Music is important. I hear that from a lot of people many, many times, and frankly, I agree. Music has so much power over individual perception, no matter what the medium is. Feeling awkward? Music to the rescue! Feeling sad? Music to the rescue! Feeling happy? Music to the...to the... now I feel sad. But yeah, music is a powerful tool that can influence perceptions.
More specifically, I will be talking about the music and atmosphere of a certain family friendly video game whose main objective is to have players frolic around a happy fun place and take pretty pictures of all the nice happy inhabitants of Happy Fun Land.
Of course, I'm referring to:
Sorry, Pokemon Snap fans.
Project Zero II/Fatal Frame II, the Tecmo horror title with two English monikers (one EU and one US respectively), four pairs of twins and a creepy storyline that will invade the collective subconscious minds of all who dare pick up the controller and wander through the cursed Lost Village alone or with equally damned company. The Fatal Frame series in general is a nightmare-inducing machine, and like with many other horror titles, a large portion of the atmosphere can be attributed to the aural soundscapes lurking beneath the horizon, just beyond the players' peripherals.
I mean, just listen to the soundtrack sample linked above (Fatal Frame II OST #10: Osaka Family Altar). What does your mind think of when you hear the deep rolling bass and echoing chimes creeping all around you?
Gee, I dunno. Pink fluffy bunny mascots?
I know, I know. Pink fluffy bunny mascots. What the heck. You'd think pink fluffy bunny mascots would be the last thing to pop into your mind when you listen to disturbing soundtracks. But it's not too off base. I'm sure some of you know where I'm getting at here:
Pause all the music, close your eyes, and imagine a pink fluffy bunny mascot in your head. What comes to your mind? Chances are you probably came up with something like this, cheesy carnival music and all:
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| Hey kids! Want a balloon? |
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| Heyyyy...kidddss... Heeheeheeheeheehohohohahaha.... |
See that? Cue some atmospheric Fatal Frame nightmare fuel, and one perfectly normal bunny mascot morphs into the creepiest moneyfondler on the planet.
To establish an atmosphere, a video game needs to have some form of music. It could be any type of music: Ambient, soundtrack orchestral, DnB, rock, metal, hip hop, etc. Horror games in particular rely heavily on disturbing aural caterpillars (A specific breed of ambient sound) to keep the illusion intact. Look up a track in any horror game soundtrack, and your ears will inevitably be treated to something similar to "#10: Osaka Family Altar". So, how exactly does the music of a horror game influence the player's mind? I mean, at it's core the track is just a set of low dissonant chords with some bass and reverb mixed in. There really isn't all that much to it, is there?
Well, that's the thing. Low dissonant chords. Bass and reverb. The atmospheric elements of a good horror game soundtrack (or horror anything soundtrack) lie within the capabilities of the sounds to rub against each other the wrong way, to induce a sense of dread on the ears and to say to the player "Hey, there's this thing lurking in the background that is sorta there but kinda sorta not there, and you may end up meeting this thing any time now because screw your sanity." It's like having the player stuck in a room with a rusty, dusty jack-in-the-box in the center of said room. The player hears the jack-in-the-box ticking, and knows that at any time now some demented clown-faced face is going to pop out of the box and surprise the crap out of him or her. But even thought the player knows this, he or she doesn't know when it's going to pop out, which is extremely unsettling because the anticipation is just gnawing at his or her mind. The player's first impulse, therefore, is to relieve the anticipation by getting out of the room ASAP before the freaky thing pops out of the box.
But the player can't escape the music.
No.
As long as the game is in the console (or PC), as long as the player is even remotely invested in the events unfolding beyond the screen, the music is going to be there, lurking, waiting, watching. The player can kill all the zombies/shadows/specters in the world, but the player can't kill the music. The player can't stop the sounds in the background from feeding in the dissonant chords, reverb and bass.
The monsters can be stopped.
The horror can never be stopped.
| We are legion. |
To establish an atmosphere, a video game needs to have some form of music. It could be any type of music: Ambient, soundtrack orchestral, DnB, rock, metal, hip hop, etc. Horror games in particular rely heavily on disturbing aural caterpillars (A specific breed of ambient sound) to keep the illusion intact. Look up a track in any horror game soundtrack, and your ears will inevitably be treated to something similar to "#10: Osaka Family Altar". So, how exactly does the music of a horror game influence the player's mind? I mean, at it's core the track is just a set of low dissonant chords with some bass and reverb mixed in. There really isn't all that much to it, is there?
Well, that's the thing. Low dissonant chords. Bass and reverb. The atmospheric elements of a good horror game soundtrack (or horror anything soundtrack) lie within the capabilities of the sounds to rub against each other the wrong way, to induce a sense of dread on the ears and to say to the player "Hey, there's this thing lurking in the background that is sorta there but kinda sorta not there, and you may end up meeting this thing any time now because screw your sanity." It's like having the player stuck in a room with a rusty, dusty jack-in-the-box in the center of said room. The player hears the jack-in-the-box ticking, and knows that at any time now some demented clown-faced face is going to pop out of the box and surprise the crap out of him or her. But even thought the player knows this, he or she doesn't know when it's going to pop out, which is extremely unsettling because the anticipation is just gnawing at his or her mind. The player's first impulse, therefore, is to relieve the anticipation by getting out of the room ASAP before the freaky thing pops out of the box.
But the player can't escape the music.
No.
As long as the game is in the console (or PC), as long as the player is even remotely invested in the events unfolding beyond the screen, the music is going to be there, lurking, waiting, watching. The player can kill all the zombies/shadows/specters in the world, but the player can't kill the music. The player can't stop the sounds in the background from feeding in the dissonant chords, reverb and bass.
The monsters can be stopped.
The horror can never be stopped.
