The Fascinating World of Falcom's Music
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
- Rush Hour | The Music of Falcom and Ys VIII
Nihon Falcom (Sound Team J.D.K./jdk) Composer Breakdown Project: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
I just scratched the surface of Falcom's musical history with this video, but hopefully it gives you enough of a taste to learn more about these wonderful composers and the incredible music they've produced.
From popular games like Trails of Cold Steel and Ys VIII, to forgotten gems like Xanadu Next and Brandish, Falcom has decades worth of musical masterpieces to enjoy. It helps that the gameplay is good, too. The next time you're itching to play an action rpg, check out Gurumin, Zwei 2, or the mid 2000's Ys games like Origin, The Oath in Felghana, and The Ark of Napishtim. Games that are short, sweet, and to the point - all with killer soundtracks.
Some fun behind the scenes notes:
- In scrubbing through Jindo's twitter for a specific tweet, I learned that he enjoys arranging music from a lot of Russian Baroque and Romantic era composers. Definitely check some of it out: x.com/divine_wistaria?lang=en
- If you notice some footage of Ys VIII running poorly, that's because I originally captured footage from my Switch. I stopped a few hours in and started capturing from Steam instead, and the difference is night and day. Definitely skip the Switch version of the game if you can; not only is the framerate worse, the input lag is pretty gnarly.
- Capturing footage of Zwei 2 was a pain in the ass. When you run the configuration tool, you can set the game to run at 60 or 144hz. When I captured footage in OBS, the footage came out with this nasty ghosting effect. Turns out the game runs at a fake 60 fps. I spent way too long messing around until I eventually changed my OBS settings to capture the game at 30fps, and voila, it came out perfect.
0:00 A Community of Dedicated Fans
1:06 Mini Review of Ys VIII
3:26 Operating on a Budget
4:23 Composer Snippet - Jindo
6:16 Composer Snippet - Singa
10:56 Composer Snippet - Sonoda
12:20 Composer Snippet - Unisuga
15:04 Messy Sound Direction
16:26 The Golden Era of Falcom's Games - Hry
soo um funfact, one of the person pushing Singa as a composer is Meiko Ishikawa, a former falcom composer, and she says that "music isn't that important anyways" and is the one opposed to composers of the sound team gaining individual fame.
I mean Singa does some good stuff. It's not like suddenly there's nothing enjoyable in the soundtrack because he's there xD
The music is literally what introduced me to Trails in the Sky and Falcom games as a whole. I would not have played 10 Trails games and 2 Ys games if I had not heard a random battle theme from Trails in the Sky in some dude's youtube video. (The song was Sophisticated Fight). I liked it so much I found Trails in the Sky FC on steam and enjoyed Sky FC's story and characters so much I played the rest of the series.
I honestly find this attitude both baffling and saddening.
It's crazy because the composers from pre 2015 put in so much soul into their work, whether they were Falcom employees or not. This isn't to say that all of it is bad now, but you can really feel the void of great, quality soundtracks across the board from this company.
do you know where i can find info on this meiko quote? :)
IIRC she never said this in as petty a way as implied. As Falcom's coordinator, it's her job to essentially toe the company line by respecting business and design traditions from their earlier years. Kato instated the no-specific-credits policy following the 1989-90 staff exodus for a variety of reasons, and it's clear she prioritizes her job security over protesting this by leaving or forcing a management shakeup (if she could even do that since Chairman Kato still holds the majority stake in the company). WRT "music isn't that important", I can't recall any quote saying that either in an interview or one of their anniversary books. She stopped composing for Falcom games after 1996, though, and so she's more hands-off as music director than before then. None of this excuses how she's handled Sound Team jdk and Singa's involvement, but I'd stop short of attributing to malice what's more likely a case of misguided priorities.
I'm very glad to see a video about Falcom's music history in my feed, it's really fascinating and doesn't get talked about enough. I think the big drop-off in quality probably started around 2007, shortly after Takeshita left the company and around the time Momiyama and Osaki joined. Falcom has always placed a rather large workload on its internal composers, and Takeshita's departure (rather shortly after he joined the sound team, likely because of said workload and lack of proper crediting) was the beginning of it showing that it was unsustainable, with both Momiyama and especially Osaki being known to have struggled with the strenuous deadlines Falcom enforced (Falcom was releasing a new game practically every year at this point, a trend which they've continued to keep up; and keep in mind, sound team employees at Falcom were tasked with jobs outside of composition as well, with Sonoda working on storyboard, Unisuga as webmaster, etc.) Outsourced composers such as Jindo started to be used as a quick fix to sort of maintain some of the quality of past (you'll notice the number of Jindo-arranged Osaki tracks is rather high, that's no coincidence) and for a while, this worked well enough, with even new outsourced composers such as Okajima and Kamikura being brought in to contribute as well.
However, Falcom would experience yet another set-back around the time Trails of Cold Steel came out, after Hagiuda, Momiyama, and Kamikura stopped working on Falcom music. This was bad enough as is, however around the same time, the jdkband scandal happened which resulted in Okajima (and shortly after every jdkband member besides Mizutani) leaving the band. The rest goes without saying, Falcom starts hiring Singa to pick up the new slack left behind, cuts Jindo's budget... etc. Funnily enough, we know Okajima had done a couple of tracks for Ys 8, but they had to seemingly be scrapped because of his departure.
Falcom continues to employ the same policies that lead to the degradation of its sound quality today as it did back then, and I can only imagine this'll eventually result in about what you'd expect: Koguchi's quick burn-out and likely inevitable departure, resulting in more mismanaged outsourcing to compensate (like seriously I don't even particularly dislike Singa but at least give the guy some context to work with when writing tracks, Jindo too for that matter). On the bright side, we'll probably still get like a couple of Jindo bangers per game, so it could be worse!
Great point about Okajima. He has a song that plays during the Ys VIII TGS reveal trailer that kicks so much ass, and it's a damn shame it never made it into the full game. I can only imagine how much incredible music Falcom has tucked away that may never see the light of day - or may take years.
I didn't get to talk about Koguchi, and while I enjoy some of his jazzier tracks in the Daybreak games, his guitar VST needs some work, much like Sonoda. I'm not a fan of "To Be Free" from Ys X. Murayama and Unisuga really knew how to tune their guitar tracks properly, and it's a shame that they couldn't pass off their knowledge to their peers.
@@RushHourWeekend Murayama's super underrated, his work on Gurumin is some of my favorite from Falcom as a whole. I agree on Koguchi but I will say he's showing some pretty remarkable improvement from game to game so I trust he can only get better from here. My main gripe with his music at the moment is the drum arrangement for some tracks (it feels a bit weak compared to say, Unisuga.) That being said his environmental tracks are already pretty top-notch.
I highly agree, I wish there were more discussions about Falcom's musical history, as Falcom music is very special to me. Although personally, I think the drop in quality came about around 2011/2012 instead of 2007; Azure and Nayuta both have incredibly lopsided composer ratios (Momiyama does more in Azure than Sonoda and Unisuga combined, for example), and Celceta is when outsourcers actually began to compose game tracks themselves that weren't just FMV cutscene tunes (with some exceptions like Amber Amour and A Miracle is Shown), instead of just being on arrangement duty. It's especially apparent with Nayuta, with how Falcom initially didn't use the Osaki/Takeshita leftovers, but then threw them in once it was clear the sound team couldn't handle composing 16 stage themes alone with everything else on their plate.
On the other hand, in 2007 the jdk band was revived, and arrange albums started becoming more frequent. It was about this time Falcom music started having more of a "mainstream presence", which likely led to them contracting Okajima/Kamikura and their partnership with Chara-ani that lasted until the big Japan Game Music Festival II fiasco. I feel that this was a time where the sound team genuinely enjoyed their work too, even despite the strenuousness of the work. Momiyama wanted to compose for Falcom since she was a kid and ended up pretty much defining this era of Falcom, Osaki makes very passionate music that makes it clear he's having fun and genuinely put in the effort to improve his rock arrangements (his Achilles' Heel), Sonoda made a ton of great music for Zwei 2 and Trails from Zero that's very inspired, and some of Unisuga's best works (imo) come from this period, like Person Who Brings End. This passionate work made it easier to swallow the increasingly poorly mastered albums due to the loudness wars, the growing pains of shifting game development to an entirely new system after a very long time, and Falcom beginning to place more importance on outsourced work than their own internal composers' work. Although, Jindo also didn't have much of a presence in most games around this time, showing Falcom still had confidence in their internal staff.
But honestly, I think that Falcom started to value outsourcing over their internal staff even as far back as Felghana. I say this because, since that game, it feels like Falcom began to believe that outsourcing could only improve upon the sound team's work, with how they prop up the Felghana/I&II Chronicles OSTs as the "best/definitive" versions of said games' soundtracks. This happens with individual tracks too, like Silver Will, Inevitable Struggle, and The Decisive Collision's Super Arrange versions being used in lieu of the originals almost every time they make a re-appearance. This isn't even considering the whole Felghana Pre-Arrange situation, where the internal team started to work on the soundtrack for Felghana, and then Falcom decided to have Jindo do it instead and shoved the sound team's work into an obscure album. If I were in the sound team's shoes, this would feel _extremely_ demoralising.
It's clear the sound team has grievances with how Falcom does things; even Maiko Hattori, far back in the early 2000s, had been open about how she disliked how her music was used. I don't blame her either, since long after she left, a bunch of her leftovers were thrown into RINNE, an obscure game released on the same day as Felghana with no fanfare. This can be clearly seen with the other members as well, implicitly or otherwise. Unisuga has taken "breaks" in soundtracks often (where he composes less than usual for a game or two, seen in Ys SEVEN and Nayuta, or even Ys VIII compared to Tokyo Xanadu), and I believe Sonoda has privately stated that he doesn't like the "corporation" that much, but considers his co-workers "friends". This distate for Falcom's MO extends beyond the sound team as well, what with Okajima unfollowing a large amount of Falcom fans on Twitter after the incident in 2015, and Jindo outright stating he would not return to the jdk band, even if offered. Kamikura even remarked that he may return to the jdk band after leaving to pursue other projects in 2014, but given what's happened since it's clear why he's completely moved on.
So pretty much no one likes the current Falcom situation, but it's been pretty much the same ever since the incident, disregarding Singa's increasingly larger role, Unisuga's "departure", and Koguchi joining. I can't help but wonder what the situation will be like ten years from now. I know I've rambled on, but I do enjoy discussing Falcom's music, and was ecstatic to find this video and this comment that gave me an opportunity to discuss it. With that, a good day to you all! 😊
@@AlithinoiDesmoi I didn't actually know Jindo had said that about not joining back jdkband even if offered, that's quite a shame as I feel like current jdkband has the potential to be quite good if under different a leader instead of Singa (the exception being ADD who I'm not a huge fan of, but most of the musicians and especially Yoshida are very good.) I'd be interested in seeing Gakia2 handle more band arrangements for arrange albums and potentially even do some work for the games, as he seems to have a much more consistent batting average than Singa. In general I doubt much will change with how Falcom handles its internal sound staff so the most I can really hope for is an improvement in how it handles its outsourcing, either in terms of requesting work from composers besides Singa and Jindo (Such as N in Ys IX) or simply making a better effort to assign outsourcers to work on tracks best suited to their strengths (in the case of Singa, probably simple piano-based melodies and the occasional jazzy tune.)
falcom has so many amazing soundtracks even back in the 80's there was so many bangers. very cool to hear you mention brandish which is a lesser known game i enjoy. one of my other favorites they did was Popful mail. that game is really good and also has many great tracks. i hope to play Dinosaur resurrection once its fan translated, the music in that game is fire.
wow never realized his rates were that cheap even we could hire him to make random songs lol
Love Brandish. I've been meaning to play Brandish 4, but I haven't gotten around to it. I know there's a partial English translation from like 15 years ago, but it looks playable enough even without the full translation.
I've definitely got my eye on the geofront translation of Dinosaur. Apparently the script has been done for years, they're just trying to polish everything up. Looking forward to it.
Man... thank you SO MUCH for making this video, geniunely.
i'm a very new falcom fan, just discovering it about 3-4 years ago, and since then i've played every YS game, and i'm on my way to play the trails series.
one thing that always catched my attention was how hateful the comment section in most youtube ost releases tend to be, specially on singa works, and it always baffled me how much discontent there is with both the music and even falcom itself. at some point i wanted to know a bit more to see what was wrong, but then i kinda discovered that it was... rather hard to learn the history of such a niche company without REALLY digging in, so i ended up thinking it was just "old good new bad" type of thing.
but now that i ACTUALLY have some context... yeah, i absolutely understand now where the hate comes from, and it's really sad to see such great talented people being treated like dirt... just because? i geniunely don't know what they get out of not properly crediting their composers and their work, or overworking them to the bone like that.
for the time being, i will still be fan, since their games keep being insanely good, but i really hope that the situation gets better, because all these people deserve so much better for their work.
Thank you, that was very insightful. Falcom used to make some of the best soundtracks in the medium, but the quality dropped by a lot after Ys VIII / the transition from Vita to PS4. But I'm happy that Koguchi seems to bring a breath of fresh air to the soundtracks.
I hope Unisuga is happy where he is rn of course but I hope he considers freelance at some point so he can actually get the credit he beyond rightfully deserves..
This video barely scratches the surface. I’m surprised you didn’t mention Ryo Takeshita or Saki Momiyama. Takeshita was cooking hard during the Napishtim era Ys Games and Sky the Third while Crossbell’s OSTs identity was formed by Momiyama. Their contributions will be sorely missed
I wanted to make a more focused video which is why I only talked about the Ys VIII composers, but you're absolutely right. Momiyama was good, but Takeshita, Murayama, and Ishibashi - despite not being with the company for long - are responsible for some truly incredible music. Takeshita is incredible, and I regret not talking about him. He has such a recognizable style. I remember when I played Tokyo Xanadu, I was immediately able to distinguish his song that plays during an arcade minigame, which is remarkable considering how many years it'd been since he left.
As someone who loves Falcom games I think this video opened by eyes to the issues in the music in the current age of Falcom, the quality overall dropped a bit but theres still a lot of newer tracks I love, I do hope maybe it gets better but they keep using Singa cause its cheap and easy to cut corners so they can churn out more games.
Funnily enough, you STILL rely on charge attacks in Ys 8 to build SP.
Its just that charging is automatic and NEARLY instantaneous
Exactly. Automatically charging attacks was a smart change. I replayed Ys Seven to capture footage and remembered how bad it feels fighting early game bosses because you basically always want to use charge attacks and skills. Still a fun game, the dungeons are great, it's just not as fun as Celceta or 8.
Iclucian Dance is top tier and imo the way they use it in game it works really well.
I'm actually surprised you didn't mention the incident where Kato sabotaged a jdk band concert in a fit of paranoia, which IMO is the most likely explanation for why Falcom's music changed so suddenly in 2015. It's why the last iteration of the jdk band all quit, and it's probably why they couldn't recruit any new full-time composers even if they wanted to.
And supposedly the reason Unisuga isn't composing anymore is because he's also Falcom's sysadmin, and in 2020 he had to give up composing so he could get Falcom set up for WFH. God, Kato is such a cheapskate, I can't imagine having a composer as brilliant as Unisuga and wasting him on maintaining VPN software!
Ys vi ark of napishtin’s mighthy obstacle and release of the far west ocean are the best IMO
Absolutely. Napishtim deserves more love from fans of the series.
Great video and very informative! Did you consider extend the music analysis to other rpg as well in further videos?
I really love video game music, but most games don't share the same interesting history as Falcom. If I do make another video regarding music, I'd probably discuss multiple series at once.
I've seen every excuse under the sun defending Singa (including in these comments), and the AAS squad generally ignore or downplay the core issue - That music in games that we love is noticeably and identifiably worse, and we're rightfully upset about it. There are differences in the quality of OSTs, and these differences extend beyond a gap in a quality between a technical genius like Unisuga and Sonoda's usually more basic work. There are whole layers of polish missing most of the time.
Sure, *I* like Singa tracks too: Some of them, a small body of his overall work. Most of his music is, to quote another man, "aggressively mediocre", a sad reminder what has been before and maybe what could be now, especially when I can make direct comparisons. Pleasure Smile vs. Mishelam Wonderland? Synchronicity #23 vs. Unplanned Residue? Feel Force vs. Monstrum Spectrum? Come on.
My observation is that Singa is very good with some instruments but absolutely godawful with others, and he doesn't care enough about his craft to just focus on what he's actually good at. He's a brilliant pianist, and most of my favorite tracks by him are piano pieces, but he should never touch a guitar ever again. I'd like him a lot more if he refocused his career around the piano, but again he doesn't care enough to do that.
I intend to start my Trails journey with Daybreak, its OST is considered by many to be one of the best in Falcom‘s catalogue. What do you think? :)
I'm considering making a video talking about Daybreak at some point, because my experience with the Trails series is roughly 15 hours of Cold Steel 1 like 6-7 years ago, and maybe 8-9 hours of Zero last year. I'm far from a fan of the series, but I bought Daybreak anyway to give the series one last shot, and I'm really enjoying it. But don't tell anyone I said that.
Anyway, the music in Daybreak is overall pretty good. The newest member of the sound team (Koguchi) brings a really nice jazz flavor to game, very reminiscent of Tokyo Xanadu. Singa, again, mixed bag. Some pretty good songs, some mediocre rock tracks, but the biggest issue is that his music conflicts with the smoother tunes Koguchi and Sonoga bring to the table. If you consider each song individually, not a big deal, but as a whole the soundtrack doesn't really have a consistent theme.
With all due respect, you are making a grave mistake. Start from the beginning, and experience the story properly, and you'll be glad you did
Cool video, if someone in house haven't leaked a bunch of credits for some game we would never know who composed what let alone deduce the rest. Kinda hard to say why exactly their modern soundtracks dont sound as good, could be that they are cheap on that front? Yes, but pushing a 60 hour JRPG every year must put alot of pressure in the composers, specially the in-house ones
you focused way too much on ys, falcom make other games you know
Ironic since his whole point is "WAAAAAAAH WAAH old falcom was so experimental and unique nowadays it's just YS and Trails" and calling Trails a cash cow??? Yeah it may be now but it only became super popular in west since like .2017.
Also didn't Kondo (or someoone else at Falcom) say recently they want to do other stuff besides those two and try new ideas and franchises? Especialyl since Trails apparently is ending after a few games according to Kondo.
I hate the fact that people thrash on all the osts in the trails series that’s not trails in the sky. It’s so dumb. If you read a lot of the comments in certain modern osts, ppl throw hate and shade towards it. Idk why this is a thing.
I haven't played most of the Trails games, they don't really interest me, but I've listened to the soundtracks for all of them and think there's plenty of great music in every single game. I think fans are gonna find plenty of songs to love in Daybreak's soundtrack.
Aaaah just accept the fact and reality newer games ost is trash esp from singa period
Bcz singa the problem
You have zero clue what you are talking about. Falcom isnt milking the trails series. It simply shows their dedication to long form story telling. Would you say the same to Eichiro Oda? Trails games are good from the first hour. If they are not, you are not the audience.
“🤓☝️”
Best music in the industry is stretching it by quite a mile in a half.
The only person that matters is Ryo Yonemitsu, while not a composer of the music, he made the best arrangements and ultimately the best soundtracks in the entire YS series without question, he is god tier, the rest? They're good but Ryo Yonemitsu is on a whole other level, he elevated Falcom's compositions to a level that no one even knew was possible. The fact that the guy stopped working on videogame music after Tokimeki Memorial 2 on PS2 is very sad, he was a legend.
Aside from the Yonemitsu games, I think YS VIII is the best of the bunch, though YS VI isn't too far behind. Memories Of Celceta is good too but Ryo Yonemitsu's arrangements of the songs are way better, the original songs for Memories Of Celceta are the best ones, the arrangements are kinda meh though, aside for Crater and Lava Zone which were rather well done.
Yonemitsu is the man. His arrangement of The Dawn of Ys (title track) is one of my favorite songs in the series.
@@RushHourWeekend he knows how to leave a good first impression with the title music.
The neat thing about Falcom music is that there's too much diversity and overall quality (prior to the 2020s) to simply say Yonemitsu's "the best". I could point out how often he repeats himself in arrangement style as a flaw, for instance, right alongside his strengths which are more apparent. To overlook or even diminish the similarly strong efforts of other arranges/composers Falcom worked with during their prime is, well, it's a little silly to me. It's certainly sad that he stopped doing contract work for games after TM2, but that's likely because Japanese publishers got more frugal after the last batch of bubble economy-era money got spent to afford his high rates.
No doubt I'd take his work on Dawn of Ys over Celceta any day, though. The latter does have some surprisingly strong rearrangements and plenty of cool new pieces, but that whole game was a rush job for Falcom and it shows in how much more TLC the first Cold Steel + Nayuta were getting at the time.
Singa's hater base is just a *massive* echo chamber, like most minorities.
I enjoy his songs, most of us do. Bar the occasional truly bad one, the nitpicks people find are stuff only a musician or someone what actively wants to badmouth him would find.
Maybe it makes no sense to merge two songs into one, maybe his guitar sounds like chickens at times; Falcom needed a compromise between good music to boost their sales and a tight budget (or stingy executives). They wouldn't fill Kuro with his music and sell it as a new entry point if they thought it'd drive new players away, no?
Singa is actually really good when he's performing calmer songs that focus more on the piano. He has a piano interlude in Marionette, Marionette that I love. When he veers into hard rock and heavy metal, it's difficult to ignore comparisons between him and his peers, who generally are more consistent when it comes to composing faster-paced, more aggressive songs. I think if he spent more time on each piece instead of churning them out like a factory, he'd be much more consistent.
@@RushHourWeekend Marionette, Marionette is one the few Singa tracks I like from Ys 9. Def. my personal favorite for much the same reason you like it. Aside from the piano, I also like the relaxed saxophone (consistently one of his stronger instruments). The laid back atmosphere of the track fits the labyrinth it's played in. The only demerit for the track is the buzzing Singa often uses as an accompaniment with the sax. I can't help but think a better choice existed and it's a little grating, but overall this track lands in the win column.
@@Paltheos Singa being good at piano/saxophone and calmer music makes sense. What is Ahead of You is easily one of his best work in Trails Through Daybreak.
To me, the peak of Falcom music will always be Trails of Cold Steel 1-4. Granted, I haven't actually played any of the games after that yet, so maybe (and hopefully) I'll change my mind, but I get the impression from what I've heard, that the soundtracks have drastically fallen off.
Lol sky was better but ok first game played syndrome is the factor
@@Gdg195 There was good music in all of the previous games, for sure. The arranged versions of Overdosing Heavenly Bliss and Inevitable Struggle are 2 of my favorite songs ever.
But overall, the Cold Steel series is the peak.
@@guruthosamarthruin4459 whatever you say first played syndrome guy cant be objective if you cherry picking shit lol
@@guruthosamarthruin4459 Cold Steel 1 and 2 had soul, genuine souls. 3 and 4 not so much in comparison
@@TrungPurpVN Funny, I think 3 is the best one. Spiral of Erebos and Einhel Keep are always switching back and forth as my ringtones.
They had good song but I am gonna be honest they are not too memorable and that is why they are really underground , they are just fine but never gonna had the same impact as FF or Personas series , and the main issue is the way the guitarr sounds is too same, is never remarkable
This video while informative is very cynical and comes off as very negatively charged which kinda made it not fun to watch
I like Singa's discordant style, reminds me a little of Ali Project!