Crystar - Apathy / The Fact | Reacting To Video Game Music!

[@t0x1cfire75]

Yay more crystar! 3:14 "i don't know what emotion is being portrayed." I'm pretty sure the emotion is apathy, it's kinda in the song title lol 3:55 "it sounds emotionally empty" that's basically what apathy is. XD Sakuzyo is my personal favorite composer of all time. I played this game because I saw he was the composer. I even bought the technical sequel crymachina, though I haven't gotten around to playing it yet since he did the music on that too. (I've even been saving the ost album for when I finish that game) Sakuzyo usually does music like this. The genre is technically considered a sub genre of electronics. Known as artcore. Where they blend Orchestra with electronic music, and a whole ton of atmosphere. But he also branches out on occasion to both other genres of edm, as well as a whole album series of café music. While these two songs aren't my favorite of this game's soundtrack (my favorites actually being prison from the last reaction, and 'the end' which will probably be the next reaction for this game if I remember the order of your list right) they are still excellent songs. Finally as for the game itself. It's pretty mediocre action jrpg. Carried super hard by it's amazing artstyle, world design, and of course music. I definitely recommend picking up for a few bucks on a steam sale and just enjoy the atmosphere of it.

[@c.a.honeycutt5046]

To be fair, he did point out the song is titled "Apathy" and that it's appropriate lol

[@Kr1egsmesser]

@@c.a.honeycutt5046 He was probably typing this while listening to the video at the same time

[@c.a.honeycutt5046]

@Kr1egsmesser Yeah, also a fair point.

[@skape6499]

Sooo, some spoiler filled thoughts about Crystar and those two songs (though mainly the first one, Apathy) incoming. Again, beware of heavy SPOILERS (tried to keep it vague, but still): I definitely appreciate Apathy (the song) a lot for part of the game that it plays in. It is a dungeon/field theme during a time where you basically slowly see your protag, Rei (the girl on the cover) fall/break apart from the pressure put on her, by the cicumstances and also by herself, to the point that she starts feeling apathetic towards everything and everyone else that is not explicitly her goal of saving someone she lost (which she is on an uncertain time limit on). The tag line for the game: "For when I weep, then I am strong" So you might be able to imagine what something like apathy would do in that situation. (additionally, a little neat thing the game does: Your equipment like weapons and armor are called sentiments, and all of those sentiments go along with a little message in the description that starts out as just a few words, which then expand and start to form into the actual message the further you upgrade it. One armor called "Pride of Sorrow" has the following message that resonates pretty well with this specific context: "Sorrow is the proof that we value what we lost". For the following, I need to explain that the game has a mechanic where you can, at any point in the dungeon (as long as you have sp) just stop and cry, which then fills up a tear crystal shaped meter which you can use to summon your Guardian/Stand/Persona to fight with you So, sometime during the time you're occupied with running through the dungeon with the theme called apathy, said tear shaped crystal meter starts showing cracks and eventually breaks enough to where it has a big hole in it which then makes you lose access to that mechanic entirely which also in turn shows that she has fallen apart enough to the point that she can't even cry anymore (aquiring usable equipment also requires crying to purify torments you collect, which inherently give you stat debuffs while you carry them around, to turn them into sentiments. So that mechanic also becomes unavailable), and then protag girl is confronted with the loss of something/someone important to her, as it seems to her because of her neglect, but at that point, she is already too far gone and can't even cry about it, which deeply disturbs her and even makes her question how broken she has become, which then also makes her leave her allies/friends behind and go on alone, after having already become increasingly toxic and impatient with them due to the pressure on her). Idk, I feel like this theme captures the part during which it plays really well imo. Bottling up all the pressure, losing access to the little bit of relieve and release that crying can bring, and continiously push everyone else around you away from you as a reaction. A sort of self-imposed loneliness through tunnel visioning on an important and time critical goal. A pressure that the demons who offered you to help by working for them in the process of working towards said goal also always continue to remind protag girl of, to further her desperation. The Fact (the song) is, if I had to explain it as short as possible, the theme for a boss battle that is meant to move the protag forward and help her break a cycle of endless torture, though not without a certain sacrifice made in the process, which is what that fight is about. No malice whatsoever, just something that had to be done. It's the turning point of the game.

[@MitsuIsSleepy]

Sakuzyo!!!

[@randomgenretalk8151]

Crystar Spoiler: What this game is about. Crystar is about a introvert young girl called Rei who experienced the death of her parent and friends, she also lost her sister and tries to get her back from the afterlife. She gaines a special power basically a persona or stand if you can call it and works for the wardens of the afterlife in order to get to her. Those wardens however torture her because her sadness and tears are basically a drug for them. She meets other people who have similar sad stories, one is about a young mother who lost her her child, one is about a girl loosing her mother and one is about a child who killed herself. Similar to NieR, there is a certain loop that forces Rei to live through more and more torture, one loop is about her friends killing eachother. Rei in order to break this loop got help from her twin sister who died when both were still in their mothers womb. The early death of her twin is the reason why she was so introvert and lacked emotions. Her other sister who was adopted caused the death of her parents and was also the one who worked with the wardens to torture her because she wanted to be alone with Rei, she needed her. The true ending is a happy end but the game has some heavy themes. The game itself is a basic hack n'slash and pretty mid but story, artstyle and world is pretty good.