In a surprising turn of events, I spent nearly as much time this weekend watching others play video games on Twitch as I did myself. I made the ever-elusive social appearance during Later Level’s Great Blog Crawl 2020 on Saturday and had a great time hanging out with others from around our WordPress gaming community. I also spent a fair amount of time watching other fellow blogger/streamers over the weekend play a variety of games. In a NOT-SO-surprising turn of events, I didn’t have a whole lot lined up for blog posts this weekend. It’s been a few months since the last blog post with a random list of gaming(or related) music so, for today’s blog post I have created yet another list of music I’ve been listening to over the past weekend.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla – Out of the North
A new EP titled Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – Out of the North was released the end of last week. Fans of the long-running franchise were excited to see Sarah Schachner – composer of the Assassin’s Creed: Origins soundtrack and the return of Jesper Kyd – composer of the first four games in the AC series. The EP begins with the title track – Out of the North, which starts off very calmly before building to a conclusion. I’m really loving the instrumentation of the songs and the slow, thundering drums as you can almost see Viking longboats rowing across the icy North Atlantic.
Ghost of Tsushima – Jin Sakai
I really like the way the track slowly begins with a flute and stringed instruments(Koto and Biwa) as the drums and bass strings lock into the same rhythm underneath as you can envision samurai warrior Jin Sakai traveling across the fields of pampas grass and bamboo forests of Tsushima. Another selection that stays relatively mid-tempo yet still feels wholly dramatic.
Sonic 2 – Aquatic Ruin Zone
As I’ve been messsing around with doing some streaming on Twitch here and there, I ordered an adapter to converting the signal from composite inputs to an HDMI source to use with the capture card I bought a while back. As part of my experimental process of ironing out some input lag and adjusting audio levels, I popped a copy of Sonic 2 into my old Sega Genesis, still one of my all-time favorites. I love the entire iconic soundtrack, but the level soundtrack that remained in my head throughout the rest of the day was the music from level 3 – Aquatic Ruins.
Banjo-Kazooie – Click Clock Wood
Another game that I started a playthrough over the weekend is Banjo-Kazooie, a game I’ve mentioned….numerous times. I love Grant Kirkhope’s quirky instrumentation in using percussion instruments like marimbas and xylophones. Of course, there’s banjos and even the occasional tuba. One of the later levels in the game, Click Clock Wood is set in a forest and is divided between four separate seasons with the soundtrack reflecting the change in respective seasons. I had actually forgotten about the accompanying soundtrack in Click Clock Wood until I was playing the game and mentioned some of my favorite level soundtracks in the game before seeking it out with warm, fuzzy feelings of nostalgia instantly returning.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask – Astral Observatory(Piano cover)
Another rabbit hole I descended into over the weekend was listening to music from different Zelda games, somewhere along the line I started not only listening to the OSTs, but also came across a number of remixes on YouTube. Here is a calming piano mix of the Astral Observatory theme from Majora’s Mask, one of my favorite pieces of music from any video game. A perfect track for nighttime stargazing.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Lost Woods(Dubstep mix)
I’d be lying if I said that I listened to much of anything with the word ‘Dubstep’ attached to it, but this came up while listening to some different Zelda remixes, and….it’s honestly quite awesome and was pleasantly surprised at how much I like it(blaming you, Solarayo).
That’s all for now, what have you been listening to over the weekend while gaming or just hanging out at home? Let me know and thanks for reading!
Gaming Omnivore 