esper How can a game’s soundtrack encourage gameplay? (13:45)
Celeste is definitely a good example since that music is so chill.
Also, Hades has incredible implementation of music. That quick guitar riff after you beat one of the furies at the end of the first area is great. Also, the ramp up of the music in the final boss gave me a real teeth-gritted, amped-up feeling. I complain about that game plenty, but the music is truly great. I think the soundtrack also has some variation when you play it with the difficulty modifiers (heat) that you can access after your first completed/beaten/cleared run. I didn’t play much post game though
Also Supergiant’s Transistor had great music as well and a really cool area where you could stare at a digital vista and play with a dog while listening to tracks.
esper Rejj asks: What is the best video game manual you have read? (37:50)
I really like manuals for the art, but my favorite might be the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring GBA game, which had original art, as well as some bits of lore that, as far as I know, line up with the deeper well of Tolkien stuff. That game is a somewhat interesting RPG that may be impossible to finish (I got hard-locked in the same room on at least 2 playthroughs), but it’s release was right around the movies, even though it’s not published by EA and is disconnected from the licensed movie games, which were action games.
Even though I never owned the physical game or manual, I’d like to shout out Fire Emblem Sacred Stones for having a detailed explanation of the class system that is not present in the game. The Virtual Console version includes a digital version of the manual, which is cool and should be in more digital products.