Tuesday, March 22, 2011

My Favorite Video Game Music, #9: The Land Nobody Knew

#9: The Land Nobody Knew
Lufia II



Every RPG includes a Mysterious Ancient Long-Lost Town. The specifics can widely vary: EarthBound offers the goofy Saturn Valley, Final Fantasy VI offers the awkward Thamasa, and Super Mario RPG offers the whimsical Star Hill. Then there's Final Fantasy IV, which offers the damned moon, and Chrono Trigger, which offers all of 12,000 B.C.

But the really memorable ones are the really mysterious ones. The ones that were so mysterious they felt dangerous--and they're set to music that thrills you and makes you nervous. This is a special place. A spiritual place, even.

There are three games that offer really spectacular Mysterious Ancient Long-Lost Towns. Final Fantasy V includes the Town of Mirage, which has been trapped in the Void, lost beyond time, for 1,000 years; its theme music is very haunting and just barely missed the Top 50 cut.

Final Fantasy VII offers the Forgotten City, which we already covered. Epic.

And Lufia II has Narvick, the city that sits on top of the world, the city cut off from the world for thousands of years, where Maxim and the gang are the first mere mortals to set foot for centuries. And unlike the Forgotten City, Narvick is the very last town you reach in the game; from there it's straight to the Fortress of Doom to throw down with Daos and his Sinistrals. And from the moment you set foot in Narvick, this music makes very, very clear that you're a hell of a long way from Kansas. You're messing around with gods now.

Few pieces of music exist that can get your heart pumping just from the overwhelming sensation of importance.

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