Unchained Melody: The Power of Game Music

I was around halfway through Final Fantasy X-2. I’d reached the cut scene where you’re supposed to “find out” Lenne and Shuyin’s final fates—which I hated, because I had been awake and attentive enough that I was pretty sure I had already figured out their fates—so I braced myself for some redundant info-dump and was completely blind-sided by what is still one of the best scenes I have ever seen in a video game.

Take one attractive young couple. Combine the flavor of a tragic, untimely death in which they express their undying love. Then add a bit of desperate bravado on his part, some heroic self-sacrifice on hers, make sure they reach out to each other after their bloodless, slow-motion mortal injuries, flavored with trademark Square-Enix visual bedazzlement, and assemble around one unabashedly romantic pop song…and you have the one and to-date only cut scene ever to move me to tears.

It doesn’t hurt that Square found the perfect way to combine the emotional explosion of a musical number without, ya know, the musical people-are-singing-for-no-reason belief problem. The musical interlude fulfills an unassailable plot function, revealing key information to the characters if not the attentive viewers. But for me, the most powerful element is the song itself. That song is as full of melodramatic bubblegum sentiment as anything that ever climbed the mountain of teen money to the top of the pop charts. Celine Dion could have sung it. It’s part music video, part genuine plot event, and combines the best of each.

Of course that’s not the only time Square has used music to devastating effect: the death of Aeris at the end of Final Fantasy VII was shocking in itself (she was a playable character and a very important member of your party), but it was immediately followed with a tough boss battle against Jenova, in which you were forced to fight for your life over the dulcet tones of Aeris’s theme. You were not allowed to forget her, even in the heat of a boss battle: you were supposed to be in disbelief, you were supposed to hurt, and you were supposed to grieve. The result was an inescapable emotional moment that is still a landmark in game history.

Nobou Uematsu was arguably one of the first classical-style composers to bring what feels like his full talent to this nerd hobby called gaming, and his broad, hook-heavy, orchestral touch became integral to the Final Fantasy experience. The fans know what a Final Fantasy game is supposed to sound like and look forward to new versions of familiar themes.

As is the case with film, a game’s soundtrack is one of the first and best ways development teams communicate what kind of game you’re supposed to expect. Devil May Cry’s Dante plunges into battle to a backdrop of screaming electric guitars; we all know this action is supposed to be bloody, fast, furious, and unrelenting. Would Max Payne have been nearly as cool without his Film Noir strings? BioShock’s use of quaint period music helped to illustrate the huge gulf between how things were supposed to be and how they are and set up Rapture as a fallen paradise. Jesper Kyd’s ear for primal chants and electric wizardry gives size and depth to Assassin’s Creed and the Hitman series. Akira Yamaoka melds the tragic and the horrifying in his Silent Hill soundtracks. I could keep going. When music works, it can be the final nudge that makes a good game into a fantastic one. That said, it’s not everything. All the orchestral bombast in the world couldn’t save Advent Rising from being a snore-fest. And the always mediocre Dynasty Warriors isn’t helped by its blah battle-anthems. Whether a soundtrack flops or soars depends on two things: the project, and the intelligence of the people putting it together.

I guess that’s only one thing. As with most things, it all comes down to intelligence. The right sound in the right place, and you can move the world.