Michael Land's Music
While I really liked the new compositions, I was somewhat disappointed about the lack of real instruments.
C'mon, you've got Michael Land to do the music.... give the man some live players!
C'mon, you've got Michael Land to do the music.... give the man some live players!
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That said, the background music in the beginning was great, as were the opening titles and the first background music of Flotsam
iMUSE is like the greatest thing ever. Man, now after having played three hours and still not finished I'm getting slight Grim Fandango vibes from this one. The kind of feeling that makes you force to take a break and let this last a while longer... Whilst not all the jokes are super funny, I think Telltale did something right on this one, ay?
In general though the new music is brilliant, very natural and movie like, though that could also be a negative point I suppose.
The mark of a good film soundtrack is usually the fact that you never notice it, it's just there, pulling your emotions in the required directions from the background whereas if you think back to the first two games there were lots of very structured melodies that you could hum afterwards.
Curse of Monkey Island had the same feel, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I just miss the little ditties
Since TMI episode 1 takes up 190MB compressed, and the Wii restrictions (I think) say around 40-50MB for a game, I'll assume Telltale is intending to somehow use MIDI for the Wii. And then it becomes a budgetary problem to do a live instrument version as well as a MIDI arrangement. Which is a shame, and which is why the Wii must die.
But again, at least get some proper samples and do a better job at the digital audio for the PC version.
Telltale could probably secure a return on that investment by releasing a CD/iTunes soundtrack. But the current quality of the music recording wouldn't allow for one.
And the music of the game is good, but there is for me a lack of freedom. It feels a lot more like EfMI than Curse, and Curse's soundtrack was an incredible experience... with IMuse AND real intrsuments, that was great !
Just a reminder of CoMI's soundtrack with its incredible feeling
Did they do that for Tales as well or not?
The music i liked the most was the one in the credits.
Consider me reminded. Ohh... What I'd give for music like that in all games.
I remember when I used to play WoW I got a soundtrack mod and put all the CMI tracks to replace WoW ones
Those were the days.
The dock/village is perhaps the best example. It already offered so many variations at the beginning of the game (e.g. jungle drums when you get near the jungle), and then ALL these variations are even available a second time in a darker mood once the disease is spreading.
I also love how the Marquis de Singe got his own villain theme (one variation during the first dialogue, another one during the scene where Guybrush starts to escape, a subtle hint on his theme that is already mixed to the dock theme when you approach his house and a version mixed to the jungle theme).
I also found it quite original how the LeChuck theme has been altered once he became human...
On the other hand, it is a pitty that the music quality has been so strongly compressed (perhaps Telltale will release a few songs as high quality MP3s?) and that there has been no (or almost no) use of live musicians.
Looking forward to the SOMI special edition in that regard. The music in LucasArts' video looked very promising.
But all in all, I'm really happy with the music in Tales. Glad they got Michael Land on board!
However, I thought the new music wasn't bad. As LGH pointed out, he did some good things with the LeChuck theme in the introduction and end puzzles. It still didn't hold a candle to CMI's but that's what happens when you don't use real instruments.
Seriously, it couldn't have been difficult to get in organ players and guitarists and train someone up on basic steel pans. I would have thought the brass sections of W&G and S&M would have been harder to come by. Jared Emerson-Johnson helped out with the voice acting and sound design on TMI so maybe he could collaborate with Michael Land on the score.
I think the biggest problem was that the music was so hard to hear properly, we couldn't distinguish the distinguishable parts to it. I managed to configure my audio settings in the game to remedy this somewhat, but it didn't fully fix it.
Happen to me too. I have even lower the sound effect volume but still keep hearing the annoying wind.
No, it hasn't. The dialogue sequence has a complety different music loop than the chair sequence. Obviously, they are both based on the same theme, and the 2nd one isn't really more dramatic, just different. But I think that's fine, since this is one of the best puzzles and too dramatic music throughout the whole escaping scene coud have been to heavy. But there could have been a more dramatic cut scene music at that point, I agree.
However, I really love the cutscene music when the ship is departing and is being blocked by his hand. And also the cutscene at the very end. Here, themes are really interacting in a fast pace. For example, when Guybrush looks through the spyglass, you hear a tiny bit of the love theme from Monkey Island 1 & 2, followed immediately by the (altered) LeChuck theme once he discovers his arch enemy.
In order to conjure up the "monkey island" feeling, Land did a lot of variations on the older themes, most notably the main theme and the jungle theme, but others as well. Yet although these compositions originally had a very strong melody to them, the playful, hinted-at re-use of the old material washes up a lot of what made these pieces excellent.
The pieces sound improv partially - that was a very strong pro in JEJ's Jazz "Sam&Max"-Soundtrack, but I seem to not like that in ToMI, although improvisation arguably was a strong part of the much-beloved "LeChuck's revenge".
I'll have to replay the game thoroughly before a final verdict; there are scenes with a lot of music potential, and I naturally liked the iMuse-parts. However, I have hopes for more spectacular pieces in future MI episodes. After all, this was just the beginning. I'd consider it a natural move for Land to first draw on old themes to make the game atmosphere recognisable for players and to move on to more new compositions in episodes 2-5.
So, it's a 3.5 out of 5 up to now - much room for improvement, but never-waning hopes for future episodes!
I still hum the tunes I remember from back in MI 1. Including the one for which Guybrush Threepwood introduced himself for the very first time and wanted to be a Mighty Pirate.
It's a flute. If you punch it too much, you end up sounding a little too Jethro Tull.
It's possible to sound too Jethro Tull?