“The Art of Video Games” Exhibit

Last weekend I headed up to see my girlfriend, Jen Doo of Jen’s Baking, in Northern Virginia.  On our list: finally checking out “The Art of Video Games,” an exhibit that is currently featured at the Smithsonian.

Actually, it’s been featured since March 16^th, but we clearly took our sweet time getting there.  No matter—it was still fresh and lively.  In fact, there are even a couple of public programs still coming up, so be sure to check out the schedule if you’re making plans.  Be sure to get there soon, though!  The exhibit closes on September 30^th.  Also, being that the exhibit is in the American Art Museum, you should make a day out of going.  There’s plenty to check out around the exhibit, including a brainwashing piece involving a wall full of TVs right before it, and you can easily transition into the amazing National Portrait Gallery, where you’ll find THE collection of Presidential portraits as well as a couple rooms of amazing Civil War ones.

Here are some really cool parts of “The Art of Video Games”:

“Time’s Scar,” Part II

*In case you missed it, here’s Part I

For your convenience, I’ve reinserted the video:

 
I would suggest listening and watching one more time straight through so that you re-familiarize yourself with everything. Also, before I get into the analysis, I’d like the reader to see how I personally broke down the form of the piece for the sake of this analysis. If anyone has a better suggestion on how to organize it, please let me know—this is certainly not the end-all-be-all!

– Section A: “Introduction” (0:00-0:57)

– Section B: “Transition” (00:57-1:14)

– Section C: “String Melody” (1:14-1:49)

– Section D: “Breakdown and Ending” (1:49-2:22)

Cool. Now, let’s pick up where we left off. In less than a minute’s worth of music we listened to an enchanting, nostalgic, and, at points, childlike musical intro that set up not only the coming of an exciting display of PSX CGI power and adrenaline-pumping music, but also for the gamer for what he should expect out of the entire game’s soundtrack. We took note of Yasunori Mitsuda’s very present bass, dancing flute, and moving acoustic guitar, which all combine to enhance and reveal a folk flavor in his music.

Cue :56. A suspended cymbal roll comes from behind the flute, which turns and lands on a note that stings the downbeat of what I will call the “transition.” Suddenly, when the listener only had a few instruments to take in before, a flurry of sounds comes to him or her all at once and s/he is whisked off at full-speed. The important part about the transition is its ability to rush the listener forward and get him or her caught up in the moment using rhythm. Yes, the tempo speeds up, but it is not tempo alone that perks the ears and does the engaging. It may take the listener many-a-repeat to catch all of the elements that help drive the music forward, but they are worth fishing for and catching.

VGM Review 1: “Time’s Scar,” Part I

I remember hearing about a sequel to my then-favorite game of all time when I was in middle school and not knowing how to handle myself.  Finally, after years of dreaming up my own stories about the characters in Chrono Trigger, Squaresoft would finally continue the epic tale themselves, setting in stone what would happen to the Chrono universe.   Sure, my tales would be rendered obsolete, but that didn’t matter—how could anything be better than the original creators’ minds?

Originally, I thought that I first learned about the game via demo.  I bought Vagrant Story for PSX, which included the demo disc, but according to Wikipedia, that game was released on May 15, 2000, and Chrono Cross was released on August 15, 2000.  I was dumbfounded by these dates because I remember waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting for this game to come out.  Three months didn’t make sense to me.

Then, I saw that the game was released in Japan on November 18, 1999, almost a year before the North American drop date.  That made more sense: I had likely read about it a year or more prior, got ultra psyched, and then suffered for so long that my memory wouldn’t allow me to remember such times.  It’s nice that the feeling of eternal wait can be explained practically instead of with the excuse that time seems to flow for children much slower than it does for adults (which was my back-up excuse).  Anyway, I had picked up Vagrant Story because it was a new Squaresoft game and not because I was expecting a demo.  But as soon as I read that such a thing was included, I squirmed all the way home and popped that disc in ready for action and…!