![]() In 1987, the ‘John Williams of video game music’, Nobuo Uematsu, entered the fray with his score for the original Final Fantasy, also on the NES:įast forward to 2017 and Sugiyama, Uematsu and their respective bodies of work are cherished by fans worldwide, whilst pieces of theirs are reinterpreted again and again by everyone from bedroom hobbyists to world-beating classical orchestras. (The irony being that Sugiyama - the certified oldest video game composer in the world - was 55 when Dragon Quest launched and had already been composing for musicals, commercials, animated movies and television shows for several years Hisaishi was 20 years his junior and relatively green when Laputa: Castle in the Sky released later that year.) and compare it to this dainty overworld theme - limited to the 5 channels of synthesis available via the NES sound chip - by Koichi Sugiyama for Enix’s Dragon Quest (AKA Dragon Warrior), released the same year: ![]() Take Joe Hisaishi’s Main Theme for the ’86 Ghibli film Laputa: Castle in the Sky with its quiet piano intro segueing into huge orchestral themes. ![]() World maps and their accompanying themes are, of course, most readily associated with Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs), in particular the behemoth series Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and to a certain extent with action RPGs like The Legend of Zelda.įor me, the decades-long battle for JRPG world map theme supremacy begins in 1986. The Questing Sugiyama versus The Fantastic Uematsu Of course Hisaishi is himself a legendary film composer whose scores for Studio Ghibli films like Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke, among others, have been huge influences on video game composers, both in Japan and beyond. It ticks all the world map music boxes: Celtic-ish solo flute to represent our humble hero, sweeping strings and big brass as well as oodles of movement, melody and counter-melody. You can hear echoes of this brass-led grandiosity at the beginning of Joe Hisaishi’s wonderfully traditional world map theme for the Japanese Studio Ghibli and Level-5 collaboration, Ni No Kuni. Indeed, the films’ composer Howard Shore sure did write a catchy ‘we’re on a heroic journey’ orchestral theme, driven by the brass: One of the many versions of the Middle-earth map: Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings see the coming together of a party of heroes that travels together - I particularly like the gag in the Lord of the Rings Honest Trailer about how Peter Jackson’s three films amounted to 11 hours of “Walking… Roaming… Hiking… More walking. So much of the entire medium of video games is inspired by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe, including the author’s own ‘world map’ of Middle-earth and the hero’s journey from a calm village to a dark land to defeat a dark lord. So far, we've also looked at another classic VGM subgenre: " The anxious calm of Resident Evil save room music". ![]() If there’s an absolute corker of a track that I fail to mention below, by all means get in touch via on Twitter. This is a quick tour through some of my favourite world map themes, with the breadth of choices constrained by my own limited gaming experiences. Through this vitally important track (or tracks), a game’s composer has to inspire you ever onwards and imbue the game world with an appropriate sense of majesty. These are pieces that one hear tens, if not hundreds of times during the many hours spent traversing a game’s main hub and they so often become indelibly fused with memories of one’s favourite gaming epics like Final Fantasy or The Legend of Zelda. ![]() If you’re a fan of role-playing video games, then you almost certainly have a favourite world map (AKA ‘field’ or ‘overworld’) theme. We take a look at the world map theme - the keystone of JRPG music, these propulsive, heroic pieces serenade your party as you travel the expanse. ![]()
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