MIDI Week Singles: "Sleighing Enemies" - Cthulhu Saves Christmas (NS)

 

"Sleighing Enemies" from Cthulhu Saves Christmas on the Nintendo Switch & PC (2020 & 2019)
Composer: Joshua Queen
Album: Cthulhu Saves Christmas (Official Album)
Label: Bandcamp
Publisher: Zeboyd Games
Developer: Zeboyd Games

As you could probably guess from the title, "Sleighing Enemies" is the music that plays when you enter semi-random encounters from Cthulhu Saves Christmas.  And because this is a JRPG that is aware that it is a JRPG and needing to fight enemies to gain experience points to raise levels to defeat even more difficult enemies is going to be something that you do a lot in this game.  The music that plays when you are in a battle is going to be top tier listenable a lot.  Like, a lot a lot.  The second to last dungeon, having at least 15 random encounters you need to fight in before you can just saunter through the dungeon, and each fight lasting (at least for me) 5-10 minutes meant that I would hear this song for between 75 and 150 minutes in that one dungeon alone.  With the song lasting just under two minutes before it loops (let us just say 2 minutes for sanity's sake) that would be like listening to this song on loop 37.5 to 75 times.  In just that one dungeon alone, but not including the boss fight, which has their own dedicated track.

I bring all of this up because after all of the time spent listening to this one song while playing, I still enjoy listening to it.  This is just good battle music that chugs along, pushing the player forward through the battle and anticipating the next one.  I think my favorite section of the song happens at 1:21 when the guitars drop out and the pianos take over being a slight dip in the energy of the song although the drums are still providing drive, then the guitars come back at 1:38 along with hard-hitting snares (I don't know the term, I played trumpet for 13+ years) and I cannot help but stomp the balls of my feet through the end of the song.

I think my only critique is that at 1:47, there are two notes on the chimes played.  That is it.  Maybe it is because Cthulhu Saves Christmas is a Christmas themed game or because I love the sound of chimes in music, but I would have loved there to have been more chimes used in the battle song.  But again, that is just me.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian