Hello and greetings, friends and Steemit visitors. Hope you are all doing well tonight on what is now, in Japan, the 3rd night after the New Year. This is the last day of vacation for many folks. Those unfortunates have to go back to work for a single day tomorrow before getting another two off for the weekend. Folks who work for companies that stick to the Toyota schedule, on the other hand, have tomorrow off and so are probably still off somewhere, likely stuck in traffic with all the other vacationing masses.
Anyway.
I just realized it’s been a while since I’ve done an Evening Groove. Seems like I used to do these nightly, but I have missed a few these past several months. So it goes. I thought, then, it is time to revisit this old series and add a new entry.
I’ve covered many of the major genres of music in past entries, but this will be a new one. Not only is Swords & Sworcery a soundtrack, but it is a game soundtrack! But what a soundtrack!
The game itself is one of my favorites. Now these days I don’t play many games, at least not for more than a few minutes—a day or two max—but this one hit me at the right time. It was released several years ago when the iPad was still a relatively new thing and when I had just bought one. I happened to catch a trailer for the game on some mac website I read at the time and was impressed enough to buy it. I think it was maybe 5 bucks at the time. I was hooked from the moment I started.
The game story is a fairly simple. So and so goes on a quest to release and then free a spirit—for what reason we are never told beyond “we are heroes”. Pretty simple, but it is dressed within Jungian theory, much 4th wall breaking, many nods to classic nintendo games (such as zelda), and amazing music, and this combination makes for a really wonderful experience. Totally recommended.
Oh yes, the music. Here you go, the original soundtrack. I suggest you play it in the background while you go do other things. It’s really wonderful.
Interestingly, the game seems to have been popular in Japan, enough so to attract several fairly famous video game soundtrack composers to want to make their own versions of the music. Here is a playlist of their songs.
Enjoy! (and go play the game. iPad version recommended, but it is on Steam and plays pretty well on PC too.)
| David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time. More? |
