Musical Musing: Batman the Animated Series

By the time you read this, Batman: Arkham Asylum should be available in stores everywhere. While you’re busy pondering on whether to purchase the Collector’s Edition (for a plastic Batarang you can’t even take out of the stand? Pass), or for you multi-console owners deciding between the PS3 and 360 versions (PS3 for me, can’t ignore those Joker levels), I thought I’d take the time to give you guys a little gift.

The fantastic score to the fantastic animated series. You can grab both parts here and here. For you 360 buyers, feel free to use this as a custom soundtrack. The music from “The Last Laugh” is particularly awesome. I hope a second volume will be released one day, since there’s still a ton of excellent music they can take from the show (Clayface theme!).

Dissidia is also being released at this time, but I’ve said enough about that game. It’s unfortunate that many of the characters I hoped to see won’t be showing up, but it’s still something to look forward to.

Oh, and uh…kudos to Paul WS Anderson for marrying his fanfiction character, which he has shoehorned into his Resident Evil movies and given X-Men/Matrix superpowers to fight some of our favorite videogame monsters (Oh, Nemesis…). I’m sure the two of them will continue to provide us with terrible movie adaptions of our favorite RE games. Can’t wait to see them ruin Leon and Resident Evil 4 next.

Musical Musing: Chrono Trigger

In addition to Character Corner, I’m also adding another category to my blog: Music!

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big RPG fan, so it’s only natural that I would have a fondness for the rich and varied music that these games can produce. After all, before 3D polygons, full motion videos, or even voice acting, it was the soundtrack that usually created the illusion of playing a video game like an interactive movie.

So during these posts, I’ll share some of my favorite videogame melodies, mostly in the form of Youtube clips. I’ll even throw a link to the songs in mp3 format, if available.

But don’t expect this blog to be a resource to download soundtracks, because that isn’t happening. Searching for music is the easiest thing anyone can do on the internet, and a google search can instantly turn up some well known sites. I’ll only be sharing individual songs, but keep checking and you might find an arrangement of a favorite song that you might not have been aware of.

Today, I’ll be sharing the two orchestral arrangements found in the pre-order CD for Chrono Trigger DS.

Download the mp3s here and here.

Chrono Trigger DS is available in stores now. If you’ve played the game before, you’ve likely already bought it. If you haven’t, and are skeptical from all the fanboy claims how it’s one of the best RPGs ever (along with a handful of other highly lauded titles), I’ll tell you straight up: It deserves the praise it gets.

What, you want reasons why? What do I look like, a reviewer?

I hope you answered “yes”, but you’re only getting three reasons regardless.

1. It created gameplay elements that current RPGs have yet to fully emulate (such as avoidable encounters and diverse party members).

2. There’s no part of the game that feels like a tacked-on sidequest or filler to artificially increase the length; each area flows together seamlessly.

3. It has one of the coolest “extra” characters ever. Yes, that guy.

And that’s not mentioning the time travel, the tech combo system, the protagonist who lacks a voice but not a personality, the wonderful soundtrack, the fact that you can take on the final boss any time, the multiple endings, etc etc just go buy it already.