Persona 4

PS2

Welcome to Inaba
Proudly Twinned With Silent Hill


Let's be honest, Persona 3 is a hell of a hard act to follow. Great gameplay, a fantastic story, and an ending that could make a sufferer of Bell's Balsy weep like a Japanophile being told their Holy Land ain't all its cracked up to be. To those unfamiliar with the series it belonged to (which was just about everyone at the time) it came out of nowhere, grabbed everyone's attention and became everyone's new favourite series. Critical acclaim, the endless appreciation of fans everywhere... yeah, a hard act to follow by anyone's estimation.

Persona 4 opens in much the same way the last game did: new student transfers to a new town and school, wackiness occurs. Yeah, it's a cliche, but it's a classic, and it works, so we'll let it slide. Our hero (who, for the sake of this review, we'll refer to as Jotaro Tenryu) quickly makes new friends, who tell him about a local urban legend. It's said that if you try watching a TV that's been switched off on a rainy night, you can see something: another reality, your true love, whatever, the reports vary depending on who you ask. So, bored one night, Jotaro tries it out. And finds that he can not only see something, but he can also physically enter the TV itself. The group, disbelieving at first, start to wonder if it has anything to do with the recent spate of murders in the formerly quiet town. And then, one of them goes missing, soon appearing on the Midnight Channel.

Persona 3, while a fantastic game, was not a game without its problems, primarily in the realm of combat. Having your teammates act for themselves, while a nice idea, often proved more trouble than it was worth. While you still have the option of letting them do their own thing, most people will head straight for direct control and never look back. The damage types have been pared down as well, presumably to make things less confusing: now, there's only one type of physical damage, as opposed to three, and the main character can only equip swords, rather than whatever the hell he wants.

Outside of battle, the music has been given a major overhaul. Fans of the original will be pleased to find that themes no longer restart from scratch every time you enter a new area, praise be to Philemon. The world map theme also changes depending on the weather, so you're not stuck listening to the same piece of music for months on end, another welcome change. The main battle theme, Reach Out To The Truth, isn't quite as catchy as Mass Destruction, but it does the job well.

The dungeons have been given a major overhaul as well. Now, every dungeon not only has a distinct look, it has its own music too! Each area ties in to the person lying at the heart of it. So a shut-in game-freak's dungeon is styled after an 8-bit RPG, the girl missing her deceased mother has hers looking like a storybook version of Heaven, the guy struggling with his sexuality has a very suggestive screamingly gay bathhouse, and so on. An infinite upgrade from the atrociously bland dungeon(s) of the last game.

So then, The Big Question: is it a better game than Persona 3? In sheer gameplay terms, yes. Developers, take note: when designing a sequel, this is how things should be done. All the rough edges have been smoothed off, virtually every problem I had has been fixed or improved, and the whole thing has been tuned to perfection. This is everything I had hoped for in the last game, and it's a testament to Atlus that they've delivered in spades. Outside of the gameplay, however...

It's ironic in a way. P3 had a great story, but the gameplay was lacking. And now, here comes its sequel with the exact opposite problems. They've managed to avoid the trap of having identical characters, thankfully. Yosuke is kinda similar to Junpei, in that they're both your buddy and co-pilot for the game, but in terms of personality, they're fairly different. Same goes for Yukiko, who outwardly resembles Mitsuru from the last game, though she's a lot friendlier than Mitsuru ever was. The problem comes with their social links. Every party member has them, and raising them gives them extra abilities in combat, such as being able to knock you out of harm's way when low on health, or being able to stand up again after taking a fatal wound in battle. Fair enough, except this is the only way to unlock their ultimate Persona. Honestly, I preferred it when it was part of the story. Seeing Akihiko's determination to live up to his friend's memory, or Junpei laying the smackdown on Strega with his upgrade gave you a real feeling of pride in your characters. Here, it feels more arbitrary. "Oh, well done, you've maxed me out, have a cookie and a Suzuka Gongen."

Then there's the music. It starts off strong, sunny day theme Your Affection quickly becoming one of my favourite pieces of music in the game. The first couple of dungeon themes are also good, the music for Yukiko's Castle being a standout piece. But as it progresses, the music becomes more and more lackluster. The last couple of dungeons are quiet, sedate pieces when you should be gearing up for a major no-holds barred fight. The final boss theme aims for symphonic fierceness and falls waaay shy of the mark, landing squarely in hum-drum mediocrity. The call back to the battle theme is nice, but not what I was looking for. Honestly, this is probably the first final boss theme I've encountered in a Megaten game that's outright sucked. 'Disappointing' is not the word.

On a related note, the cast has fewer duds in it than P3 did. The voice actresses for Fuuka and Ken were almost universally derided, but here, even the worst voice is tolerable. Kanji is probably the best on offer here, never once dipping below good, and his actor's delivery of lines is, on occasion, perfect, turning mere funny lines into outright hilarious ones. On the other hand, Naoto's is a poor choice. Massive spoilers that really aren't: Naoto's bag is that she's a girl pretending to be a boy. It works perfectly in the Japanese version, since her VA is known for playing gruff teenage boys like Edward Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist with the twist being that, for once, she's playing a girl. In the Western version, the second she opens her mouth, the illusion is shattered and you spend the next 20 hours wondering if your team is functionally retarded for not noticing that she's quite clearly a girl. The battle quotes are hilariously poor as well. They must've been recorded at the start, before most of the cast grew into their roles, because they're badly delivered ("Let us attack with all our strength" and "It's quite tenacious" being primary offenders) or just plain hilarious - Chie, dear, I love you to bits, but your wimpy little battlecry is abysmal. Seriously, stop it. And maybe it's more of a problem of translation, but they leave in all the honorifics like '-san' or 'senpai', and use them liberally, then have your cousin call you 'big bro' instead of 'onii-chan'. It's baffling why they'd do that, and it's jarring to boot.

And finally, we have the story. For the first 8/10ths of the story, it's fairly good. Great in places. Seeing your character actually get involved with events, rather than just standing there as things unfold around him is much more satisfying. You really feel like you have a part to play beyond pressing the X button to make the conversation move on. Some of the shenanigans you get up to are outright hilarious, such as the disastrous school festival and the camping trip, and draw you in more than the events in the last game. However, it's when you get to the end that things start to unravel.

Persona 3 was an epic story in the old sense of the word. You started out fighting monsters with friends and, before you knew it, you were locked in battle with an eldrich force that existed solely to obliterate all of mankind. You were rarely in any doubt as to what was at stake, and when the time came at the end, you knew damn well what would happen if you failed and were ready to give all as a result. Brilliant. Here, things start small with a serial killer offing people in the town when the fog rolls in. But Persona 4 never ups the ante much. When the fog covers the town permanently towards the end, you're expecting something big to come out of it, but it never really does. You're told there will be dire consequences, but, crucially, you're never shown what they are. And when you go to uncover the true mastermind at the end, it feels like an afterthought. One of the party outright states that you're doing this to give your character a good sendoff. Never mind that you've got a literal god taunting you (who's barely mentioned throughout the game, by the way), forget that a whole bunch of people have died as a result of all this, as long as Senpai gets a glorious final battle, everything else is just gravy. Tell me, did someone replace the cast with Klingons while I wasn't looking? What the hell, guys?! And the final bosses themselves are just so boring! Sure the final final boss looks great, but come on, we went through a fight last time where we battled our way through the Major Arcana of the tarot, then fought the god of death and her harbinger to a standstill! "Big spiky disco ball" and "Silent Hill reject" is a major step back by anyone's standards.

It's frustrating, really. For everything Persona 4 fixes or polishes, it creates another gaping flaw. When it should be increasing the pressure, it steps back and eases off on you. And when it should be telling you to gear up for a titanic struggle, it idly tosses a boss with no real difficulty behind it and tells you to busy yourself. I can understand why they'd want to scale things down after the last game - after all, when you've tangled with the embodiment of mankind's despair, how exactly do you top that - but that doesn't mean they can't make the current threat appear every bit as real as the last one. Just because the scope is reduced, that doesn't mean the danger should be too. Ironically, Persona 4 falls into exactly the same category as Devil May Cry 4: both are games that are great in their own right, both have the bad luck of being follow-ups to leaders in their field, both are kept from greatness by major problems. If we could meld Persona 3's storyline with Persona 4's gameplay, (and maybe DDS' or Maken Shao's OSTs, since I'm bored with the J-Pop by now) I have little doubt you'd have one of the single finest RPGs of all time. I still haven't lost faith in the series, not by a long shot, and it'll take more than a lousy final 5th of a game to do that. Still, here's hoping the inevitable Persona 5 will finally bring to fruition everything the games have promised thus far.

Project Antivent - Day Twenty Five

And so, we come to the last day of Antivent. I'll keep this brief, since you've all probably got food that needs eating and whatnot.

Our last theme comes from The World Ends With You. I won't lie, this is not only my favourite game on the DS, it's also one of the best games I've played in the last decade. The gameplay is fantastic, the soundtrack, sublime and the story compelling as all hell. I was addicted to the game for about a week solid and the final boss battle was the crowning moment for me.

Today's final theme, Twister Remix, comes from that battle. In a game with an exemplary OST, it takes something special to stand out from the crowd. If you ask me, Twister Remix has that in spades. Enjoy.



And finally, because it wouldn't be Christmas without gifts, we present you with everything we've covered here (minus Breaking The Girl because that could land me in a buttload of trouble. Don't worry though, you'll like the alternative). Download merrily and have fun, people.

Antivent Pack 1
Antivent Pack 2

Project Antivent - Day Twenty Four

Time for something very different today. I know I said at the start I said I was keeping this to one series/one song, and yes, this is from a Final Fantasy game, but bear with me, my reasoning is just.

Dancing Mad was originally the final boss theme from Final Fantasy VI, probably my favourite of the series. In its original form, the track was great, but sadly it hasn't quite aged as well as others. You should probably listen to it before we go any further. Go ahead, I'll be waiting here.

Heard it? Great.

Hellion Sounds is a group that covers game music. Yes, another one. But rather than doing a straight up cover, they take the general spirit of the music and embellish it til it doesn't just shine, it radiates with the brightness of a sun. They take the original music and turn a good song into something beyond special. Words honestly can't do this one justice. Just click for yourself and see what I mean.

Project Antivent - Day Twenty Three

Dynasty Warriors! A game that is to hystorical accuracy what orbital bombardment with nuclear weapons is to subtlety. They never had electric guitars back in feudal China. Their loss, since heavy guitars, as we've proven oh so many times this month, makes anything that little bit cooler. Today's offering is from the 5th game in the series, and probably my favourite piece of music from any of them: Great Red Spirit.

Project Antivent - Day Twenty Two

Okay, bear with me, because this one's a little weird. The Guilty Gear games have always been known for their hard-rocking soundtracks. Unsurprising, considering the number of musical references in the game. These soundtracks have always been highly acclaimed and are generally seen as some of the better fighting game OSTs. However, when Guilty Gear XX #Reload was released in Korea, they saw fit to give it a completely new soundtrack, the music being provided by a band called N.EX.T. The end result? A selection of music every bit the equal of the originals, arguably surpassing them on many points, and the single greatest character select theme in the form of today's track, Redemption. Crank this one up: if the walls aren't shaking, you're doing it wrong!

Project Antivent - Day Twenty One

Baroque was yet another game I reviewed earlier this year, and it holds the distinction of being one of the darkest non-Shin Megami Tensei-related RPGs I've ever played. Not that the intro doesn't clue you in to that: it starts with a Rorschach test turned cancerous, ends with a bloodstain turning becoming an portentous geometric symbol, and in-between, takes every opportunity to flash ominous text and worrying smiles at the viewer. Meanwhile, the title theme is the charmingly named Sinful Eyes. No, this isn't a cheerful game at all, is it.

It also gives away at least one major plot twist if you know what you're looking for, but, like every character here, in a way, that's neither here nor there.

Project Antivent - Day Twenty

There's a thin line between challenge and frustration. Knowing that you died because you fucked up, as opposed to a cheap shot is, simultaneously irritating and gratifying - yeah, you died, but at least you can improve. If any game personified this line, it would be God Hand, hated and adored in equal measure for its almost crushing difficulty. If you 'got' it, it was a stupidly fun OTT beat-em-up, a modern-day relic of a simpler era. If you didn't, it was too hard, the graphics were shit and too stupid to bother with (see: the feckless idiots at IGN.)

Aside from it's difficulty, the other thing it's famed for is its sense of humour. Almost nothing is taken seriously, and in an age of generic bald space marines who take everything super serial, that's only a good thing. Its developers, Clover, died after releasing a scant four games, each and every one a burst of colour and life in a brown and grey world.

Today's offering is the closing theme from God Hand. If you've never played it, this is a great example of what to expect. If you have, you'll probably know the words by heart.

Project Antivent - Day Nineteen

If I could say any single game changed my life, it would be Secret of Mana. This was the game that kickstarted my love of RPGs in general, and probably the single best game on the SNES for my money. I still remember the day I got it, taking it home, switching it on and hearing this, the opening theme. At the time, aged 13, it was the most amazing piece of music I had ever heard in my life. Now... even now, it's still a front-runner.

Honestly, I don't have the words. See for yourself.

Project Antivent - Day Eighteen

The Dark Spire was a DS game released this year aimed almost solely at the old school market. And by 'old school' I mean 'so old, they refer to single-celled lifeforms as newbies'. Probably the most harder-than-hardcore dungeon crawler I've played since Nethack, The Dark Spire, unsurprisingly, failed to catch on almost anywhere. Which is a shame, since it has an absolutely fantastic soundtrack that demands a wider audience. That the game itself is fun (if obtuse as all hell) is a bonus, really. This is the more sedate Shop theme, a counterpoint of sorts to the standard battle theme, and probably the single most relaxing piece of music in this list.

Project Antivent - Day Seventeen

Doing things slightly different again today. The Protomen are a Canadian group currently working on a three-part rock opera based on... Megaman. The first part, Hope Rides Alone came out in 2005, with the second, The Father Of Death following this year. You'd think it'd be difficult to adapt the story of the original Megaman games, what with them being so complex and sprawling, and damn near impossible to make it worth listening to on its own merits, but in my opinion, they've succeeded admirably.

This is the title track and opening song off their first album, chronicling the rise and fall of 'the first son of Doctor Light': Protoman. Trust me on this one: it just gets better from here.

Project Antivent - Day Sixteen

I'm one of those weird folks who plays old games as often as they play new ones. You've probably heard of us. Maybe even crossed the street to avoid us. Castlevania 4 (A.K.A. Super Castlevania) is one I get regular mileage out of, arguably the best of the classic Castlevanias (and in my opinion, one of the best in the series, even if you include the Metroidvania games). Today's track is the game's update of Simon's Theme, a mainstay of the early games. It's hard to see it now, but its 16-bit upgrade was a major deal back then, offering the programmers an opportunity to push their soundtracks to heights they hadn't been able to reach til then. Coincidentally enough, that was also the point game soundtracks started to be regularly released on CD. Funny that.

Project Antivent - Day Fifteen

Okay, not strictly in keeping with the theme of these videos, but it's my list so shut up.

Everyone has at least one song on Guitar Hero or Rock Band that they like to play simply to show off: that one song that you can 100% with ease. This one would be mine.

(I do vocals in case you're wondering)

This video doesn't involve me, before anyone asks, but it's surprisingly hard to find decent quality vids of this song which are also worth watching, so much kudos to the folks involved.

Project Antivent - Day Fourteen

Bionic Commando: Rearmed was really more of an extended advert for the reboot game that came a few months after its release. However, irony of ironies, it not only proved to be more popular than its big brother, it was also a hell of a lot more fun. A remake of the 2D classic, it was a real labour of love, from the references to the original, to the music, which was largely updates of music from the earlier version. There's very little on the soundtrack that isn't worth listening to, but this, the theme to the last couple of stages, sits head and shoulders above the rest.

Project Antivent - Day Thirteen

Earthbound has a reputation that precedes it by several light years or more. It's funny, it's subversive, it's creepy and twisted in a way that you can't quite pin down. If you know anything about the game at all, it'll no doubt be about how the final boss, Giygas, is the very personification of mind rape. Literally, since it was based on a traumatic experience the writer/director had as a young boy when he walked into the wrong cinema.

Today's track, as you've probably guessed, is the final boss theme from the game, and it's... well, it's probably a little different from what you'd expect from such a game. Then again, Earthbound's a little different from what you'd expect for an RPG, let alone a SNES game.




What's that you say? Still not traumatized enough? Made of sterner stuff than that, huh? Well then. Look upon the true face of madness, and know suffering, mortal! You cannot comprehend the true form of... Ronald McDonald?!

Project Antivent - Day Twelve

Something a little different today. Bands covering game music are nothing new anymore, let's be honest. It's getting to be a played out formula: grab some random game from the NES (because it's always the NES, no one ever had a Master System back then), throw in some guitars and let nostalgia take care of the rest. Simple.

Okay, that's perhaps a little too cynical, but there's very few bands who actually bother to do anything more than a straight cover. In Japan, they cheerfully fold, spindle and mutilate the originals til they bear only a passing resemblance to their parents. Over here in the West... not so much. The Adventures of Duane and BrandO, however, were something of an exception. If you know anything about them, it'll probably be their version of the various Mega Man 2 tracks. Rather than the typical cover shenanigans we're used to, they would rap over the music, telling the story of the game they were covering in a roundabout sort of way. I use the past tense, because they split messily earlier this year. They're both continuing to do their own thing but it's pretty much agreed that it just won't be the same.

This here's their version of Duck Hunt. And yes, the dog gets it. You're welcome.

Project Antivent - Day Eleven

I know I give Final Fantasy a hard time: the games, the endless remakes, the character designs in recent years, the fact that Square Enix are physically incapable of going more than 3 months without releasing or announcing a new game in the series, it's all fair game as far as I'm concerned. It used to be that a new Final Fantasy game was an Event, something to get excited over. Now, you'd be as well getting excited over it being Tuesday.

That said, the one department Square has never once dropped the ball in, is the music. Say what you will about the legions of androgynous girlymen, When it comes to the music, Square has never once lost its teeth. Crisis Core, while exemplifying many of the problems I have with current-day Square Enix, also had a solid OST, featuring a mix of redone themes from FFVII and Advent Children, as well as a variety of original work. This track, The Summoned, is a redux of the classic FFVII boss theme, arguably as it should always have been. If this doesn't get the blood fired up, nothing will.

Project Antivent - Day Ten

Rez is another game I reviewed this year, which proved itself to be more than the sum of its samples. While the in-game music basically consists of various samples that are eventually combined to make the full song, the alum, Gamer's Guide To, takes all the samples and mixes them properly to create a fully-finished song. It's different from what you get in-game, but no less listenable for it.

This time around, we've got the first stage music, Buggie Running Beeps. As I said back then, even if you don't dig dance music, give it a shot, it's still fantastic stuff.

Project Antivent - Day Nine

No More Heroes was very much like Devil May Cry 3 in that a lot of the soundtrack was variations or remixes of a central theme. Here, however, it was taken a step further, where it seems like virtually every track in the game features the same central section, heard here at the 'chorus'. The soundtrack was composed by Masafumi Takada, who's best known for his work with Suda51 on killer7, and while it arguably lacks the variation of the previous game, due to the insistence of adhering to the same themes, that doesn't make it any less listenable.

Again, we avoid going for the obvious shot, everyone and their grandmother having heard Pleather For Breakfast a billion times by now. Instead, we bring Ten Tons of Titanium to the table. And no, it's not just you, yes, it does sound familiar, and yes, it is deliberate.

Project Antivent - Day Eight

System Shock 2 was one of those games no one really liked until everyone decided they did. Upon its original release, it received rave reviews, then promptly sunk without a trace. Then Bioshock came out, was a big hit and everyone decided to see what they'd been missing in the meanwhile (and promptly questioned why Bioshock wasn't as detailed or in-depth as its ancestor). Still, better late than never, unless you're a former member of developers Looking Glass Studios who, sadly, folded soon after.

Despite being, essentially, a survival horror game, albeit one played from a first-person perspective, Looking Glass decided not to go for the standard 'soundtrack made of creepy noises' approach, and instead went with something a little different. The OST consists primarily of a mix of dance, drum and bass and electronica, and this difference makes it stand out in a field of me-toos in the wake of Silent Hill, a game that showed everyone how grinding metal and chugging noises should be done - lessons that pretty much everyone ignored or didn't quite get thereafter. Ops 2 is a great example of this approach - in game it accentuates the feelings of loneliness and isolation you'll experience. Out of the game, it becomes a stand-out track from a stand-out OST.

Project Antivent - Day Seven

Something a little different now, since this list isn't all loud and angry combat themes (just most of it). Hometown is the ending theme from Silent Hill 3. It's basically a re-imagining of the opening theme from the original Silent Hill as sung by Joe Romsera. I could've gone the easy route and thrown up You're Not Here, or any one of a thousand pieces of music from SH2, but that would've been obvious, and in case it's escaped yout attention, obvious is not how we do things around here! In any case, I found Hometown hideously cheesy at first, and frankly, still do. But it's grown on me over the years, and even though I cheerfully take the piss out of it while singing along, its still one of my favourite songs from the game, and the series as a whole.

Moon

93 minutes

Winner of the 2009 award for Best Use of Chesney Hawkes in a Movie


I've said before that some of the best films, games, whatever, are the ones that come out of nowhere. The ones that have no real hype or build-up about them. Unsurprisingly, I've always had a fondness for them, since, as we all know, I'm one of those freaks who likes to (and occasionally has to) wander off the beaten track for his entertainment. I hadn't actually heard of this film until I read a glowing review of it in Bizarre (still the only major review of the movie I've personally encountered), and while the magazine's gone downhill of late, it's entertainment reviews are still usually on the money, so I decided to check it out for myself.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, a miner on the far side of the moon. Sam lives and works alone with GERTY, a robot programmed to observe him and keep an eye on his general well-being. Sam starts having weird lapses, seeing things on monitors, having visions of other people. While out investigating a problem with one of the mining harvesters, he suffers a crash. He awakens some time later back on the base, but is under strict instructions not to leave again. Faking a malfunction in the base, he manages to escape anyway and returns back to the site of the crash. His old lunar rover is still there. More to the point, so is he.

At first, you'd be forgiven for expecting a movie in the vein of Fight Club or The Machinist. You begin thinking it's going to be the tale of a space miner dealing with cabin fever or something like that, before pulling a bait and switch with the second Sam. It's a sneaky move that keeps you guessing past your original conceptions of what the movie is going to be about. To talk any more about the plot would be giving the game away completely, but trust me on this, it's a good one.

Similarly, Sam Rockwell is nothing short of amazing here. Yes, the film is basically Sam Rockwell talking to himself for an hour and a half, but if he wasn't any good, the film wouldn't be anywhere near worth watching. The two Sams manage to have differing personalities, despite being fundamentally the same person. By the same token, Kevin Spacey manages to be weirdly sympathetic as GERTY, despite never raising his voice above a monotone.

Moon is a hard film to talk about, hence this spartan (for me, at least) review. That's mainly because discussing the really stand-out parts, or anything beyond the basic premise, for that matter, means spoiling it, and trust me, this is not a film you want spoiled for you. The other problem with movies like this is that they tend to be slow and ponderous, outstaying their welcome by a good 40 minutes in an attempt at making some vague statement about the nature of humanity. At a mere 90 minutes, however, this is a film that comes in, says its peace, then leaves without incident, and that's probably its greatest strength. It's exactly the right length, and no more, and doesn't try and milk all the emotion it can out of things. And probably for that single reason alone, it stands head and shoulders above all others in its class. Definitely keep an eye out for this film if you get the chance

Project Antivent - Day six

If you remember the worryingly glowing review of Prototype I did back in June, you'll recall me gushing over the tutorial stage, of all things. Set right at the end of the game, it gave you an opportunity to dick around with some of the powers you'd later get to play around with right off the bat as the world goes to hell around you. I described it as one of the best intros I'd ever played, and the music that accompanied your carnage added immensely to the overall feeling that this, as I said back then, was Armageddon in hi-def.

Six months on, and my feelings haven't changed a bit. This is still one of the best games of 2009 and this track, Memory In Death, is one of the best pieces of music in the game. If you still haven't played this yet, rectify that ASAP.

Project Antivent - Day Five

Time for something a wee bit older now. To anyone raised in the 16-bit era, the name Yuzo Koshiro is one that will likely cause a twang of nostalgia, the man being responsible for some of the best soundtracks on the Megadrive (or 'Genesis' if you prefer) and the SNES. Streets of Rage is probably his best known work, and while the second game is usually seen as the best of the series, I'll always prefer the original above all. For my money, the soundtrack to this one represents some of his finest work, and the boss theme, Attack of the Barbarian, stands head and shoulders above them all.

Project Antivent - Day Four

If truth be told, I could probably fill this entire list with the various remixes of Devils Never Cry from the DMC3 soundtrack – there's enough of them after all, and they're all pretty damn excellent. I decided to go for the Motion Capture Demo version, however, simply because there's something worth watching along with it. As you can probably guess, this features footage of the motion capture taken for the game, and it's well worth a look. Watching the acrobatics involved - much of it done by the game's voice cast, no less - is simply fascinating.

That the song's a great take on the main theme is only a bonus.

Project Antivent - Day Three

One of the challenges I set myself for this list was to limit myself to one piece of music from each game series – one piece of music from, say, Final Fantasy, one from Silent Hill and so on – to ensure a good mix of things. Otherwise I would probably wind up clogging the list up with music from the Shin Megami Tensei series and The World Ends With You and just call it a day. So, representing the entire MegaTen series is Hunting – Comrades from Digital Devil Saga. One of the best pieces of music in a game filled with them, DDS 1&2 have probably the best overall soundtracks in a series renown for its outstanding music. Shouji Meguro, you outdid yourself with this one.

Project Antivent - Day Two

Day two, and this time we have the main battle theme from Shadow Hearts: From The New World. The third game in the Shadow Hearts series has taken a lot of stick for being more slapstick and outright dumb compared to it's previous two incarnations. And, in fairness, they're absolutely right. But one thing that's harder to deny is the quality of its soundtrack, exemplified by Dead Fingers Talk, the main battle theme for the game. Say what you will about the rest of the game, but I will not hear a bad word said against this track.

Project Antivent - Day One

The Christmas season has just officially started (if you ignore the two or three month lead-up to it) and chances are, you're already sick of the deluge of carols and songs committing aggravated assault on your eardrums. Well, wouldn't you know it, I've got just the remedy for you! Probably.

Yes, from now until Xmas Day, we here at Overclocked on Caffeine are going to be listing an alternative to the usual crap piped endlessly, in the form of 25 of the best tracks from various games. Sort of a combination advent calender/antidote (hence: Antivent - s'good, innit?) to the Xmas Virus, but with a little extra at the end for those dumb brave enough to follow me all the way to the end.

We get off to a storming start with METHOD_REPLEKIA/ from the criminally unknown and under-appreciated Ar Tonelico 2. The game features characters who use songs to trigger and power their magic attacks, and the track in question is played whenever one of the main characters triggers their most powerful special attack. If ever a song stated clearly and explicitly “You are fucked” then it kicks in, it would be this one. And if that's not un-Chistmassy, I don't know what is.

Play it loud, folks!