Game music of the day: Killer 7

Welcome to GamesRadar's daily blast of all things pertaining to the ever-growing field of game music. Each post will introduce new sounds, games, composers and fan-made remixes of gaming's greatest aural achievements.

June 23, 2010

Game: Killer7

Song: Emoticon

Composer: Masafumi Takada

Above: Emoticon by Masafumi Takada

Killer 7 is adivisive game, in large part because of its bizarreness.Like Actraiser (yesterday's Game Music of the Day), it combines two disparate genres, but where Actraiser's gameplay is divided neatly into sections ofsidescrolling platformer and SimCity-style overworld creation, Killer 7's gameplay isn't so easy to describe.Its unusual, highly stylizedon-rails shooter/puzzle gameplay was offputting at bestto manycritics, and even those who rate Killer 7 highly would agree that its visual style surpasses its actual gameplay.

So with all that emphasis on Killer 7's strikingly artisticvisuals, it's easy to forget how its soundtrack also played a part in shaping its world and characters.Masafumi Takada's soundtrack is incredibly strong from start to finish,consisting ofa moody, atmospherericbasepunctuated withspikes of manic energy. Our first pick, Emoticon, is a laid back, loungy track with an eerie synthesized organ melody. In contrast, here's another, more upbeat dance track called Rave On:

Above: Rave On by Masafumi Takada

Aside from the soundtrack, the restof the audio in Killer 7 is superb too, from the cackling ofHeavenSmile to the vaguely unsettling, scratchysynthesized jibberish voices:

This is one of those rare games that's worth playing purely for the aesthetic even though the gameplay isn't anything special. It's a shame though that the soundtrack is mostly overlooked because the game is so odd in other respects. Somebody remix this already!

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