The Road Of Trials –

Atonement –

Alright, so I want to do something a little bit different for the month of February. This month I’ll try to focus on Original Soundtracks (OSTs), specifically ones from Video Games.
(also, yes, I know it’s not February yet, but I didn’t have another record in mind for this week, so I decided to just go ahead and start this…)

Journey (2012), a game from That Game Company, composed by Austin Wintory. When I decided to do some video game soundtracks, I knew I really had to kick it off with this one. Journey is a game that I still easily rank as one of my favorite games because there really is very little else out there that perfectly captures the same idea (except for Flower, but that was done by the same game company right before they started working on Journey).

So if it’s so unique, then what is this game, Journey? Well…it’s probably easier to start by describing what it is NOT. It doesn’t have any “enemies” to vanquish, or “points” to achieve a good “score.” There’s very little “gameplay” to this game other than walking and sometimes jumping. Most games that treat gameplay as a lower priority tend to do so to focus on something like story. But even that’s not exactly true of this game either. Journey doesn’t have any lines of dialogue (spoken or written). What can be described as a “story,” is portrayed only through images, color, and music. The visuals do go a long way to help infer a story to the player, but it’s probably the music that really brings us the closest to dialogue.

Now, before we dive deeper into meaning, I want to state that I agree with the developers’ opinions about the “meaning of the game.” There is no ONE “meaning” exactly. Just ask anyone who’s played the game and regardless of whether they liked it or not, they will likely give you different interruptions of what the game was trying to say. So my opinions on this are only that: My opinions.

One thing that is certain though, and that is the game was designed after the famous “Hero’s Journey” model. This model was discovered by historians studying several cultures myths, religions, and heroes. Most stories were observed as having several distinct characteristics in their story arcs. A good more modern day example of this form of storytelling is the original Star Wars trilogy, which George Lucas wrote with that purpose in mind. I could spend a long time just describing that alone, but instead I’ll provide the link to the Wikipedia article if this strikes your interest.

But back to the soundtrack. The composer Austin Wintory (who would go on to score The Banner Saga, Monaco, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate; just to name a few) cleverly named each of the tracks on the soundtrack to reference one of the steps or events in the Hero’s Journey tale. The peaceful cello solo for the opening song “Nascence” and the truly transcending nature of the ending “Apotheosis”, both have titles that literally mean “born” and “climax.” It’s not surprising that these are the two most popular songs that stuck with players long after playing, but I want to focus on two of the equally powerful middle tracks.

“The Road Of Trials” is easily the fastest and most uplifting of the tracks from the game. It accurately depicts the sheer awe and beauty of when (according to the Hero’s Journey) the titular character has passed over into the “unnatural” or “hidden” world. The song also slyly slips in some ominous dark tones as it comes to a close, hinting of what the next song “Temptation” is about to bring forth. The second track I chose follows the “Descent” and is titled “Atonement”. This portion of the game marks a turning point. Up till now the player has been roughly heading in the direction of a peculiar shaped mountain in the distance, but their path has taken them largely downhill. From this point the player never ceases to ascend as they begin to climb the mountain side. This song delicately balances the sadness of what the player has learned and the difficult challenge that is yet to come, while still sounding determined and strong.

Well, if you can’t tell already, the game Journey gets a glowing recommendation from me! Its soundtrack is superb and excellent on its own, but the way it mixes and molds with the game itself to help tell a greater story is the really amazing part. Wintory’s score definitely turned some heads though because it was the first ever video game soundtrack to be nominated for a “Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media” Grammy, which normally goes to a movie (although it was beat by “Baba Yetu” by a few years for “first video game song” to be nominated and win a Grammy for “Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)”).

And lastly I included a short GIF of the four different sides of the vinyl soundtrack published by iam8bit. Each side is represented by one of four white, glowing symbols above each character. The different background colors depict different points in the game and its color palette. Also each character has a slightly more elaborate robe than the previous (culminating in the white robe), which is a reference to the fact that each time you complete the game, another ring of gold embroidery is added to the edge of your robe. Sometimes, it’s the little details that specially packaged vinyls handle so well. You should probably expect to see more vinyl pressings from this company this month ^^