Style: Video Game Music
Primary Emotions/Themes: Exploration, discovery, creativity, overcoming adversity, mystery
Thoughts: When the Pokemon company announced that there was an open world Pokemon game in the works I was skeptical at best. When the trailer was released I was even more skeptical. The game looked nearly unplayable with the amount of slowdown and frame rate problems that the trailer had. Trailers are usually the best that the team can do at the time... so if this is the best The Pokemon Company has right now, well this game is not going to be good. Or so I thought.
Fast forward a year and Pokemon Arceus releases. I passed on it at first, but several of my friends picked it up... and many of them said the game was fun. I continued my skepticism, but I eventually got to play it for myself... and if I'll be damned, they were right.
The direct comparison for the game was always Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The introduction with the main character looking over a hill was an immediate call back to Link looking over Hyrule. This begs the question, is the music anywhere near as good as Breath of the Wild's?
The short answer is no, but that is hardly a complete answer. The music is hardly bad, in fact it is quite good... I may even venture to say that some tracks are excellent. This record in particular is a selections piece of about 40 minutes of the five hours present in the full soundtrack.
Normally I like to have the full soundtrack whenever possible, but sometimes that's excessive. Five hours of a soundtrack is usually more than I can handle. It's nearly impossible to take in during a single listening session. I've learned that if I do try to power through something that long I burn myself out... hard. If I'm burned out on a particular album I will not listen to it for quite some time. So in this case, a selections record isn't too bad.
This is all incredibly long winded so far and I haven't even talked about the music yet. Arceus has a fantastic range in it. Some of the tracks are full orchestral, while others have the beautiful simplicity of the aforementioned Breath of the Wild.
What I truly love about the music is how it takes familiar themes from the other Pokemon games and work them into a completely new framework. The introduction is a simple flute playing the Pokemon theme from red/blue. Other tracks have a few notes that remind me of similar themes from gen 2 and gen 3 as well. It's subtle, but it works so god damn well.
The tracks selected for this record work quite well together. The music flows well and hits many of the high notes of the soundtrack. The town music in particular is a favorite of mine. I'm a sucker for violin solos and this track is chocked full of them.
Pokemon Arceus has the player explore a few vast zones to find Pokemon, craft things along the way, discover secrets, and overcome adversity in creative ways. It's one of the better Pokemon games I've played in a long time and is a needed change to the old formula. The music helps in this by encouraging the player to explore and uncover the mystery of the ancient land.
I'm surprised by how much I've played this record. It's the prefect length for me to consume in a morning before work, or wind down before making dinner, or having a night cap before bed. It's simple and it works as a wonderful record for any occasion that requires me to take a step back and forget about my worries for a few minutes.
Written November 13th 2023
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