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  #1  
Old Oct 10, 2022, 04:12 PM
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Jormungand Jormungand is offline
 
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Default Why is the Chrono Cross battle theme so hated?

(not a reddit post)

I have encountered this so many times, by now it's a meme.

In 1995 Yasunori Mitsuda composed a not-great, rudimentary main battle theme with basically no melody for Chrono Trigger.

A year later the same composer wrote a really great, rhythmically complex (9/8), very melodic battle theme for Radical Dreamers which was then adapted later on for the main battle theme for Chrono Cross.

And yet, it is considered hip to hate on the CC battle theme. What's the deal?
I think it's the violin sample, which explains generally why VGM discourse outside of enthusiast circles is so embarrassingly shallow. Outside of places like vgmdb, VGM is only discussed in terms of "bangers" and "slaps" and "goes hard" etc. It's pretty depressing. I posit that people who hate the RD/CC battle theme cannot, generally, count to nine.
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  #2  
Old Oct 10, 2022, 09:48 PM
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Chris Porter Chris Porter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jormungand View Post
(not a reddit post)

I have encountered this so many times, by now it's a meme.

In 1995 Yasunori Mitsuda composed a not-great, rudimentary main battle theme with basically no melody for Chrono Trigger.

A year later the same composer wrote a really great, rhythmically complex (9/8), very melodic battle theme for Radical Dreamers which was then adapted later on for the main battle theme for Chrono Cross.

And yet, it is considered hip to hate on the CC battle theme. What's the deal?
I think it's the violin sample, which explains generally why VGM discourse outside of enthusiast circles is so embarrassingly shallow. Outside of places like vgmdb, VGM is only discussed in terms of "bangers" and "slaps" and "goes hard" etc. It's pretty depressing. I posit that people who hate the RD/CC battle theme cannot, generally, count to nine.
As Mitsuda says in the liner notes, it has sections in 9/8, 3/4, and 4/4. I've always admired the complexity of the piece, but because the loop is so short (about 47 seconds) it does tend to get a bit repetitive hearing it over and over. Perhaps that's a big reason for people who experienced it in the game every time they got into a battle.
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  #3  
Old Oct 10, 2022, 09:59 PM
zierts zierts is offline
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"Whirlwind" is a real bang... err... I think FF8's "Don't Be Afraid" is similarly hated, maybe slightly less so. Probably because these aren't exactly standard JRPG battle themes. It's not what people have come to expect from games that were released before the 2000s.
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Old Oct 10, 2022, 10:13 PM
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Chris Porter Chris Porter is offline
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Originally Posted by zierts View Post
"Whirlwind" is a real bang... err... I think FF8's "Don't Be Afraid" is similarly hated, maybe slightly less so. Probably because these aren't exactly standard JRPG battle themes. It's not what people have come to expect from games that were released before the 2000s.
I love "Don't Be Afraid"! I didn't know that there were a lot of people who didn't like it.
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  #5  
Old Oct 11, 2022, 04:44 AM
GoldfishX GoldfishX is offline
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To be honest, I've seen so little discussion online in the past decade on what people like/dislike in VGM (including Mitsuda's output), I'm surprised this is actually a thing.

For me personally, improving my audio equipment has resulted in an exponential increase in liking that particular theme. Not being a fan of the game and having the music play through tinny TV speakers (or older PC speakers directly through an old PC sound card) really stacked the deck against it. That said, I still would have gone with Brink of Death as the standard battle theme. Even to this day, that one's a real banger.

(I've NEVER seen anything negative for Don't Be Afraid. That's usually cited as one of the highlights of the soundtrack. IMO, it's aged far better than Man With the Machine Gun and the synth used in it has).
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  #6  
Old Oct 11, 2022, 06:47 AM
zierts zierts is offline
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Originally Posted by Chris Porter View Post
I love "Don't Be Afraid"! I didn't know that there were a lot of people who didn't like it.
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Originally Posted by GoldfishX View Post
(I've NEVER seen anything negative for Don't Be Afraid. That's usually cited as one of the highlights of the soundtrack. IMO, it's aged far better than Man With the Machine Gun and the synth used in it has).
For whatever reason, "Don't Be Afraid" has its fair share of dissenters.

"the battle theme is one of the weakest in the series"
"Are you talking about FF8 or CT? FF8 is the one with the shitty theme."
"The battle theme is total shit IMO and the only bad track in the game"

Granted, these are the only posts I could find right now but that's the gist of the opinions on the track I've come upon over the years.

Personally, I like both. For "Whirlwind", I can only speak from a Radical Dreamers player's perspective. I can see how a more frequent use and a high random encounter rate could make it annoying as a standard battle theme. The "Don't Be Afraid" hate I don't get, though. I especially love Hamaguchi's orchestral arrangement and suspect it's much closer to Uematsu's vision for the track than the synthesized version with the rather limited PSX sound driver. It might help that FF8 was my first 3D FF and that I wasn't used to more standard battle themes such as FF7's or FF10's.
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  #7  
Old Oct 11, 2022, 07:10 AM
SerenissimusDux SerenissimusDux is offline
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It could be the violin sample that presumably people might find somewhat grating but if I had to guess, I would tend towards saying the very opening descending passage and the Hammond Organ* part introduce a touch of the whimsical essentially right from the get go. Which isn't really a quality you could ascribe to the Chrono Trigger battle theme.

That combined with the fairly copious use of Gale in-game (it's been a long time since I played CC but I somewhat recall this to be true) may go some of the way to explainng why it just hasn't been held in as high regard as the rest of the magnificent OST. Just my 2 cents ofc.

*I could well be wrong about what the instrument is called, plz no hate
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  #8  
Old Oct 11, 2022, 10:29 AM
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Psychonotes Psychonotes is offline
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I'll go even further and say I don't know why the Chrono Trigger battle theme is as disliked as it is. I've always loved its mellow vibe, gently grooving bassline, and the color of its instrumentation, which I think fits the game beautifully. I actually slightly prefer it to the CC theme, although I think they're both great.

If I were to guess at reasons the CC theme has never enjoyed the highest appraisal, I'd say first, the lead solo violin does sound a bit shrill. I think you're up against it no matter what when trying to represent solo violin, specifically, in a limited sample, soundchip-based score. It's a soft instrument choice for a battle theme to begin with, and without the energy and sonic variation of a live, or at least richly-sampled, instrument, solo violins tend to sound kind of canned and rinky-dink. I think Mitsuda pulled it off fine, but he was inviting derision from people who have lower tolerance for "gamey" sounds. Which is most people.

More importantly, while the multi-meter structure is really interesting to sink your mind's teeth into during dedicated listening, it can sound confusing and unfocused in the context of in-game battles, where you're not necessarily paying attention to it. I think the kinds of classic battle themes you find players responding most enthusiastically towards are ones with a strong, emphatic beat that are able to communicate dramatic energy on a surface level without demanding any particular scrutiny (regardless of what interesting stuff might also be going on when listened to more closely). When pushed to the background, it's easy to miss where CC's changing downbeat falls, so there's no clear pulse driving the player forward and creating the sort of exciting coalescence of gameplay and music that lingers in the mind.

But anyway, Mitsuda's best battle theme is Battle Level 1 from Tsugunai.
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  #9  
Old Oct 11, 2022, 12:46 PM
Brad Evans II Brad Evans II is offline
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I actually don't mind the main battle theme in Chrono Cross myself. My main complaint about it is it doesn't fade out on the OST, which, yes, I get what they were trying to do there with the fanfare following it - it doesn't really work IMO.

Anyway, I will say I think the normal battle theme does kind of get consumed by the main boss theme "The Brink of Death" which, I'm guessing has been renamed/re-translated because I can't find it listed on the track listing - is it "Peril" now? But yeah, I think the normal boss theme is stronger and it gets more attention.

As for "Battle 1" in Chrono Trigger, I honestly have a love/hate relationship with it. I think it can be catchy, but at the same time it feels a bit underdeveloped. The Mitsuda battle theme I almost always come back to is "Dance of Death" from Xenogears, which I won't act like is some masterpiece as it isn't bulletproof either.

All that said, I seem to remember a meme (or a prevailing opinion) that seemed to take hold for awhile where people said that battle themes weren't exactly Mitsuda's strong suit to begin with, so if that is something that's been said I'm not surprised that the battle theme in Chrono Cross would come under some scrutiny.
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  #10  
Old Oct 12, 2022, 04:06 AM
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TerraEpon TerraEpon is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldfishX View Post
To be honest, I've seen so little discussion online in the past decade on what people like/dislike in VGM (including Mitsuda's output), I'm surprised this is actually a thing. .

Oh it's for sure a thing. A number of topics on Steam forums were about it before the game came out, and there's more than one mod that specifically replaces the battle music and nothing else.
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  #11  
Old Oct 12, 2022, 10:11 PM
zierts zierts is offline
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Yesterday I had "Whirlwind" stuck in my head all day long. I might've even whistled the violin part. Thanks for messing with my head, people.
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