I AM SHOUTING BECAUSE OF SOUND DESIGN
Originally uploaded Sept. 23, 2023.
I could try using onomatopoeias to get my point across, but you imagined me shouting, didn’t you?
Sound design rules.
I think getting something to really stay stuck in a person’s head for a long time after they’ve engaged with the product is really cool. That’s how you know you’ve engineered something that’s successful.
Like… I’ve got a bunch of examples but my favorite is probably Capcom’s QSound jingle. As a kid I didn’t really know what the system did, I just knew it showed up on games running on the CPSII. Did it make the games sound better? Hell if I knew at the time. I honestly just knew I liked the four-ish second jingle.
Another cool one is the sound that plays right before you approach a boss in Dangun Feveron. It goes with the theme, sure, but it was so not what I was expecting the first time I played through the game. It stuck with me so much that I’ve added it to my personal vocabulary. It’s like… that childlike feeling of standing in the rain and throwing away your umbrella, pointing towards the heavens in defiance and belting out a roar of triumph. That’s the sort of feeling I’m getting from it.
On that topic, voicelines absolutely count, too. A quotable video game always keeps people talking about it. Look at Symphony of the Night’s original Playstation release, for example. Everyone loves that little opening sequence with Richter and Dracula, but my personal favorite set of voicelines are included in Neo Turf Masters. Like… “You must give up playing this hole.” I’ve heard that one more times than I can count, but maybe that just means I like playing the game. That’s a good way to spin it, yeah.
There are way. Way. Way too many quotable fighting games. It’s honestly part of why the genre kicks ass. MvC3 is a star student in this regard, but I think my personal favorite would be Karnov’s Revenge. Every single character is quotable. All of them. Every single one! That’s a tall order for most fighters to actually do nowadays, even.
Circling back into shmups, “Energy Max” in Ikaruga is great, too. I like the cold, steel voice against the backdrop of the one-man war in the background. It’s exhilarating!
Another shmup that does well in the opposite regard is ZeroRanger, for a pair of effects – the sound of shooting against glass, and the sound of cracking glass. Given context, this is the most cathartic pair of sounds in the entire game. You’ll just have to play it in full to know what I mean.
There are way more, I’m sure, but I just wanted to talk about a few that stuck with me. I guess my point would be, like. Sound design rocks and good games are filled with good examples of good sound design.
 |
 |
 |