Keep your Bach; I've got Square

By Tasha Gonzales

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: A video game's music is integral to whether it's a good game.

It doesn't matter whether it's an RPG (role-playing game), a first or third person shooter, or a sports game, a game just lacks awesomeness if it doesn't have a corresponding soundtrack.

It doesn't matter if it's music from pop culture or music made specifically for the game, it needs to fit. One of my favorite wastes of time, SSX-3, a popular snowboarding game available for the PlayStation 2, the GameCube, and Microsoft's Xbox console, has a soundtrack made entirely of commercial music, featuring artists such as NERD, Fischerspooner, and the X-Ecutioners.

The music, in part, determines how awesome that game really is. Yes, it has great gameplay and an awesome leveling-up system (as awesome as one can get for a snowboarding game, that is). But if it had lackluster music or no music, it wouldn't rock quite as much.

My boyfriend is fond of the Madden football series. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Tasha doesn't stick to any one genre, but he really likes his sports games, specifically hockey and football. The Madden series is a series that has mastered the soundtrack. You can't play a football game without an energetic soundtrack, and every Madden game has exactly that, also drawn from commercial music.

One of my favorite video game series, however, is the Final Fantasy series. I'm not a stickler for video games. I'll play anything once, be it sports, shooter, or arcade, but I love RPG's. Nobuo Uematsu, the man who composed most of the music for that series (now 12 strong, not including Final Fantasy X-2, the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Anthology, Final Fantasy Origins, or Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles) is, plainly put, a musical genius.

The first Final Fantasy game I ever played was 7, which most RPG gamers agree is the pinnacle of that series - and the first time I heard the battle music, I was hooked. In Final Fantasy 8, the trend continued, and I now have an entire partition of my music rack dedicated to Final Fantasy soundtracks (which you can buy at most online retailers).

In fact, I'm not the only one who has become infatuated with the music of Final Fantasy. At www.radioFF.com, users can listen to soundtracks from every Final Fantasy game yet released. In the world of RPG fans, "Square," as in Square-Enix, has become it's own musical genre.

But don't take my word for it. Log on to radioFF.com and listen for yourself. And if you hear anything you like, you can download it at www.bluelaguna.net (however, pay close attention to the disclaimers, as downloading music without paying is generally considered a crime), or you can head to your favorite online retailer and buy the soundtrack. For music without lyrics, Square is definitely tops. You can keep your Bach and Beethoven, I'm a child of the 90s.

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I'd like to apologize right now for a mistake I made last week - my blog's Web site address is http://techtasha.wordpress.com. That last bit was incorrect. You'd think that I'd pay attention to the URL of my own blog, but apparently my brain had different priorities. As always, you can e-mail me at tgonzales@nevadaappeal.com.