A Very Unique Sort of Nostalgia - "Final Fantasy VI" (6/3) sorta
As I reflected upon all the little scraps of information I was learning in my introduction to music class, I suddenly had a hankering to listen to the "Spinach Rag" from the soundtrack to Final Fantasy III (or to give it the correct number VI). Now, we actually own an English soundtrack to the game. Don't ask me how, I just suppose some place actually used to produce them back then or something? (We also have one for Secret of Mana too) Unfortunately, the three CD set seems to be empty of it's disks as of late, and so I was sent off to the internet to browse some game music hosting sites.
A few minutes later I've gone on from "Spinach Rag" to "Aria de Mezzo Caraterre" (with 'singing' even ^^;;) to "Gogo's theme" and "Techno de Chocobo" eventually finding myself at "Forever Rachel" a darn depressing song if I ever heard one.
Which was about when a line from the info file that came with the soundtrack caught up to me: "Thanks for all of you people who compiled this soundtrack. It makes a good ambience on AD&D style RPG sessions ;)" (soundtrack compiled by Auriga, by the way)
Funny as it sounds, I know exactly what he's talking about in that last line. The way in which our little soundtrack got the most use back then, was spinning around in a cd player positioned behind the desk of our DM as he would describe situations with a decisive click of the remote control, putting an appropriate track on loop.
Those were some of my favorite roleplaying experiences. I learned to love songs like "The Phantom Forest", "The Mines of Narshe", "Devil's Lab" (magitek factory) and especially "Slam Shuffle" (music of Zozo, one of my favorite pieces, so much fun!) all over again. And things took up a different meaning as well as a retake on the original as we would hear themes that we (since we had all played FF3 through) had heard in their original setting, and that now also seemed to match so well with our current gaming experiences.
We weren't even playing a game that was at all similar to Final Fantasy.
It makes me wonder, did the music create such vivid scenes in our head because it was composed to do so, or was it because we could recall the scenes from the game to help flesh out the little unspoken details of the current scene?
Anyway, it was truly something else. Not to mention that our DM (my brother) had a list of songs on his gaming notebook, and choose them with such efficiency and excellent timing that with the exception of a few comical mistakes (Emperor Gestahl's theme for a bar scene anyone?) and some comical non-mistakes (he would every once and a while actually play the 'victory' music after we had finished a combat) I couldn't complain.
As a matter of fact, to this day I have yet to see a CD player that can accomplish the magic he managed to work with that old one; almost fluid switchs between CDs and a single button push to replay only a single track. Good ol' CD player. I miss you. <(;_;)> (sad Kirby)
...Ahem! So, uh yeah, perhaps that particular soundtrack is a little outdated, but to my phantom audience, I make the suggestion that should the chance come up, 'musical' roleplaying is truly a unique and pleasurable experience! Try it!
<(^^<) <(^^)> (>^^)> (The Kirbys rock out to the Airship theme)
A few minutes later I've gone on from "Spinach Rag" to "Aria de Mezzo Caraterre" (with 'singing' even ^^;;) to "Gogo's theme" and "Techno de Chocobo" eventually finding myself at "Forever Rachel" a darn depressing song if I ever heard one.
Which was about when a line from the info file that came with the soundtrack caught up to me: "Thanks for all of you people who compiled this soundtrack. It makes a good ambience on AD&D style RPG sessions ;)" (soundtrack compiled by Auriga, by the way)
Funny as it sounds, I know exactly what he's talking about in that last line. The way in which our little soundtrack got the most use back then, was spinning around in a cd player positioned behind the desk of our DM as he would describe situations with a decisive click of the remote control, putting an appropriate track on loop.
Those were some of my favorite roleplaying experiences. I learned to love songs like "The Phantom Forest", "The Mines of Narshe", "Devil's Lab" (magitek factory) and especially "Slam Shuffle" (music of Zozo, one of my favorite pieces, so much fun!) all over again. And things took up a different meaning as well as a retake on the original as we would hear themes that we (since we had all played FF3 through) had heard in their original setting, and that now also seemed to match so well with our current gaming experiences.
We weren't even playing a game that was at all similar to Final Fantasy.
It makes me wonder, did the music create such vivid scenes in our head because it was composed to do so, or was it because we could recall the scenes from the game to help flesh out the little unspoken details of the current scene?
Anyway, it was truly something else. Not to mention that our DM (my brother) had a list of songs on his gaming notebook, and choose them with such efficiency and excellent timing that with the exception of a few comical mistakes (Emperor Gestahl's theme for a bar scene anyone?) and some comical non-mistakes (he would every once and a while actually play the 'victory' music after we had finished a combat) I couldn't complain.
As a matter of fact, to this day I have yet to see a CD player that can accomplish the magic he managed to work with that old one; almost fluid switchs between CDs and a single button push to replay only a single track. Good ol' CD player. I miss you. <(;_;)> (sad Kirby)
...Ahem! So, uh yeah, perhaps that particular soundtrack is a little outdated, but to my phantom audience, I make the suggestion that should the chance come up, 'musical' roleplaying is truly a unique and pleasurable experience! Try it!
<(^^<) <(^^)> (>^^)> (The Kirbys rock out to the Airship theme)