I do try to keep the “chiptune/everything else” ratio about even in this series, so to balance out the chippy joy of last week we’re going with something a little more medieval fantasy now. Silver sword and steely eyes at the ready, it’s The Witcher.
Whether you think The Witcher is a masterwork of characterisation and storytelling, or a cliché-ridden nest of sexism and mechanical combat (hint: if you don’t think the storytelling is head and shoulders above the overwhelming majority of games you probably aren’t ready for complex things like computers) there is no doubting that the music is superb. Emotional, atmospheric, but never heavy-handed (hello Mass Effect), from the ethereal “Dusk of a Northern Kingdom” to the martial beats and chants of “To Arms”.
Give it a listen:
Pawel Blaszczak has a long history in video game music composition, starting back in the mid nineties. A great fan of the Commodore 64, he created an album inspired by its sound chip to celebrate the machine’s 30th birthday:
Adam Skorupa has an equally long set of video game composer chops, going back to the nineties and the Amiga demoscene. I tracked down some of his early work, an album called Lightflow. It’s not hugely my thing though Synapse is pretty catchy and would totally work as the soundtrack to something cyberpunk:
[OK, so I can’t even do the whole post without putting some chiptune in. Next week will be chiptune free. Maybe.]