"The Ice Titan" from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow on the PC, XBox 360, & Playstation 3 (2010)
Composer: Óscar Araujo
Album: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Original Soundtrack, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Ultimate Edition Soundtrack, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Exclusive Director's Cut Soundtrack
Label: Konami Digital Entertainment, and Sumthing Else Music Works
Developer: MercurySteam
The reasoning for using "The Ice Titan" for the first MIDI Week Single of the year is two fold. First, I just finished Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Ultimate Edition two days ago so the music from that annoyingly fun game is still pretty fresh in my mind, and secondly, it's pretty damn cold outside right now, at least for my own standards; it is currently 32° F, 0° C.
I do not feel that talking about the battle with the Ice Titan includes spoilers as the fight is used during the opening demo, so talking a bit about it should not do much harm (I hope).
The music for the Ice Titan is fairly grandiose in scale as it starts off with the strings playing an "Oh shit! I have to fight that!?" But since this is music in a video game that is playing during actual gameplay and not a cut scene, there is very little music-wise that lines up with specific events during the fight. Like, when the choir comes in at 1:08, there is nothing on screen that specifically warrants a full on 24+ member choir, but that doesn't mean that that section of the music is any less powerful or awesome (in the 'full of awe' sense of the word). I did do a bit of sleuthing to find out what is being sung by the choir as, at least to me, it sounds similar to Latin and considering how well the game treats Christianity as a religion and the beliefs associated with it, I feel that what is being sung actually has some purpose in the song rather than "Latin sounding words being sung here" as I am 99% sure I am hearing "domine"; think the Latin that was used during Judge Claud Frollo's "Heaven's Light / Hellfire" song from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Unfortunately what is being sung has not received as much attention as I believe that it deserves.
I also found the lull at about 2:18 to be interesting, possibly to give the audible impression that the fight is either over, or that something far worse than the gigantic Ice Titan is to come for Gabriel. The song stays somewhat subdued for the next 30 seconds, ever so slightly building until at about 2:57 where it becomes so much more victorious and fanfaric compared to the first third of the song.
"The Ice Titan" is, for me, one of the highlights of the entire soundtrack, but the whole soundtrack by Óscar Araujo is amazing not only as a soundtrack or a video game soundtrack, but an amazing Castlevania soundtrack.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Wow, that was really cool. I haven't heard of this game before. I really like how huge the sound is.
ReplyDeleteYou mention how the music doesn't necessarily line up with the action. I like to think sometimes music like this will 'accidentally' line up, and it's always a cool moment.