Over at Higher Plain Games, I’ve just finished uploading a walkthrough of the fantastic Parappa the Rapper 2 for PlayStation 2. All the songs are there from the main story mode plus Sunny Funny’s music video. Enjoy! All music by Masaya Matsuura & Yoshihisa Suzuki.
Posts Tagged ‘Masaya Matsuura’
Masaya Matsuura: Um Jammer Lammy Walkthrough
Sister site Higher Plain Games has almost finished uploading its complete walk through of Um Jammer Lammy, a music game for the Sony PlayStation (1) made and composed by Masaya Matsuura. The playlist can be found here showing the main game with Lammy and the bonus play through of Parappa and Rammy. His previous game Parappa The Rapper can also be found with a complete walk through playlist here.
HPM Podcast #1
Welcome to the first ever Higher Plain Music podcast! This focuses entirely on video game music and talks about the soundtracks reviewed this month and has special features on Final Fantasy X songstress Rikki & Final Fantasy CC siren Yae – featuring clips from their own albums works.
This is very much a work in progress test and for the future I’d like to include interviews and guests to come along and have a chat with me. It’s going to be very open to whoever wants to come along and talk. If you want to come join in the fun, just give me a post on here, on twitter (Sitorimon) or via email!
Please leave your comments (and the answers to the 3 name the song clips) so it can improve for the next edition!
Pj & Parappa (Masaya Matsuura – I Scream
Parappa The Rapper is already established as an icon for the rhythm action genre of the gaming industry. It was this game that really woke the world outside Japan to the rhythm games. Parappa and the sequels “Um Jammer Lammy” band “Milkcan” team up for a completely new album, well 6 tracks at least. Before I go any further, I must tell you a few things about the album.
Firstly, “I Scream” is hip-hop music and if that doesn’t appeal to you (as it does not to me), then you may be at a disadvantage. The same can also be said if you don’t like rhythm games either.
Secondly, the album takes some of the main songs from Um Jammer Lammy and then rearranges them for Parappa The Rapper – which is cheating in a sense, but at least if you’ve played the game it’ll be warmly familiar to you.
Thirdly, the whole album is full of childish moral banter, using the “cool” Parappa to give the listeners (aimed at the Secondary school range) messages such as “don’t do drugs”. You can either scoff at the attempts, or appreciate what has been done. Also, the lyrics, if you have an adult mind, can prove rather humorous too. Bearing that in mind, read on.
The album opener is called “All We Need Is Music”, which is supposedly sung by Katy Kat, with the main rapping by Parappa. Immediately, you’ll be greeted with happy, funk guitar riffs, and you’ll notice exactly what I said about the lyrics, especially the closing line “Keep my head high, never do drugs, never tell lies and check to make sure I zipped up my fly!” The song is catchy and harmless and sets the scene for the rest to come.
“The New Plan” starts off badly, plugging the PlayStation, but once it gets going, the catchy song manages to grab you by the shoulders and shakes you around, despite Parappa’s poor singing. If you’re into the song, you won’t notice, but if you’re not into the songs at all, it will grate.
“Life Is Like A Sky” is my personal favourite. Its extremely catchy, has some of the best lines, and the best “singing” that Parappa does on the album. “Chop! Chop!” could have been a perfect song along with “Life Is Like A Sky”, but for a bizarre beat problem in the chorus, which tries to spoil everything the song builds up as much as possible. It’s a dreadful shame.
“Why?” is either the worst or the best song on the album, depending on the stance you stand from. It’s a dreadful song, that’s almost laughable. Parappa does his best to sing out of tune too. What makes it so good though, is the lyrics. The song asks lots of questions, but as soon as it stops rhyming, it says something that innocently questions the ways of the world in a simple and very effective manner. You’d only wish that Parappa could sing though. “No Cuttin’ Corners!” is the closing track, which is much like the opening track. Its extremely happy and gives every moral under the sun and rounds off the album nicely.
“I Scream” is extremely hard to rate. You’ll love it, hate it, or appreciate what has tried to do but steer clear none-the-less. Fans of the series should snap it up straight away but everyone else should proceed with extreme caution.
Masaya Matsuura – PJ & Parappa I Scream Review
Parappa The Rapper is already established as an icon for the rhythm action genre of the gaming industry. It was this game that really woke the world outside Japan to rhythm action games. Parappa and the sequels “Um Jammer Lammy” band “Milkcan” team up for a completely new album, well 6 tracks at least. Before I go any further, I must tell you a few things about the album.
Firstly, “I Scream” is hip-hop music and if that doesn’t appeal to you (as it does not to me), then you may be at a disadvantage. The same can also be said if you don’t like rhythm games either(or cheesy lyrics – or silly sounds – or…).
Secondly, the album takes some of the main songs from Um Jammer Lammy and then rearranges them for Parappa The Rapper – which is cheating in a sense, but at least if you’ve played the game it’ll be warmly familiar to you and with just enough of a twist to give it a little freshness.
Thirdly, the whole album is full of childish moral banter, using the “cool” Parappa to give the listeners (aimed at the Secondary school range) messages such as “don’t do drugs”. You can either scoff at the attempts, or appreciate what has been done. Also, the lyrics, if you have an adult mind, can prove rather humorous too. Bearing that in mind, read on.
The album opener is called “All We Need Is Music”, which is supposedly sung by Katy Kat, with the main rapping by Parappa. Immediately, you’ll be greeted with happy, funk guitar riffs, and you’ll notice exactly what I said about the lyrics, especially the closing line “Keep my head high, never do drugs, never tell lies and check to make sure I zipped up my fly!” The song is catchy and harmless and sets the scene for the rest to come.
“The New Plan” starts off badly, plugging the PlayStation, but once it gets going, the catchy song manages to grab you by the shoulders and shakes you around, despite Parappa’s poor singing. If you’re into the song, you won’t notice, but if you’re not into the songs at all, it will grate.
“Life Is Like A Sky” is my personal favourite. Its extremely catchy, has some of the best lines, and the best “singing” that Parappa does on the album. “Chop! Chop!” could have been a perfect song along with “Life Is Like A Sky”, but for a bizarre beat problem in the chorus, which tries to spoil everything the song builds up as much as possible. It’s jarring at first however several years and many listens later it isn’t so bad.
“Why?” is either the worst or the best song on the album, depending on the stance you stand from. It’s a dreadful song, that’s almost laughable. Parappa does his best to sing out of tune too. What makes it so good though, is the lyrics. The song asks lots of questions, but as soon as it stops rhyming, it says something that innocently questions the ways of the world in a simple and very effective manner. You’d only wish that Parappa could sing though! “No Cuttin’ Corners!” is the closing track, which is much like the opening track. Its extremely happy and gives every moral under the sun and rounds off the album nicely.
“I Scream” is extremely hard to rate. You’ll love it, hate it, or appreciate what has tried to do but steer clear none-the-less. Fans of the series should snap it up straight away but everyone else should proceed with extreme caution.
Masaya Matsuura – “Vib Ripple & Vib Ribbon Soundtrack” Review
Masaya Matsuura is one of the most unique composers in video game music of all time. In fact should his visions have ever been told to a psychiatrist, he’d probably have been locked up a LONG time ago! However thankfully for us, that never happened. Together with “Laugh & Peace” a quite random and seemingly ear dead pair, they created a dual soundtrack “Vib-Ripple & Vib-Ribbon OST”.
The cult games allowed you to pop your own CD’s into your PlayStation (1 or 2)and then play with Vibri to survive your CD collection! However you were also given some songs on the game itself to play with and that’s what appears on this disc of delight.
Of the 32 tracks on this CD, around half are about 10 seconds long giving some random Vibri vocal snippets which are cute, endearing and maybe to butch males, the kind of thing you’ve been dreading for years. However aside from that, there are some extremely original computer generated music.
“Laugh & Peace” provide 6 tracks that sound like a rock band that has been compressed and pushed through a hyperactive anime computer speaker. Each song like “Oops” has catchy chorus’ and verses that are played through at different speeds. Some songs works better than others and only “Do You Know?” has a truly awful section where the song slows down on a vocal note that pierces the ears! Not nice! However the rest of their contribution is simply mental!
Masaya Matsuura however goes one better and tops it with “Vib-Ribbon – How to Play” – a mind bending silly track of blips and bleeps that still makes me laugh years after first hearing it.
Having done all of the Vib-Ripple section himself, Masaya resorts to a circus like cabaret style of just completely throw you off course from anything you’ve really heard at a long length before! I think the closest I’ve heard to the style and feel here is possibly the Hanjuku Hero series.
Sadly all this insanity only clocks in at 39 minutes and 16 seconds, but then the upside means you can’t get too bored or go too insane listening to it. It’s completely unqiue and you’ll either love it or hate it but everyone should at least appreciate sure genius from the music mental house! Bring it on Vibri!
