So on Twitter I’ve been doing this thing for a few years where I just post ten random tracks from games released in the current year that I just think are neat, five at the halfway point and half after the new year. And since it’s now the fourth year of 2022, it’s time! I don’t really have any reason to not post the tracks here too so I suppose I’ll post the tracks here too.
I don’t actually theme these lists (the theme is “I think they’re neat”) but I think it’s fun to find ex post facto commonalities, and in this batch we’ve got both “ambient” and “sequels to stuff I’ve posted previously.”
AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES – nirvanA Initiative – “796f756b6e6f7765766572797468696e67”
Composed by Keisuke Ito
A lot going on here in this sound collage from the hell dimension.
ANONYMOUS;CODE – “HER MEMORY”
Composed by Takeshi Abo
Abo’s an awesome composer I’ve gotten into in the last year and a half. He loves synthetic sounds (espescially mallet synths and pads), interesting chord movement, and odd time/polyrhythm, all of which feature here.
FAR: Changing Tides – “Circling”
Composed by Joel Schoch
A stately build of rhythmic layers, figures circling in a lonely yet hopeful dance in a desolate world. I love the moody sound atmospheres Schoch has created for the two FAR games, full of evocative textures and emotional moments with a little jazz sprinkled on top.
Operation STEEL – “FOREIGNER (Alien)”
Composed by Dolphin
Confusingly syncopated transposing chord stabs eventually release into melody and harmony with shades of Manabu Namiki.
Splatoon 3 – “Cozy & Safe Factory” (official title not known yet)
Composer unknown (Sayako Doi?)
From before the game even officially released, I was certain I was going to post the baffling, avant-prog Cohozuna theme, until months later when I finally played the singleplayer campaign, heard the map themes, and fell in love. Unbelievably cool mix of ambient sound design, rhythmic play, and chords. I have a feeling this and some if not all of the other map themes are by Sayako Doi, being reminiscent in sound design and composition to stuff from Metroid Dread.
I’ve also been breaking my arbitrary rules for this column in more and more ways at the end of each year and posting some tracks that weren’t from the current year, but which I can some way tie to my experiencing them in that year. This time we’ve got things from 2021, 2020, and 2011?!
Ketzal’s Corridors – “Highland Fields: Grass Ruins” (unofficial title)
Composed by Masaru Tajima
Hey, here’s a 3DS eShop-exclusive game you’ve never heard of, except possibly from a chain of people ultimately leading back to me! I don’t remember exactly how I found this game in the first place—I may have just been looking at Masaru Tajima’s page on MobyGames and saw it there—but I checked a video of it on YouTube and was immediately obsessed with this song in particular: a fun 11 rhythm with pretty rompler sounds and an extremely good section starting at 1:02. Then I spent the next two years crying about how this obscure download-only game would literally never get ripped ever, until I finally got motivated to Do Something About It and went through some truly unnecessary means to rip the soundtrack for all the Ketzalheads out there. It’s a great soundtrack overall! Tajima’s a composer whose work I enjoy, he seems to enjoy odd time and interesting tonalities and produced some nice world-ish music here.
Metamorphosis – “Corridors”
Composed by Garry Schyman, vocals by Joanna Freszel
So, if you were to write music for a game based on a Kafka story, what would you do? The two composers here thought about it for a while and asked: well, what was going on musically in the place and time it was written, Austria in 1915? Why, expressionism, of course! 10/10 music direction, perfect, no notes
Nymph’s Tower – “Keeper” (unofficial title)
Composed by Marek Poliks
I played this random free Metroidvania and it had an exceedingly neat ambient noise soundtrack. This track sounds a bit like Oneohtrix Point Never or something.
And we’ll wrap up with some bonus tracks that didn’t quite make the cut:
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Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream – “Sinking Into Hyphae” // Kazuki Yanagawa
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DRAINUS – “Final Sequence -Stage 6-” // PEPOSOFT
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GrimGrimoire OnceMore – “Banquet for the Heroes” // Yoshimi Kudo
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Shovel Knight Dig – “Overground (Main Layer)” // Jake Kaufman
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