Be it hedgehogs, firefighters or dancing penguins, Yuji Naka’s games frequently feature soundtracks just as memorable as the games themselves. The same holds true for his Prope studio’s latest release, Rodea The Sky Soldier. Released on November 10th for Wii U and 3DS, Rodea features a soundtrack from Takayuki Nakamura and his Brainstorm sound studio.
If you’ve ever been frustrated that you can’t listen to a wide variety of the works from some of your favorite Japanese game composers due to the difficulty and high cost of importing from Japan, then this will be a little treat. Several composers have gotten together to create an original album of music specifically for their fans in the West.
IMPORTED features a top-tier ensemble of music composers from all walks of gaming, including:
Tenpei Sato (Disgaea series)
“I grew up listening to soundtracks for games like Street Fighter II, Metroid Prime and Sonic Adventure 2,” reflects producer Kevin Pescoran. “But when I tried to get my hands on more recent soundtracks like Sonic Unleashed, VANQUISH, or Bayonetta, I could only find them for $80 to $100, and realized there was a need for an easier way to get this music to fans around the world.”
Scarlet Moon Productions
The greatest part of the entire album is that it is completely free to download from Bandcamp for all international fans to enjoy. Go grab the album and be sure to check back for further updates.
We’ve been hearing a lot about Takayuki Nakamura lately. Earlier this month, we heard him talk about a variety of topics with other game composers at Noisycroak’s First Game Composer Roundtable Discussion where he was awarded the MVC (most valuable composer) award. Earlier in July, however, Patrick told us about his latest project, PictureBook Games: Pop-Up Pursuit, and we’ve been able to get a word in with Nakamura-san to talk more about the game’s music.
We were definitely surprised to see him working on this whimiscal WiiWare title after his heavy electronic work from the Lumines series, but it sounds as though he captured the essence of the game pretty well. We talk about the music he created for the game as well as his work on the Wii, his plans for his Brainstorm record label, and a recent album he worked on with some composers from Korea.
Check out what Takayuki Nakamura has to say after the jump. (more…)
While many of you may have missed the news, the guys over at Noisycroak in Japan (who you may recall from our coverage of Castlevania Judgment) recently hosted a composer roundtable to answer fan-submitted questions and discuss a wide range of topics involving the game music industry in Japan. Composer and studio head Hideki Sakamoto hosted the unprecedented event, which our own Chris Ling attended along with a number of Famitsu staff, and the results were pretty amazing.
What we have here is Chris’s English translation of the massive transcript that Noisycroak posted in to their website (in Japanese) a few weeks ago. Yes, a complete English transcript of all 17,000+ words! I’m definitely grateful to Chris for doing this for us, as well as to Sakamoto-san at Noisycroak for putting this together, Mitsuyoshi-san for coordinating Chris’s attendance, and to all the participants for taking part in this event and for letting us post the English-language transcript here for your reading pleasure.
While it’s quite long, there’s a lot of great stuff here. Nobuyoshi Sano is particularly hilarious, and it’s funny reading how Sakamoto-san was constantly trying to keep everyone on track (with mixed results). I found some of the discussion towards the end about game music concerts and “young” heroes to be interesting, but let us know what you think!
Read the entire transcript of the event after the jump. (more…)
We recently got word that Takayuki Nakamura, who is best known for his recent work on the Lumines series, is composing the music for this strange-looking Wii title, PictureBook Games: Pop-Up Pursuit. Click the link to check out a trailer, featuring some of Nakamura-san’s music, courtesy of Nintendo. The game is a party game in the same vein as the Mario Party series, except it’s a WiiWare title that you can play online. The music does not seem to hold the typical electronic style that we expect from Nakamura, but it’s still sounding pretty cool.
No word on an official soundtrack release yet, as the game itself is only scheduled for a rough “Fall 2009” release. But we thought you’d like to know what Nakamura is up to these days.
