game."
In fact, Takada-san elaborates on this idea of "each going their own way":
"When you look at game reviews, you sometimes see comments like 'the music was great,' and that's not really praise for the music, it means the music stands out more than the game itself. In other words, it's not that a cohesive game is being made; it's that the playing experience and the music are out of sync. I want people to think about it that way. That's why, when I make music, I'm always considering these things to make the entire game experience entertaining."
Do you think this is happening more and more, with the music not aligning with the player's actions and what is happening on screen? Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won the TGA for best original soundtrack last month. However, just as fans asked for The Hundred Line to be given more consideration for its narrative, works such as Mario Kart World were left out of the official nominations for best music of the year.