when Ritsuko times out

It wasn’t recently until I tried NON-STOP HEROINES!! and listened to Redalice’s remix of Kanon’s ED. Then I got hooked onto Kanon’s music, all over again. I listened to the original ED on repeat – ignoring the weird English R&B chatter ein the middle – all the while singing along. Damn, I kinda understand how come the guy whom I visited in Vancouver was a major Key fan. I didn’t even know Little Busters was out already back then.

Then I started listening to the rest of the album. And I noticed that even though I hadn’t watched Kanon for 1 year, every song seemed to hold some meaning for me. I never felt such impact before, even when listening to game music. Yakusoku seemed just as fresh as when I first heard it (remember the prologue in each episode in the anime?); Fuyu no Hanabi is THE SHIT, I need to transcribe that ASAP, even though I don’t remember who, when, why this was played. And even though I can’t remember what the hell went on with the girls (other than the fox girl) and when these songs were played, I still felt as if I’d only just watched it last month and all the songs were still fresh in my head.

This can mean only one thing – Kanon’s music kicks ass. Planetarian had somewhat the same effect, but it doesn’t count because there are so few songs in Planetarian. Did CLANNAD’s Sorarad albums count? No – I never got past the first scene in CLANNAD because it was in Japanese, so I never really experienced CLANNAD. Until then, though, Fuyu no Hanabi is the shit.

Okay, on a related note, I’ve been messing around with the English translated Tales of Phantasia for PSX. Back in UBC, when I learned that the PSX version had a different Sakuraba’s Solo than the SNES game, I pulled out all stops to make sure I could get the song and transcribe it. I stayed up till 3am rushing through the first quarter of the game to get to Alvanista so I could hear Sakuraba play. Then I had to record it to a RAMdisk so it wouldn’t stutter if I recorded to a hard disk. But don’t tell my parents. That song was the shit, even though I don’t play it note for note. Memory’s corrupted, see.

But the thing is, the music doesn’t seem to be improved in the PSX version other than the new Solo. Everything is now dripping with reverb just like a pancake fried in syrup. The only improvement I can find is that Premonition feels a lot more dreamy and ‘the way it should be’, and Stream of Time just barely makes it into the realm of ‘improvement’. It seems that they just used a SPC to PSF converter for most of the other songs.

For example: Track 6 in the Sound Mode, Vigorous Town, is missing one or two notes in the opening few seconds. You don’t even need to listen carefully – just listen to the SNES version, and you’ll find that the 8th note doesn’t appear in the PSX track. 2 The Stream of Time is a lot dreamier, but drowns in its own reverb and you can’t feel the pulse anymore, the melody to a lesser extent. 26 Aviators is a shadow of its former self, where the same voice is used for the melody and the response, whereas the SNES had a clear distinction between the two, making the tune much more interesting. The body at 1:00 has the melody played too soft relative to the accompaniment – many songs are like this. 34 Overcoming Difficulties, the boss theme, is alike in that the melody almost gets drowned in the drums. 50 Oasis has the same problem. 60 Fighting the Spirit had the opening bass line play a melody, but in the PSX version you can’t even make out a melody, it’s too low and the notes are too near each other.

In short, I’d be playing the SNES version if it weren’t for SNES9x TYL which lags on some games, and the new Sakuraba’s Solo, and Cooking and the little skits. I’m trying to like the music, I really am.

EDIT: Scratch that, even Premonition has almost lost a few details in the conversion. Damn this game.