iTunes

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

Dragon’s Crown Original Soundtrack Now Out on iTunes

April 1, 2016 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Dragon’s Crown Original Soundtrack Now Out on iTunes Share this

The soundtrack to the gorgeous PS3 adventure game Dragon’s Crown is now available for purchase on iTunes.

Composed entirely by Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics, Odin Sphere) and published via his own Basiscape Records, the soundtrack to Dragon’s Crown has been long sought-after by fans of the series and of Sakimoto’s other musical works, featuring melody-heavy and whimsical tracks. The iTunes release also includes 2 new piano arrangement bonus tracks.

We reviewed the soundtrack a few months ago, in case there was any doubt about its quality. (Which there shouldn’t be!) Out on iTunes for $29.99, the 3-disk soundtrack should prove to be a worthy investment into your game music library.
Miscellaneous, Software

Groove Planet Turns Your Music into a Clicker Game

March 13, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on Groove Planet Turns Your Music into a Clicker Game Share this

I am not a fan of the increasingly crowded “clicker” genre but I am a sucker for games that tweak your music collection into gameplay. Those are the genres that Animoca’s Groove Planet straddles which is out now on Android after a successful launch on iOS this past December. It’s also free so there’s not a whole lot to dissuade you if you’re on the fence about another Clicker game or another your-music-is-the-game game.

Groove Planet is pleasant enough to look at with stylish and vibrantly colored structures that you place on the surface of a giant vinyl record planet. After a very brief tutorial you’ll start adding and upgrading those buildings which rapidly increase the number of notes (read: money) that are constantly being generated. Challenges motivate you to make specific upgrades and watching an ad or two rewards you with temporary boosts to Note production. It’s all very typical Clicker stuff with exponentially expensive upgrades requiring more taps to refill your coffers.

This is where the music game aspect comes in. Like other Clickers you can tap the screen as wildly as you like and watch a few Notes add to your pocket or you can tap along to the beat of the song and start building up a combo. Naturally, the combo multiplies the amount of notes to wild degrees as long as you can keep it going. The beat matching seems a little off at times but there’s no penalty to missing other than starting your combo over again. It’s nice to purposefully go off the beat and tap along to a drum roll and not feel punished for a little freestyling. A couple other nice touches include the skyline that changes color based on the chord of the chosen song and the Key of the song appearing on your main base tower (if the game can figure it out). They even pop up little tips on the “mood” of different chords.

As a music player Groove Planet is a little lacking. You can only browse a big dumb list of all the music on your device and there’s no way to limit the search to artist, track or album. Artwork is also mostly broken for me but the songs do start playing right away. Whatever beat analysis that’s going on happens very quickly which is appreciated. You can also use it as a music visualizer if you’d like. After 20 seconds of inactivity the menus fade out and your planet begins to spin, subtly reacting to the music as buildings animate and characters scurry around.

If you’re the kind who loves watching profits skyrocket into the octillions or if you just like to tap along to your favorite songs Groove Planet is worth a shot. It’s made for a decent little mindless diversion while listening to music and it’s free afterall. Grab it for yourself on the Google Play Store or the iTunes Store.
Game Music

Metal Gear Solid V Extended Soundtrack Adds Nearly 6 Hours of New Music

December 24, 2015 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on Metal Gear Solid V Extended Soundtrack Adds Nearly 6 Hours of New Music Share this

Announced just days ago via the official Metal Gear twitter account, the Metal Gear Solid V Extended Soundtrack is now officially on sale through iTunes for roughly $22 US. Currently it’s only live on the Japanese iTunes store but a domestic release should be popping up soon. Konami was quick to point out on twitter that this is a digital only release and no physical pressing is in the works.

The extended soundtrack adds an additional 114 tracks, nearly 6 more hours, of in-game music that was not included on the previously released Metal Gear Solid V Original Soundtrack. This includes music from the multiplayer FOB mode and Sneak, Alert and Evasion themes from both main environments and several key story missions. The majority of the music comes from the game’s cutscenes with a few bonus tracks like Mogren Radio and even the Happy Birthday song with a requisite karaoke version.

Missing from this new release is the music found on hidden cassette tapes around the game world. Known as “Music Tape 1”, these original songs have yet to be released in an official capacity and could make up a further supplemental soundtrack. In the meantime, we’ll have to rely on fan recordings (like this one!) to complete the full Phantom Pain listening experience.
Game Music

Until Dawn Soundtrack now Available on iTunes

November 5, 2015 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on Until Dawn Soundtrack now Available on iTunes Share this

Like a shambling zombie that’s missing a leg, here comes a late Halloween-appropriate new release announcement. It’s Jason Graves’ original soundtrack to the PlayStation 4 teen slasher simulator, Until Dawn. The album was released on October 26th and, so far, is only available on iTunes for $9.99.

While it was originally designed as an interactive soundtrack, looping and building depending on the player’s actions, the album version features 13 lengthy arranged tracks. The final track is Jeff Grace’s rendition of ‘O Death’ which serves as the game’s intro and ending themes.

Coming from the composer behind the Dead Space series, 2013’s Tomb Raider, and loads of other horror and sci-fi games, you can expect plenty of tense, taut drama and creeping dread from Until Dawn’s soundtrack. Take a listen to three tracks from the game above before to get a feel for what the full album holds.
Featured, Game Music, Reviews

Wish Granted! LittleBIGPlanet 3 Soundtrack Exists! (Review)

April 29, 2015 | Patrick Gann | Comments Off on Wish Granted! LittleBIGPlanet 3 Soundtrack Exists! (Review) Share this

At the tail end of 2014, when we looked back on the year in our annual OSVOSTOTY celebrations, I lamented that the soundtrack to LittleBIGPlanet 3 might not see the light of day. The game was new to the market at the time, and while it was (and still is) suffering from some technical issues, its aesthetics were as brilliant as previous entries in the series. The music was more eclectic than ever, due in large part to the wide array of musicians taken on for the game’s single-player campaign levels.

Lucky for me, a soundtrack did finally arrive. It wasn’t an exhaustive collection of the game’s music, but it was a full 70 minutes of music, on iTunes, for nine bucks. I wasn’t going to pass that up.

After the jump, I’m going to pinpoint, as best as I can, what makes me love this music so much. Hint: much of it is thanks to a wonderful lady whose name starts with a W. (more…)
Game Music

Assassin’s Creed Unity: Dead Kings OST now out on iTunes

January 15, 2015 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Assassin’s Creed Unity: Dead Kings OST now out on iTunes Share this

If you’re a fan of the Assassin’s Creed series and it’s music, you’re in luck as the music for the latest installment’s DLC, Assassin’s Creed Unity: Dead Kings is now out on iTunes for your ear holes to feast upon.

Composed by the wonderful Cris Velasco (Darksiders, God of War), the game’s music is a dark and atmospheric and befitting of the quests through underground caves and catacombs beneath Saint Denis that you’ll be crawling through.

Previews of some of the music can be found on Velasco’s and Monarch Audio’s Soundcloud, of you need a teaser before you purchase. The 11-track original soundtrack itself is $8.99 for the entire DLC album. (Or $0.99 per individual track, if you swing that way) Given Velasco’s repertoire for great orchestral compositions, it should come as no surprise that this would be anything other than some great music and a solid addition to your game music library.

Assassin’s Creed Unity: Dead Kings OST – iTunes