while playing through armored core 6 (i've gotten 1 ending & am working my way thru NG+ right now) there was one mission (amongst many!!) that really blew me away in terms of overwhelming spectacle and how it's accomplished between the game's music, sound design & voice over...
this whole post is going to be spoilers for the finale of Chapter 3, so please keep that in mind before clicking read more!!
so, the finale of chapter 3: destroying the ice worm, a massive c-weapon that requires a coordination between you (C4-621) on the ground with a giant shoulder-mounted stun cannon to remove 1 layer of shields, and your distant buddy, V.IV rusty, armed with a massive rail cannon, to remove the 2nd layer...
throughout the battle, you're in constant communication: your whole group, a temporary alliance that is destined to break as soon as this foe is destroyed, talks through the plan and hypes each other up. you just need to get the perfect opening.
there it is. BAM. you remove layer one
suddenly, things get a little more quiet. and tense. V.IV rusty begins to charge up and aim his shot. you're looking at the radar, waiting for the worm to emerge... evidence of the weapon is present on the horizon: a yellow glow that gets bigger and bigger.
everything comes to an immediate standstill.
"I won't miss."
VWOOM--the shot rings out, an intense broadside piercing blast that leaves the ice worm reeling & vulnerable. everyone piles on the damage. you've made a dent. it needs another go.
you repeat the process two more times, each time increasingly more tense, each time an equally stone cold line delivery from V.IV rusty.
eventually, the worm is dead. the voices of the coral that powered its engines rise into the sky, tragically calling out.
now, is it the most challenging fight in the game? absolutely not. it's not supposed to be. but it is an incredible spectacle, and the fulcrum point of the entire game. everything that happens in the game can be sorted into what happened before & after this battle. it's that important.
anyway, let's talk about the music. the thing is, in the full mix, you can tell it's dynamic. you can tell incredible shit is happening to make this happen!! and then i listened to the album version and was like, this is cool and all, but it's missing the critical part of its "composition": the intense build, sudden drop, and then rise back up into the next phase.
but here's the thing: there's no "soundtrack" version of that, because it's all in the implementation. i played through the entire mission while only listening to the music & was able to piece together exactly how it was done. the feeling of it is IMMENSE, but here's what happens behind the scenes:
- when you begin the mission, the intro leads you into the core loop. it's a really sick pulsing vibe that builds and then sustains the intensity.
- as soon as you take your shot and lower the 1st layer of shields, a low-pass filter is placed on the bgm loop to build towards rusty taking the shot
- once rusty fires, the filter sweep fades out the entire track to 0 and lets the sound design & voice acting take complete control of the scene.
- after the damage phase, the bgm loop slowly fades back in to resume its intensity
- once it goes into phase 3, the bgm cross-fades into the 2nd half of the track, raising the stakes even higher
- when you defeat the worm, the bgm after it resumes cross-fades into the outro of the track & ends
super simple!! but just like the difficulty of the fight, it isn't meant to be complex: it's simple, but IMPACTFUL. and that's a really fantastic lesson to take into your own projects. think less about the complexity of what you're pulling off, and what players will actually notice. that's where the real impression can be made.
edit: i wanted to add in one more thought and that its simplicity is also carried by the fact that the sound design of the game is SO closely attuned to its soundtrack. the sound design feels like it's part of the music, and so the music can trust it to carry its rises & falls as the two work together. a lot of the reason this is so strong is because the armored core composer team is primarily sound designers! they've worn many hats, and so the team works extremely well together to make the whole sound package come alive and bounce off each other sonically.
