Faxanadu is an action-adventure role-playing game released by Hudson Soft in 1987. It was well received, ranking #6 in Nintendo Power’s top 30 games, but was soon forgotten (except by its die-hard...
Archives: Blog
NACVGM 2020 – From Grinding to Grooving: An Investigation of Motoi Sakuraba’s RPG Combat Music
In role-playing games (RPGs) many players repetitively battle enemies in order to advance their characters, a process often referred to as grinding. While grinding, players will hear the same combat...
NACVGM 2020 – Traditional Japanese Modes in Video Game Soundtracks
Game music composers in Japan are, like most other musicians in Japan, trained primarily in the use of Western tonality, just as musicians in the West are. But growing up in Japan does nevertheless...
NACVGM 2020 – Musical Form and Gameplay Context in the Japanese Role-Playing Game
The music of role-playing games (RPGs) has been a frequent site of exploration for scholars of video game music in recent years-especially Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtracks for the Final Fantasy series. ...
Brace Yourself Games’ Crypt of the Necrodancer (2015) merges rhythm game and roguelike mechanics in a dungeon crawler setting. Players coordinate their movements with the beat of Danny...
NACVGM 2020 – Surrender to the Flow: Psychedelia in Videogame Music
Although there are numerous examples of psychedelia-influenced imagery in video games(i.e, Earthbound, Katamari Damacy, LSD: Dream Emulator), the same consideration is seldom given to music, I would...