Katawa Shoujo Forums

Anything that usually includes small ensembles, KS Did not include massive Orchestral Pieces and generally stuck to Piano Solos and Im not sure the largest amount of instruments you could find, More than likely doesnt exceed Sextet

Wander wrote:Not to insult the game, cause I really like it (I have played two arcs now), but I found the music to be one of the weakest qualities and hence I opted to listen to my own music while playing. Listening to Anathema's new album matched it so well, it's ridiculous.

To be quite honest, I think if you played Katawa Shoujo without listening to the music, you missed out on a gigantic part of the overall experience. Not only is KS's soundtrack amazing in its own right, but simply having any consistent soundtrack is a crucial experiential component for a game such as KS that places such a high value on immersiveness. And, if that wasn't bad enough, by ignoring the music throughout the entire game, you've squandered the opportunity to attach the correct emotional memories to that music, so it's likely that you will never be able to appreciate KS's soundtrack as fully as you should.

Let me break this down: in my experience, people barely ever like music because it is actually good. And by "good" I mean, good in some objective sense. Say, the instrumental work is really difficult, the lyrics are exceptionally poetic, the form and chord progression are both innovative and widely appealing, something like that. This is not to say that people are unable to understand the objective qualities of a piece of music. Some people do so more than others, and everyone does to some degree, but it doesn't seem to be the major determining factor for most people's tastes. Instead, people tend to listen to, and like, music that they are comfortable with, and music that they subconsciously associate with positive memories or emotions. If you first hear a song when you're in a bad mood - bored, annoyed, depressed, etc. - you have a much lower chance of liking it than if you are, say, riding in a car with friends who are singing along to the song. In the latter case, the powerful human need for social acceptance puts you in a receptive and positive mood, and that mood is ingrained in your memory as an association with the song that was playing while you felt it. When you hear the song again later, or even just reflect on how much you like the song, your mind recalls that positive experience and associates the memory of it with the song, causing you to like it more. Of course, it's not a simple consideration; for the effect to work optimally, the song would still have to pass whatever objective standards you hold, be a genre you're predisposed towards liking (although, your liking of certain genres of music has a lot to do with this effect as well), have musical characteristics that match the type of mood that is being reinforced (for example, a slow sad song would not match well with the mood of singing with your friends in your car), etc. But the memories you subconsciously associate with a song definitely play a large roll in how much you end up liking it, especially over time, because the more times you hear a song, the more opportunities you have for it to be impressed on your mind.

Why does any of this matter? Well, Katawa Shoujo is, above all else, an experience. For a large variety of reasons, KS does a better job at making me connect to, care about, and believe in a fictional story than any other video game I've played, book I've read, or movie I've watched. And based on many of the comments I've read in this forum, this is an opinion that is not unique to myself. KS tends to touch people in a surprisingly profound way. That being said, and combining it with the philosophy expressed in the previous paragraph, it makes sense that any music that you happen to listen while playing Katawa Shoujo will be subconsciously linked to the emotions you feel in the course of the experience. And since it is a powerfully emotional game, the connections generated through the music will be similarly powerful.

You might say "Well, that's not a problem: I said I listened to some other music I like while playing Katawa Shoujo, so if the effect works on any music, I have simply supplanted KS's soundtrack with one of my own choosing." Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work that way. The KS soundtrack is intentionally designed to match the action, setting, subtext, emotion, and meaning of every scene and subscene in the game. Since the music always matches the gameplay, every individual song's appeal is reinforced much more consistently than your own supplied music would be, because each song only plays during situations with a specific contextual profile. To put it simply, you're always feeling the same thing during each individual song, so that specific "feel" becomes associated with the song much more strongly.

In addition to this, once you become familiar with the music in the game, it becomes a part of the story-telling process. I probably know more about how much effort the creators put into the careful selection of the soundtrack than anyone (aside from the creators themselves), so believe me when I say, if you pay very close attention to the music selection throughout the game, it can actually do quite a lot to help you understand the story itself. There are times when the music in a scene will foreshadow future plot points, where it will reveal Hisao's emotions as he reflects on various situations, where it will subtly guide your expected internal response to a conversation being held... This cannot be better exemplified than by the following (Huge Lilly spoiler!): the final climax of Lilly's route - literally, the singular moment in which the entire essence of the story shifts from the deepest despair to the most joyous relief - is first experienced via a musical cue. Even if KS's soundtrack were awful (which it is not, by any means), I would still vehemently recommend that you not ignore it, because it plays an integral role in the overall experience of the game.

TL;DR: If you play Katawa Shoujo while listening to its soundtrack, you will both understand and experience the game more fully, and you will come to appreciate and legitimately like the soundtrack itself. Playing the game without the soundtrack is foolhardy. KS's soundtrack is, perhaps, one of its strongest qualities, not its weakest by any means.

I equally Agree, the simple yet brilliantly devised soundtrack really does help you understand the game.

Hopefully, 4LS Will make another game as brilliant as this one, but I also do not want to see this happen at the same time, the emotions this game brought out were irritating, but also were equally important and useful.

Mirrormn wrote:

Wander wrote:Not to insult the game, cause I really like it (I have played two arcs now), but I found the music to be one of the weakest qualities and hence I opted to listen to my own music while playing. Listening to Anathema's new album matched it so well, it's ridiculous.

To be quite honest, I think if you played Katawa Shoujo without listening to the music, you missed out on a gigantic part of the overall experience. Not only is KS's soundtrack amazing in its own right, but simply having any consistent soundtrack is a crucial experiential component for a game such as KS that places such a high value on immersiveness. And, if that wasn't bad enough, by ignoring the music throughout the entire game, you've squandered the opportunity to attach the correct emotional memories to that music, so it's likely that you will never be able to appreciate KS's soundtrack as fully as you should.

Let me break this down: in my experience, people barely ever like music because it is actually good. And by "good" I mean, good in some objective sense. Say, the instrumental work is really difficult, the lyrics are exceptionally poetic, the form and chord progression are both innovative and widely appealing, something like that. This is not to say that people are unable to understand the objective qualities of a piece of music. Some people do so more than others, and everyone does to some degree, but it doesn't seem to be the major determining factor for most people's tastes. Instead, people tend to listen to, and like, music that they are comfortable with, and music that they subconsciously associate with positive memories or emotions. If you first hear a song when you're in a bad mood - bored, annoyed, depressed, etc. - you have a much lower chance of liking it than if you are, say, riding in a car with friends who are singing along to the song. In the latter case, the powerful human need for social acceptance puts you in a receptive and positive mood, and that mood is ingrained in your memory as an association with the song that was playing while you felt it. When you hear the song again later, or even just reflect on how much you like the song, your mind recalls that positive experience and associates the memory of it with the song, causing you to like it more. Of course, it's not a simple consideration; for the effect to work optimally, the song would still have to pass whatever objective standards you hold, be a genre you're predisposed towards liking (although, your liking of certain genres of music has a lot to do with this effect as well), have musical characteristics that match the type of mood that is being reinforced (for example, a slow sad song would not match well with the mood of singing with your friends in your car), etc. But the memories you subconsciously associate with a song definitely play a large roll in how much you end up liking it, especially over time, because the more times you hear a song, the more opportunities you have for it to be impressed on your mind.

Why does any of this matter? Well, Katawa Shoujo is, above all else, an experience. For a large variety of reasons, KS does a better job at making me connect to, care about, and believe in a fictional story than any other video game I've played, book I've read, or movie I've watched. And based on many of the comments I've read in this forum, this is an opinion that is not unique to myself. KS tends to touch people in a surprisingly profound way. That being said, and combining it with the philosophy expressed in the previous paragraph, it makes sense that any music that you happen to listen while playing Katawa Shoujo will be subconsciously linked to the emotions you feel in the course of the experience. And since it is a powerfully emotional game, the connections generated through the music will be similarly powerful.

You might say "Well, that's not a problem: I said I listened to some other music I like while playing Katawa Shoujo, so if the effect works on any music, I have simply supplanted KS's soundtrack with one of my own choosing." Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work that way. The KS soundtrack is intentionally designed to match the action, setting, subtext, emotion, and meaning of every scene and subscene in the game. Since the music always matches the gameplay, every individual song's appeal is reinforced much more consistently than your own supplied music would be, because each song only plays during situations with a specific contextual profile. To put it simply, you're always feeling the same thing during each individual song, so that specific "feel" becomes associated with the song much more strongly.

In addition to this, once you become familiar with the music in the game, it becomes a part of the story-telling process. I probably know more about how much effort the creators put into the careful selection of the soundtrack than anyone (aside from the creators themselves), so believe me when I say, if you pay very close attention to the music selection throughout the game, it can actually do quite a lot to help you understand the story itself. There are times when the music in a scene will foreshadow future plot points, where it will reveal Hisao's emotions as he reflects on various situations, where it will subtly guide your expected internal response to a conversation being held... This cannot be better exemplified than by the following (Huge Lilly spoiler!): the final climax of Lilly's route - literally, the singular moment in which the entire essence of the story shifts from the deepest despair to the most joyous relief - is first experienced via a musical cue. Even if KS's soundtrack were awful (which it is not, by any means), I would still vehemently recommend that you not ignore it, because it plays an integral role in the overall experience of the game.

TL;DR: If you play Katawa Shoujo while listening to its soundtrack, you will both understand and experience the game more fully, and you will come to appreciate and legitimately like the soundtrack itself. Playing the game without the soundtrack is foolhardy. KS's soundtrack is, perhaps, one of its strongest qualities, not its weakest by any means.

I get what you're saying and disagree.

I know how the soundtrack of the game works; I have played large portions of it with the music on. While the compositions work in that they accentuate the difference between the cheerful and serious/dark parts etc. -´(meaning that it does its job) it's not fundamental to the experience. Not to mention that everything is performed with horrid midi sounds.

I guess I didn't find the soundtrack dynamic enough, which irritated me to an extent. Changes from song to an another are often awkward and clumsy. And an appropriate track is NOT always playing with each scene.For example, when going after Lilly near the end, there's NO tension in the music. Instead, we just get more peaceful piano pieces. WTF? I promise you that this part was a better experience with my own music playing, because I friggin set the right track on repeat myself. Also, sometimes the loops are not particularly interesting to listen to, especially in the neutral scenes (hence, I would switch to a new album I was listening, which in this happened to be the new Anathema album). I KNOW that it was not designed for this game and as a result it will go against the mood the scene is trying to set at times. But seriously, it worked so well, there was often no going back to the game music for me. Besides, there is no right or wrong way to experience art. If you want to listen to death metal while playing it, go ahead. That too will probably work for someone.

This might be hard to understand, but as the game went to the crucial Lilly parts, I had got familiar with the album I was listening to (and it truly is excellent, and I will go ahead to admit that playing it while playing/reading Katawa Shoujo, made me appreciate it even more) and the lyrics of certain songs became really meaningful to me with the story. And with Anathema being the sort of band that pours their soul into everything they record, there is simply no comparison. The music I was listening to was fantastic, the lyrics were incredibly appropriate. I often felt like they could have been written specifically for this friggin game:



"Why I should feel this way
Why I should feel this way
Why I should feel the same
There is something I cannot say
There is something I cannot say
There is something I cannot explain

I feel you outside
at the edge of my life
I see you walk by
at the edge of my side

Why I should follow my heart
Why I should follow my heart
Why I should fall apart
Why I should follow my dreams
Why I should follow my dreams
Why I should be at peace

...

I had to let you go to the setting sun
I had to let you go to find your way back home
I had to let you go to the setting sun
I had to let you go to find a way back home"


Or this piece:

Holy shit, was so good with certain parts of the game. In fact, the whole album was. And as it encompasses all the feelings from different shades of dark to bright and positive, it was just awesome. And I just love 6 mins onward in this track.


On an another point; I take my music listening extremely seriously. I am what you might call a "music nerd". I listen to several new albums each month, sometimes I write a review. I don't listen to music with people. I do not usually attach particular memories to music. Rather, different songs might remind me of a certain general period in my life. But I will now probably always have some connection to this game when I listen to this particular album. The actual music of the game doesn't mean much to me, but I don't mind that. I don't see why you should.

Now, if you don't get where I am coming from, I don't know if I can stress my point any further. To sum it up, I feel the game soundtrack does its job satisfyingly enough, but there was nothing grabbing or particularly memorable about it to me. In fact, having recently played the indie game "To The Moon", my expectations on the soundtrack department were probably too high for this game, cause the music here is not, in my opinion, as good, and I think I can say that with absolute certainty, cause playing that game, I never got the urge to play some other music on top of it instead. Easy conclusions.

Once again, I don't wish to offend, although I suppose I sure would be offended if I had been responsible for the music and read this. I just feel that maybe there was potential for something more, but if so many people are happy with it, that's cool. I just experienced the game better my way.

E: I have been up for more than 24 hours, so I can only hope that I am able to make some sense here anyway. Cheers.

I don't know why but the horror movie Haloween theme reminds me of it, I have no idea why.

I'm very surprised no-one's done this joke yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0kMLzrqf7g&ob=av2n

If it's been done, I apologise. If not, trololololo.

On an another point; I take my music listening extremely seriously. I am what you might call a "music nerd". I listen to several new albums each month, sometimes I write a review. I don't listen to music with people. I do not usually attach particular memories to music. Rather, different songs might remind me of a certain general period in my life. But I will now probably always have some connection to this game when I listen to this particular album. The actual music of the game doesn't mean much to me, but I don't mind that. I don't see why you should.

I disagree, A music nerd has to PLAY music, a lot.

Lots of people take their listening seriously, that does not make them a Nerd.

Oh yeah, I do play drums and guitar. I didn't know that was relevant...

Wander wrote:Oh yeah, I do play drums and guitar. I didn't know that was relevant...

Well, I'm Glad I cleared things up XD.

But, on a serious note, Trap Set and Guitar counts more if you can read music, for Guitar, Chords are everything

SplendidClaw wrote:Heartful Cry- Persona 3



Translation: The FEELS song for every Persona fan lol.

EDIT: Wait scratch that, Heaven from Persona 4 might have SLIGHTLY more feels.

Fact: I beat the Heaven stage in one day out of sheer determination not to leave Nanako alone. That freakin' fox had so much of my money by the end...

Alexbond45 wrote:

Wander wrote:Oh yeah, I do play drums and guitar. I didn't know that was relevant...

Well, I'm Glad I cleared things up XD.

But, on a serious note, Trap Set and Guitar counts more if you can read music, for Guitar, Chords are everything

Yes, I will admit that I'm not a particularly learned guitar player, cause when I was younger, it was my brother who played guitar in all the bands and I was just the drummer. He, and a friend, who is an excellent keyboard player, were the one's who wrote songs and stuff, knew more stuff about theory and whatnot, while the drummer (me!) just banged away I've been playing my acoustic guitar more regularly since I moved on my own and I guess I know my chords, uh, to some extent at least. But this is getting seriously off-topic.

Hisao's theme song:

During/After playing through Hanako's good ending, this song was playing in my head.

"By Starlight" - Smashing Pumpkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cNPp0cB82E

Tilting Clock wrote:

SplendidClaw wrote:Heartful Cry- Persona 3



Translation: The FEELS song for every Persona fan lol.

EDIT: Wait scratch that, Heaven from Persona 4 might have SLIGHTLY more feels.

Fact: I beat the Heaven stage in one day out of sheer determination not to leave Nanako alone. That freakin' fox had so much of my money by the end...

Haha, yeah I remember doing something similar

"IT'S OKAY NANAKO, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SAD ANYMORE. BIG BROTHER IS COMING TO SAVE YYYYOOOOOOUUUU!"



Oh, and this song was in my head for the the day that I was depressed after completely beating KS:
Memories of the City- Persona 3



...damn, I'm getting choked up just thinking about KS while listening to this song.

Tell me what you think of.

It was a particular favorite of my dad's. I always think of him when I play it.