Kan “Reives” Gao, head of Freebird Games, has spent years refining his crafts. Those crafts are writing, game-making, and music-making. These things go hand-in-hand when you’re a one-man powerhouse using naught but RPG Maker and some basic V/A production software to achieve your goals.
His latest title To The Moon is getting a lot of positive attention from key online outlets. Though the game may seem dated based on screenshots, the retro style serves to better present a deep and moving story. Also assisting this moving story is the emotive soundtrack, which is written by Gao himself, though he did collaborate with Laura Shigihara (Plants vs. Zombies) for vocals on some tracks.
After the jump, we’ll talk more about the soundtrack for To The Moon, including how to buy it.
All your base are covered by Gao. For a relatively short game (advertised as 4 to 5 hours to complete), this soundtrack offers nearly an hour of unlooped audio, with consistent instrumentation (synthesized Western traditional orchestra) but varied musical style. You have vibrant allegro pieces for themes like “Teddy,” slow brooding piano solos such as “Lament of a Stranger,” and the heartfelt (if a little saccharine) ending vocal track “Everything’s Alright.”
Kan Gao’s choices in instrumentation are in line with what I would expect, and want, for a game with high-res 2D sprites and backgrounds. There are bowed strings and woodwinds, piano and orgel, plucked strings and sparsely-used brass. I love the trade-off between clarinet and bassoon, with pizzicato strings behind them, in track 2, “Between a Squirrel and a Tree.” But it’s tracks like these where I’m bothered that Mr. Gao didn’t choose to loop the tracks or fade out. They just end abruptly, and then on to the next track. A little more production value is what this music rightly deserves!
There are a few piano solo tracks scattered throughout the album, and it’s here I think Kan shines most as a composer and a performer. I already mentioned one song earlier; two others I really enjoy are “Having Lived” and the piano version of “Once Upon a Memory.” In another life, I had dreamed of doing music composition, and piano is my primary instrument. So, yes, I am jealous. And Kan should be very proud.
If you want the soundtrack, you can get it via Bandcamp for $5 Canadian. Half the profits go towards unspecified autism-related charities. Be sure to check it out.
Tags: Bandcamp, Freebird Games, Indie, Kan Gao, Laura Shigihara, Music Reviews, Reives, Reviews, To The Moon
It is quite a lovely soundtrack! It’s that kind of classic RPG music that doesn’t seem to be made enough anymore, but it doesn’t come off as trying too hard at that. It’s nice, pretty, and unpretentious. Even “Everything’s Alright”, which you found a little too too saccharine, could have gone so easily wrong and been too cutesy, but it feels to me more like the kind of childish beauty that Studio Ghibli movies capture. It’s easy to find people on the Internet spouting about this obscure indie soundtrack being so on and so forth, but everyone reading should click on the link to Bandcamp and you can just hit the play button and hear the whole album for free. I think you’ll know after just the first couple of tracks if it’s for you, and if it is, it’s cheap and easy to own.
But yes, the drawback is that the tracks don’t loop and many don’t have real endings or spaces before the next one, the next piece just begins without a segue. I’d think he could have easily at least let the tracks end instead of cutting off, I wonder what happened? The synth, sound, and composition quality are all pretty professional quality, but that’s the one thing that reveals it’s not from a major company. In any case, it’s a minor problem and I’m still quite pleased with my purchase. Thanks for the tip, Patrick.
Stephen,
“if a little saccharine” in parentheses was more to note that some people might find it as such. As for me, especially in context of the game (which I just finished), I thought it was perfectly suited. I think Ghibli is a good comparison. And, of course, some people don’t like the sweetness of Ghibli vocal tracks. So yeah, totally fair.
As for the mid-track cuts. Yeah, I don’t know about that. I’ve been meaning to contact Kan Gao and ask. I was thinking MAYBE it was a stylistic choice? Has something to do with the scattered nature of mindscape-time travel, or the character with the PDD diagnosis…?