Talking to AUTOMATON Japan, Masafumi Takada, the composer for The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, talked about recent changes he’s noticed in game music. Takada feels that lately, music is increasingly being treated as a separate entity, rather than an integral part of gameplay and worldbuilding, which is creating a mismatch in games.
Takada is a veteran composer who has written music for a wide range of games, including Suda 51’s The Silver Case, the Danganronpa series, the Earth Defense Force series, the Digimon Story series, and Super Smash Bros. series. Known for its distinctive use of synthesizers, Takada’s latest work is the massive original soundtrack of Too Kyo Games’ The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.
In creating the OST, Takada says he paid special attention to making sure his music functioned as part of The Hundred Line’s eerie setting and framework. In the same vein, he notes that he’s seen an increasing number of games in which the music feels out of sync with the rest of the experience.
“Lately, something that’s been bothering me a bit is that even though game music is often very rich and high in quality, there are more and more instances where it doesn’t really align well with the actual gameplay experience. To be honest, it sometimes feels more like they’re just making good music instead of actually making a game.”
“When you look at game reviews, you sometimes see comments like ‘the music was great,’ and that’s not really praise for the music, it means the music stands out more than the game itself. In other words, it’s not that a cohesive game is being made; it’s that the playing experience and the music are out of sync. I want people to think about it that way. That’s why, when I make music, I’m always considering these things to make the entire game experience entertaining.”
Rather than criticizing the quality of game soundtracks, Takada appears to be pointing out a shift in how deeply the process of music production is interwoven with other aspects of development, like scenario and gameplay systems.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy’s Original Soundtrack by Masafumi Takada is out now on digital streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, and is also available for purchase on Steam. A Director’s Edition of the soundtrack will release on disc on April 24
