Let's talk about the music

[The Awesomest]

Alright, so we have two videos for this game, a trailer and a gameplay demo, both of which can be found here, and four new pieces of music to briefly listen to. Let's share our observations and our hopes! I'll start.

In the trailer we can hear the new arrangement of the Main Theme. Or part of it, anyway. The trailer is probably too short for us to determine if it's the actual theme cut short or just a random song that uses the opening refrain.

In the gameplay video, there are three new songs: one on the overworld, one before the battle and the map theme. I don't really think there's much to say about the overworld theme. It's nice.

The pre-battle song - is this a new thing? I don't really remember there being songs dedicated to the purpose of playing during a talk right before the battle. Maybe my memory is just off.

The map theme is nice, but the most interesting thing about it is that there's no battle theme! The map themes add some percussion and play during the battles! That's pretty cool, I think. I imagine battle themes will be gone in this game for the most part, except for bosses and arenas and such.

Oh, and the level-up jingle is all nice and orchestrated.

The music also seems very melodic and pleasant, basically like the rest of Fire Emblem with the sole exception of Radiant Dawn, which was probably the musical black sheep of the series. I'm okay with this.

What are your thoughts?

[Lord Raven]

I think that out of all the FEs it resembles FE9 the most; I feel like its melody is more "subtle" in a way much like FE9's. And I'm excited for it.

[Phoenix Wright]

I'm really liking the music. I agree with the two o' ya's.

EDIT: *Except* for the fact that I do not like the absence of a battle theme. I've loved most of them throughout the series. I am disappoint.

Edited September 19, 2011 by Phoenix Wright

[Celice]

Its subtleness reminds me of the past two remakes, FE10, and the last Advance Wars game. And all of them have pretty mellow, uninspiring soundtracks to my ears :( The melodies are just a little less impaction and less thematic I think--rather than definite waves of sequences and notes, it's like one long, mellow roil up, and then back down.

The music in the trailer felt the same way. It's far too mellow to be considered chiptune >.>

[Lord Raven]

I think there is a battle theme... it just transitions pretty quickly so it feels like it combines. Either that or the music gets louder in battle.

[The Awesomest]

It sounds like the same to me. Listen to it louder maybe, the melody is the same in and out of battle. After the first battle the melody continues on through the end of the battle back to the map. In the battle it's just louder and they add more instruments.

[grandjackal]

I dunno what Celice is thinking when he says music in the last two remakes was subtle, but I get what y'all mean when you say the music sounds like FE9 and 10 stuff...Which I am not thrilled about. FE9 and 10's soundtracks for the most part were entirely forgettable.

[Lord Raven]

I felt FE9 and FE10 were opposites in OST- FE10 was way more "in your face" whereas FE9 sat in the background and was more ambiant. Compare "Crimea Attacks" to something like "Proud Flight."

[Phoenix Wright]

I thought that FE9/10 soundtracks were incredible. The last two remakes were somewhat forgettable.

[Celice]

That's probably because the two remakes didn't really add in new music. They remixed old music. Which is why some sounds awesome still. Whenever the brand new songs came up in the remake, they were deaf bells in my ears :(

Luckily one can choose to turn off the music when it's that negligible. "ambiant" is the exact wording for it.

[Agro]

Completely agree with Celice regarding the ambience of the music in FE11/12. Especially given the sort of samples that Tsujiyoko (was it her?) used. FE10's soundtrack was made in light of the fact that the game was the finale to a two-game saga, and also she uses these weird heavy brass samples that really make give it that in-your-face feel. It also had higher volume than FE9 (I think).

This new one seems to have very ambient music - the samples are really subtle and there's a lot of this fading in/out business, especially during chapters. I'm not sure I'm fond of the world map music, though - it gives a sort of 'we expect you to spend a lot of time here' feeling which I feel is steering way too far towards the classical JRPG which would have been okay 15 years ago but no longer. In short, it's not very melody-oriented - it's pretty much the opposite of what RD had.

[Brave Lord]

Ever thought that the battle music weren't ready yet and they had to improvise ??

Edited September 20, 2011 by Brave Lord

[Crimson Red]

Personally I didn't like the FE9/FE10 soundtrack. It felt like I was stuck listening to an orchestra for 3 hours because our school forced us to sit in an auditorium with the intent of making us "appreciate" this music. Eww. The songs were, with exceptions, of course, not dramatic, slow, boring, all similar sounding (similar instrument types/samples), not very memorable, not epic, not sad when needed, not exciting when needed, etc... yes, a few map themes and With Us stood out, and some people like the Black Knight's theme, but in general I personally felt disappointed by the music--on a few occasions it actually put me to sleep (I fell asleep playing RD like 5-6 times because boring music + boring gameplay = zzzz--PoR wasn't as bad but I fell asleep once or twice too, thankfully this doesn't happen with the others, despite the fact that I sometimes play GBA/DS games in bed).

I thought the FE12 soundtrack had some bland remixes but also a lot of good songs. The quality increased, they started using a wide variety of instrument types, with sad songs, exciting songs, dramatic songs, epic songs, the whole shabang, and music-wise it felt like I was back at FE8. FE11 was not memorable and had few new songs to analyze so I won't say much about that, but I think one of the reasons why I liked FE12 and was able to play it in Japanese to the end was because of the music. It was refreshing to have songs that weren't full of string ensembles and bass etc...

[/rantonmusic]

[Book of Ereshkigal]

I agree, I am not a big fan of PoR or RDs music styles. They didn't really make me notice them. I usually listened to some to other music while playing it.

[Ike-Mike]

Adding a heavy drum line to the map theme for battles?

That's something I've been thinking of years ago!

I hope enemy phase gets a different, more sinister drum line and that there will still be boss battle themes.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Ike-Mike