Replacing sound track?

[Father Ribs]

I'm one of those people who hate Hate HATE jrpg style games, and I haven't touched one since the playstation 2 days. "Japanese" style video games in general, with the orchestral "Oh hai, you're playing a jrpg!" give me headaches, literally. I also am not a fan of the sterotypical kitchen sink plots and the over the top trope characters, but I've heard this game is different.

My problem is I wouldn't last five minutes listening to the sound track. I can't even play games like Soul Caliber anymore because of the music. Before I consider purchasing this, does anyone know of any mods that can replace the music, and/or the ability to mute only the music so I can listen to something else? Thanks for any leads.

[DeadByLag]

Originally posted by Father Ribs:

I had heard this game was more thematically consistant than the average FF, MGS, RE, etc...and obviously has good enough reviews that I was curious about it even though it's not my cup of tea. Are you really surprised there are people out there who have different tastes who may want to dip a toe in, but aren't intrested in jumping in the deep end

If you're nearing 50 years old with multi-decade experience with gaming + I'm sure even more so with movies, TV programmes, musicals, etc then you're very likely to be familiar with the concept of synaesthesia . We humans are pretty much pre-programmed to subconsciously blend our audio experience with the input from other senses to enhance the overall emotion/experience of the moment. Much more so when it is music that is appropriate and masterfully played.

That's why in the infant stages of film movies when audio recording and playback were not technologically possible, they'd play a piano or organ to accentuate the scenes on screen. That's why Lucasfilm established the THX standard, because they tested and found audiences feedback that movies "looked better" even when nothing visually was enhanced but only just the audio/music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI

Music has been absolutely crucial to motion entertainment whether we care to consciously acknowledge it or not. Cancelling out the music, especially more so for a game like Nier Automata (more on that later), is like deliberately sortie a modern fighter plane with no air-to-arir missiles (AAM) at all but just guns alone for air combat. Or like the above Star Wars 4 example. Yes, the overall game experience will get gimped that much.

Why so? Like the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, Nier Automata deliberately and cleverly disguises itself. The former on the surface pretended to be a highly regular tropey children-heroes, monster-of-the-week fight fest. But it also very quickly sprinkles all sorts of elements that surprised and shocked, revealing its true face to be a study of the human psyche way more profound that anybody could've imagined at that time. Studio after studio subsequently jumped on the bio-spiritual mecha genre to try, in vain, to replicate the depth and success of NGE, resulting in many hilariously pathetic storylines instead. They failed because they were in it for the money and had not done true introspective soul-searching like director ANNO Hideaki did (he was suffering from depression at that time). And this was despite the fact the last two episodes were garbage productions due to budget problems. But I digress.

With Nier Automata, YOKO Taro presented seemingly yet another mediocre anime-esque hack-slash game with tropey illogical over-the-top plot. If one is not observant enough, the whole superficial story can appear trite and meaningless. But players looking carefully between the lines can indeed see things are more than meets the eye. He blended right from the ground up a UI (user interface) that is an integral part of the story, rather than as a window for which to simply view the game's actions and stories. [Writing on Games] on why the Nier Automata story can only be experienced as a game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yfA94EpeqM

And very much in this is a soundtrack that's tightly interwoven into the fabric of the game. Most games simply have BGM that dumbly play endlessly for a major game mode, map/zone, or plot. Nier Automata music has way more dynamic layering and more active responses to player actions.

https://www.platinumgames.com/official-blog/article/9581

Again, cutting out music removes a crucial chunk of the game experience. This will culminate into an extremely moving climax as one plays route E to attain the last ending and having to reflect on the meaning of it all. No music in this case is almost as good as not playing.

Furthermore, have you already sampled composer OKABE Keiichi and Monaca's pieces on this title? Or their previous works in Drakengard 3 and Nier Gestalt/Replicant? Their collaboration with Emi Evans to devise an entire new futuristic language just for the songs? I haven't read any mention on your part to listen (widely available on Youtube) and determine if they sound "Japanese". Personally I wouldn't be able to tell if a composer is Japanese or not just from the soundtrack alone since many make use of an orchestra (European instruments). I honestly won't put a barrier between Ryan Patrick BUCKLEY, Russell BROWER, Jason HAYES, Derek DUKE, Neal ACREE, Jason GRAVES, Danny ELFMAN, John WILLAMS, James HORNER, or Hans ZIMMER versus YOKO Kanno, KAGIURA Yuki, MITSUMUNE Shinchiki, FUKUSAWA Hideyuki, SAWANO Hiroyuki, NEGISHI Takayuki, or UEMATSU Nobuo. Perhaps with the likes of MASUDA Toshio or TAKANASHI Yasuharu who have been able to fuse cross-continental instruments beautifully for Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, but generally doesn't matter to me, I'm open to what the composers have to offer regardless of what instruments they use; so as long as they provide a strong thematic experience befitting of the stories. That's why I can totally appreciate a vastly different Nordic/Viking style for Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, or an Eastern European take with Witcher 3.

Never in my life have I encountered a person who wanted to swap out a game's music for some other soundtrack (so I'm not surprised when others think there's trolling involved especially for this game). Yes, some games can have horrible music (and more so for sound effects). And yes, there can be scenarios when one has already enough of the game and are focusing on the more technical planes (e.g. competitive Starcraft, Team Fortress 2 or high-level raiding World of Warcraft) so cutting out music completely in order to listen to critical audio cues becomes vital. But I've long subconsciously accepted them as part and parcel of the game, open to see who can deliver an experience more than the sum of its parts. If you truly want to be more curious, be more open-minded and you might be pleasantly surprised and delighted when you turn around unfamiliar corners.

As a parting note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NiyfG8Ctbo

[Father Ribs]

@ Riotangel:

Now _that_ was an excellent post, with links and everything! I am familiar with the concept you mentioned, and there's nothing really to add to your commentary, except I didn't intend to play the game without music, but with something more in tune with my tastes. I did listen to some songs, including ones others suggested, and some gameplay trailers as far as voice actors, and it's something I would balance story and gameplay over the presentation to make a purchase decision.

This sounds loopy, but I am very sensitive to music; in the sense that sound captures so much of my attention that it diverts it from other things. You'll never see me in a loud bar or have an intelligent conversation with me when there's a radio or tv on in the room, even if I'm trying to pay attention to you. In important conversations I always turn off all media devices. Likewise, the use of music as a component in art can be distracting rather than complemantary for me. I also like to analyise music and try to find the internal logic of a piece, and if something doesn't "fit", it's jarring as hell. Is that a handicap? It certainly flavors my appreciation of things.

Japanese style games (from my observation; granted I don't actively follow that side of the industry) tend to put more emphasis on music than I am comfortable with; in that my attention is 80% on the music and 20% on the gameplay/story. It is part of the reason I gave up on console games in general 20+ years ago.

There are exceptions (Transistor was fantastic), and I like the music in a lot of games, (Total War games, Darkest Dungeon, Wow back when I played it, etc)). Mostly I like music in games to be a background, not an active comoponent that competes with the game.

***That said, I want to thank you for taking the time to write out that well-crafted comment. I'm encouraged to review the links you posted and if I don't get it on sale now, possibly down the road. This is the part of forums that is too lacking the internet over.

[DeadByLag]

Originally posted by Father Ribs:

This sounds loopy, but I am very sensitive to music; in the sense that sound captures so much of my attention that it diverts it from other things. You'll never see me in a loud bar or have an intelligent conversation with me when there's a radio or tv on in the room, even if I'm trying to pay attention to you. In important conversations I always turn off all media devices. Likewise, the use of music as a component in art can be distracting rather than complemantary for me. I also like to analyise music and try to find the internal logic of a piece, and if something doesn't "fit", it's jarring as hell. Is that a handicap? It certainly flavors my appreciation of things.

Yes I think that is a handicap, because I myself have a similar problem. I think there's something wrong imperfect with my auditory cortex; even though ambient noise may not be battle-zone loud, it can sometimes become difficult for me to listen clearly what other people are saying; they can sound like how Homer Simpson simply hears people saying "blah blah blah blah" when they talk about concepts beyond his intellectual limit. My brain somehow cannot filter out enough background noise signals for me to have a clear reception of human voices.

My suggestion? Lower the music volume (but not 0%) like I do. Hopefully that way human speech takes precedence in audio processing. I definitely had to do that when raiding with 20-40 other players in World of Warcraft, at that level of the game, nobody is there to passively listen to the grandeur of music and story; everybody is there and overcome very difficult platoon-scale combat challenges, and we need to devote our utmost attention to situation of the fight, listen for team mates' reports, and tightly synchronise our actions. Failure to perform the right action at the right spot at the right time easily leads to a "wipe" (entire team defeated and killed).

Good thing about Nier Automata is, it's not a multiplayer game. So I don't feel the need to soften music that much; there're no team mates to listen for after all. And it doesn't have critical audio cues that may go unnoticed with drastic consequences. You will have to tinker with the volume settings and determine where that sweet-spot balance is.

PS - I want to leave another passing view: Documentary on the man himself, YOKO Taro. Even if one does not play his games, listening to his thoughts, philosophy, and approaches alone is enough to tell this fellow is a clear exceptional figurehead in the global video game industry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wScHE28K8

[ChickenBalls]

A lot of the songs aren't even in Japanese and I wouldnt be surprised that they hired a westerner to do the vocals.

[DeadByLag]

Originally posted by CRINGEMASTER-DESU:

*and yeah, it's not Japanese. It's a hybrid of latin combined or something like that.
It's a mixture of combined languages.

https://thekoalition.com/2017/the-music-behind-nier-automata-an-interview-with-emi-evans

[sammykneen]

I would give it a try if you can. Nier combines all of it's different elements in very creative and original ways, with music being one of them.

The vocal tracks are mostly sung in a completely improvized language, and the way the different tracks change depending on the scene creates a very strong atmosphere. For example, each track has an 8-bit version, a quiet version, and a dynamic version, which all blend seamlessly into eachother.

Listening to just the standard tracks for the OST doesn't really do justice to how well NieR implements music.

I understand we all have different things we are sensitive to, but I would highly recommend you at least just nudge the music slider down a bit before thinking about replacing the music entirely as you'd be missing out on an important part of the experience.