GAME - Goodies - The Armchair Empire

Buy the album here.

From: Piano Squall

Newsletter

Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly.

Enter E-Mail Address Below:

GAME

(Game & Anime Music Emotions)

The Armchair Empire has reviewed soundtracks before, but this is the first time we’ve received a CD for review of “unofficial” soundtracks – a selection of tracks from a variety of games as performed by a fella called, Michael Gluck. Normally, we’d thank the musician and file the CD into the drawer marked “Land Fill” but what’s different about GAME is that 1) it’s actually good and 2) sales of the CD go toward a good cause, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Many of the tracks are solo piano arrangements from the Final Fantasy games – and with a stage name like Piano Squall I would have been surprised if he didn’t include a raft of Final Fantasy tunes.

As it turns out my favorite tracks have nothing to do with Final Fantasy. The Athlete’s Rag from Super Mario World (SNES) and Dr. Wiley’s Castle Stage 1 from Megaman 2 actually made me want to learn to play the piano just to be able to

Advertisement

play those two pieces. It also re-sparked an early childhood fantasy – something has not been on my mind since Freddy Pharkus Frontier Pharmacist – and that’s to be a saloon pianist. Those guys were wizards! But since there really hasn’t been a proper saloon anywhere in the West since Disco killed them, it’s probably best that it remain a fond piece of my childhood. The

Advertisement

common thread between those two particular tracks is that both games come from that period of gaming that was really finding music – using it to add something to the game rather than just noise to accompany the beeps and boops of Goombas being squashed. Both lend themselves extremely well to the piano and Squall conveys a sense of real energy to the pieces.

Other tracks are sourced from Cowboy Bebop, Tetris, Chrono Cross and Trigger, Naruto, Evangelion, and InuYasha. Depending on your familiarity with both Japanese RGPs and anime, you’ll get varying levels of enjoyment from the tracks. At least, they’ll have more meaning if you actually know where they came from. My wife – no fan of anime, RPGs (Japanese or otherwise), or games – has GAME in constant rotation in the CD player at home because most of the tunes are soulful affairs and just sound good.

The only real downside is the compilation track of Final Fantasy Battle Medleys. With so many diverse sources, it doesn’t come together very well. The playing is flawless but bring the compositions together will only appeal to hardcore Final Fantasy fans who will delight in identifying each theme.

The one completely original piece is titled Boss Battle. The piano disappears and is replaced by a synthesized orchestra in a 1 minute, 24 second composition which would not be out of place in a 16-bit role-playing game.

I have no doubt Piano Squall will produce another CD akin to this one, my only hope is that it’s more focused on one property, like Super Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog, or Final Fantasy, because the breadth is a little much (though for geeks the breadth isn’t much of an issue). On his website, Piano Squall is selling GAME for $10, part of which goes to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. It’s a worthy purchase.

- Omni

(September 2, 2007)


PC \| Gamecube \| DS \| Wii \| PlayStation 2 \| PlayStation 3 \| PSP \| Xbox \| Xbox 360
News \| Reviews \| Previews \| Features \| Classics \| Goodies \| Anime \| Forums