Japanese

Chip Music, Indie Music, Japanese

8Bit Music Power Final & Sound Adapter Announced for Famicom Release

December 15, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on 8Bit Music Power Final & Sound Adapter Announced for Famicom Release Share this

Now that the original 8Bit Music Power album is out on CD it’s time for Riki and crew to unveil their next limited edition album-on-a-Famicom-cart. 8Bit Music Power Final will be released in late March of 2017 in Japan and will once again be playable exclusively on a Famicom console. The cart will include 18 tracks this time with songs from past collaborators and some exciting old school names. NES era composers like Manami Matsumae and Motoaki Furukawa along with more modern composers like Junya Nakano (Threads of Fate, Dawn of Mana) and Ippo Yamada (Mighty No. 9, Azure Striker Gunvolt) are now on board.

An original album of music built for the Famicom is great but one sticking point raised by Attract Mode is that the console only outputs audio through its scuzzy RF connection. That may make for an authentic sound but for those who prefer to hear the music directly from the hardware there’s a new peripheral you can get bundled with the album.

The 8Bit Sound Adapter looks like a miniature Famicom controller (namely the Player 2 side) and plugs into the console’s expansion port. It offers a volume slider, power light and 3.5mm port to plug in headphones or external speakers. It also adds about $25 to the price but it’s still a lot cheaper than the vintage Famicom S.D. Station. The bundle on Amazon Japan is currently around $70 with the cartridge alone at $46.

For now all we have are some early photos and the temporary tracklist to go on which you can check out after the jump. Hopefully Riki will grace us with another video preview as the album gets closer to release.

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Experimental, Game Music, Japanese, Reviews

The Last Guardian ‘Mini Soundtrack’ App (Review)

December 7, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | 1 Comment Share this

With The Last Guardian (actually, really, finally) shipping this week I was able to redeem one of the Amazon pre-order bonuses ahead of time, a 4-song Mini Soundtrack. It serves as a preview of both the game’s orchestral score by composer Takeshi Furukawa and the ‘Last Guardian Composer’s Choice PS4 Music App’ that Sony announced in early November. Let’s take a look at the app and the music inside.

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Chip Music, Indie Music, Japanese

8Bit Music Power now on CD, English Interview Book in February

November 29, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on 8Bit Music Power now on CD, English Interview Book in February Share this

If you’ve also been thinking about the year in game music releases you may remember 8Bit Music Power from way back in February. It was the album from Japanese chiptune artists like Hally, Professor Sakamoto and Saitone that was released on an actual Famicom cartridge. While Play-Asia sold out of their allotment fairly quickly (Amazon Japan still has 8 left in stock) there’s now a much easier way to listen instead of dragging around an old console.

A much more convenient (but way less cool) CD version of the album was released last week in Japan with two bonus tracks. The album is available from Play-Asia for $22.99 but if you can hold out until February 2017 there’s an even sweeter deal coming. For just $1 more you can pre-order the CD and an 80-page, full-color book with exclusive interviews and stories about the album’s creation. The best part, it’s been translated into English. You can take a look at some of the vibrant page layouts here and put down the $23.99 to secure a copy for yourself.
Events, Game Music, Japanese

NieR: Automata Livestream shows new Sights and Sounds

November 3, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on NieR: Automata Livestream shows new Sights and Sounds Share this

Square Enix held a livestream in Japan on Wednesday, October 26th to finally go in-depth on NieR: Automata. Naturally, it’s all in Japanese but there was plenty to see and hear as the team showed off the game, its Collector’s Edition contents and talked up the NieR Music Concert & Talk Live Blu-ray that we covered last month.

The half-hour gameplay demonstration starts at the 19 minute mark and finally shows off the larger world that ties together the boss fights and cutscenes we’ve seen of the game so far. There’s a subtle piano ambiance through most of the footage that ramps up during fights and a nice new town tune similar to “City of Commerce” from the original game. The majority of the demo shows off the special skills and abilities of main character, 2B, and her accompanying bots. One of which is a vastly simplified fishing mechanic for those who remember the overwhelming frustrations from the previous game.

After the demo the team talks up the NieR Music Concert & Talk Live Blu-ray which is releasing in Japan on December 14th. They end the segment by showing the entire “Song of the Ancients / Fate” performance from the Blu-ray which makes a fairly compelling argument to pick up it up come December. The livestream ends with a new trailer that highlights the voice actors for the Japanese version of the game and is ironically lacking almost any actual voice acting. It is, however, full of new sights and surprises and is accompanied by another new piece of music from series composers Keiichi Okabe.

Have a look and listen for yourself above, check out the game’s official site for a few more background tracks and then continue waiting (im)patiently for the February 23, 2017 release date.
Doujin, Events, Game Music, Japanese

Final Fantasy XV Performance Live from Abbey Road Today

September 7, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | 2 Comments Share this

Announced just a few weeks ago, Square’s performance of Final Fantasy XV music at the historic Abbey Road Studios really snuck up on us. The one-hour show, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with an appearance by composer Yoko Shimomura, airs live from London tonight at 7pm. That’s 2pm EST today on the East Coast!

There really aren’t many more confirmed details aside from the links to watch the show for yourself live on YouTube and Twitch later today.
Game Music, Japanese

3,000 Zuntata tracks now streaming on Apple Music

August 25, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | 1 Comment Share this

Zuntata, Taito’s legendary house band, has quietly built a huge presence on iTunes over the last 8 years culminating in a current catalog of 114 albums. It isn’t just their modern mobile games either, although Groove Coaster and Space Invaders Infinity Gene are well represented. Albums go all the way back into the 80’s with The Ninja Warriors, Rastan Saga and Bubble Bobble. The rarely exported Densha de Go! series has several albums up for sale and naturally, there’s a ton of music from the Darius games and the Ray trilogy (RayStorm, RayCrisis, RayForce).

To hear all of that music would cost over $1,000 but Taito has just announced that “more than 3,000 songs” from their catalog are now available to stream through Apple Music. Similar to Spotify and Google Music Unlimited, Apple Music costs $10 a month and allows you to search and stream millions of songs from the iTunes catalog across your Apple devices. It’s worth noting that new users can try Apple Music free for three months which should give you enough time to explore all of the service’s game music offerings.

If you suddenly feel overwhelmed with choices we have plenty of reviews to guide you through Zuntata’s discography and there’s more coverage at VGMOnline. Do you have a favorite Zuntata album or are you planning to dive into their catalog now that it’s available on Apple Music? Let us know in the comments.
Game Music, Japanese

Rez Infinite gets Elaborate Vinyl Release from iam8bit

August 22, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on Rez Infinite gets Elaborate Vinyl Release from iam8bit Share this

Iam8bit is taking the vinyl arms race to a whole new level for the release of Rez Infinite — the HD remake of the original Rez for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR — this October. Along with releasing a physical copy of the game on disc (and plenty of swag), iam8bit is offering two vinyl packages that commemorate the cultural touchstone of the original Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 title.

Both versions feature two 180-gram, full sized LPs of the original game’s soundtrack, remastered for vinyl, and a bonus 7-inch record of Rez Infinite’s new “Area X” level. Inside is a 48 page art book with huge imagery from the game and retrospective interviews from the original team. Written by Nick Hurwitch, the book includes new discussions with Rez producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, art director Katsumi Yokota, programmer Osamu Kodera, artist Jake Kazdal, and Takashi Ishihara, the artist behind the new “Area X”.

The only difference between the $75 and $85 editions are the “Player Form” images stamped into both sides of the three records, and the limited quantity of 1,000 copies for the fancier set.

Pre-orders for the soundtrack collection and the physical copy of the game begin August 19th at 9am PDT exclusively at iam8bit.com. Shipping is expected in October for the $75 version of the soundtrack and December for the fancy printed edition.