It's the long awaited debut studio album from Vancouver's The Runaway Four. The six song album reminds me of classic rock albums like Pink Floyd. I'm talking, the type of album that only has half a dozen tracks, but lasts an hour and takes you through a variety of genres and emotions.

I hate Final Fantasy VII.

Well, I love Final Fantasy VII, but don't tell Final Fantasy VII I said that. FFVII doesn't deserve my love, but I often find myself thinking about all the good times we had together. It's such a toxic relationship.

It's going to take a few more therapy sessions before I'm comfortable digging into all that though. Today I simply want to discuss a small portion of the very rich meal that is Final Fantasy VII. There are a lot of layers to this RPG onion, and I want to focus solely on the dry skin, slowly fading under the produce section lights. I'll be dissecting Square's game changing game commercial which appeared on US television ahead of the games stateside release.

 I love hip hop and brightly colored Japanese video games with novel game mechanics. That is a pretty good description of Parappa the Rapper. This must be the game of my dreams! You'd think this is the moment that I've been waiting for. It's the 20th anniversary of THE original rhythm game. Hit the road Beatmania, Dance right the fuck on out of here DDR. Don't even look at me Rock Band you pile of overcooked garbage. Parappa the Rapper predates all that. 

Remember Lunar Knights? Of course you don't! That's why I'm talking about it. Everyone is like, "Kojima made Metal Gear Solid" "Kojima made Snatcher and I'm all about obscure future noir CD based games." Well no to both of those, Kojima is the man behind Solar Boy Django, and subsequently, the even more obscure game I present to you now. Lunar Knights.

Everybody has to start somewhere, even if all that person is starting is a series of video games. For the Legend of Zelda series and I, it began with Link to the Past. Not the first Legend of Zelda game I played, but the first Zelda game I played to the very end. I didn't just finish the game either, I destroyed it. I lifted each rock, crashed into all the trees, and used the legendary Master Sword to anxiously poke at every inch of wall. This was all in a painstaking yet pathetic attempt to search out the many heart pieces and hidden treasures of Hyrule. I found those heart pieces though. All of them.

To my detriment, I am obsessed with niche titles, niche music, and even nicher hip hop remixes of niche video game music. It's a curse to want to dig this deep, but someone has to keep digging. Well maybe that person does not need to keep digging but you can't stop me so stop trying to stop me. 

30 years ago, Konami released a game called Castlevania. The horror themed adventure game came out in Japan for the Famicom Disk System on September 26, 1986. This also means that the soundtrack, composed by James Banana AHEM i mean Kinuyo Yamashita, has also existed for 30 years! In my personal opinion, the finest waveforms to ever flow out of the NES' 2a03 sound chip.

Advance Wars is my game. The one series I constantly sing the praises of and attempt in vain to get my friends to try.  I'd rank this series right alongside Zelda, Super Mario, Metroid, and Donkey Kong Country on my personal list all time great Nintendo series.

Even though I've been talking about 8 Bit Duane and the Amazing BrandO since 2008, it's been a long time since one of their albums has been in my album review periphery. To be plainly honest, I wasn't going to review this EP. I tend to review albums that could use my meager push, but D&B are killing it. Well, as killing it as you can be in this VGM niche. They don't need my help. OR SO I THOUGHT.

This is the latest, hottest, jazziest fire that Mello has dropped since, oh right, EarthBIG. When I think Mello couldn't hit me in the core of my nerd any harder than Nastlevania, he dedicates a full album to those surreal messages from the dudes at Williams Street, those classic Adult Swim bumps you'd read, and hear, between the various animated series.

Emrls drops a genre spanning synth tribute to the original twelve fighters from Super Smash Bros on the Nintendo 64. Ten tracks in tribute to the ten franchises represented in the original SSB. No melee here folks. Although the classic status of the game doesn't stop Emrls from skipping the time stream and remixing music from modern day games such as Yoshi's Woolly World and Mother 3 alongside classic niche OSTs like Kirby's Block Ball.

Despite the fact that many classic video game tunes are indelibly seared into my brain, it has become less and less often that I actually get to go back and hear the original music that made me start this website in the first place. Luckily the debut release, Boss Chamber Music, from the duo of Frog & Cid have collected and rearranged a variety of vintage RPG jams. F&C do them up right with live arrangements from classics like Chrono Trigger, several Final Fantasy titles, Pokemon, and the Legend of Zelda. Over a dozen tracks, including several intriguing medleys that will take you through not just different scenes, but different games entirely.

More than any other product, franchise, character, or story, I feel like Earthbound is the most malleable. Many people who play the game have a heartfelt relationship with the old gray cartridge. It's obvious to say that Earthbound has become an incredibly influential piece of work among video game fans. 

As a lowly teenager, I spent most of my time angsting and playing video games, but as a lowly poor person, there were times when video games were hard to come by. For a slight cross section of those two circumstances there wasn't even a console in my life, there was a mere joystick. That joystick housed five classic Namco games. Dig-Dug. Played it. Galaxian. Played it. Pac-Man. Let's just say my nerd cred is legit yo.

As a child of roughly kindergarten age at the opening of the 90s, I spent much of my time playing video games. At that age, I understood that there were two types of games, platform games, and puzzle games. That was all we owned, so that was all I played. In that narrow field of vision I came across a classic arcade game. It was BurgerTime.