Sound Breakdown Paradise Halloween Special: Fatal Frame

So, remember how Sound Breakdown Paradise was suppose to turn into a regular series last year? And the year before that? Yeah, I’m still working on that. Apologies, but alas, my bone idleness and laziness know no bounds, it seems. Nevermind! What matters is that once again, we step into the realm of horror to do that sound examining breakdowny type thing, and in keeping with the theme of the week, todays subject is the original Fatal Frame!

or Project Zero if you're a filthly PAL Reigon-er like me

I don’t think the series needs much of an introduction at this point, as the three part retrospective covered by Dio these last three days does a perfect job of wetting the appetite. So, instead, I can tell you what the games mean to me; I’m not quite the megafan of them that Dio is, but I have always been interested in the games because of their unique gameplay approach, and how said approach makes the experience a lot more intimate, in a way, then most other survival horror games. I’ve only ever played the original game, but I’ve had fun with it in the past (an experience with a particularly nasty glitch that impeded my progress aside), learning how best to tackle each situation and immerse myself in the rich lore. And rich the lore is, as Dio has already covered. You know what else is rich? The sound design.

Before we even touch the music/sound in the game directly, I need to emphasise the emphasis on playing the game with headphones that the series’ creators have said a hundred times over; you really, really owe it to yourself to play the games with headphones. From the very beginning of the series’ conception, 3D sound that utilised stereo technology was a must-have, and after trying out different sound technology, the team eventually settled on using ARNIS 3D sound technology, presumably their S+ tech. So, already, we’ve got a good indication the staff behind the game really cared about the sound and knew how integral it’d be to the finished product. Where else to go but up, right? And right you’d be. For the first Fatal Frame (and both 2 and 3, I believe), Tecmo veteran Ayako Toyoda- also responsible for some of the tunes in the Deception series, as well as working on the second Monster Farm/Monster Rancher game, and later on, Dead Or Alive 5- handled the music, bringing with her a palette of sounds that can only be described as “patented Zero” in nature, becoming so closely knit with the feel of a Fatal Frame game that it would feel like it lost something without it. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

I should state here that the rip I’m using for examples appears to be a fan made one, and it can be assumed that the titles of the songs are also fan assigned, and not the official names. With that said, let’s hop on in; there are two very distinct approaches to sound design in the game, and both work hand in hand with each other to perfectly capture

the situations they’re used for. First, we’ve got the walkaround/cutscene music. Generally speaking, style wise, one could compare them to the works of Fatal Frame’s contemporaries, particularly Silent Hill and Resident Evil, the former of which is world renowned for it’s use of harsh industrial sounds, and the latter of which (at least in the early days) for it’s fairly melodic, almost filmscore style compositions; Fatal Frame’s walkaround music really sits somewhere in the middle, however, blending a dense, dark ambient palette with some melodic touches, and overall a lot of the score has a very spacy, ethereal feel, with most songs really making good use of the stereo sound (and in general the composers ingenuity) to make the score feel very “big”, without feeling bloated; it’s a real triumph in arrangement and mixing/mastering, and something I think Toyoda deserves immense credit for. This piece is a good example of the overall style of a lot of the walkaround songs, mixing a bit of everything in; subtle string work providing a melodic backdrop, dense ambient droning filling out the mix, some slight jangly percussive touches and the odd bit of scraping and clanging metal sounds, which here are less a thematic choice in regards to the setting ala Silent Hill, and are there to add a sense of unfriendliness to the surroundings, and to give a harsher edge to the music. Of particular note, though, is that unsettling one-woman-wail that sits buried at the bottom of the mix, just loud enough for you to notice; the soundtrack makes use of vocal work across most of it’s score, further cementing it’s unique flavour among its contemporaries. It’s going to become especially important later, but it rears its head quite effectively in the walkaround songs as well. For example, this piece is one of the earliest pieces of in game sound you hear, and it sets the tone for the whole thing wonderfully by virtue of being mostly (maybe even entirely) comprised of looped and filtered vocal effects, creating a very “full” sounding mix that permeates in the eardrums, actually making the rooms and halls of the place feel crowded and oppressive before you’re really sure as to the extent of the hauntings in the house. This effect crops up in multiple songs using different soundbanks, and it almost serves as a kind of stylistic leitmotif. Another stylistic choice that crops up is a slight chugging rhythm, like the one in this track, which does a great job at heightening the tension and anxiety, especially when paired with the thick feel of the arrangement and the various sounds and effects going on around it. This track shows off how subtle the harmonic touches can be, with the pinch bending high-synth notes and the two note cadence that follows it serving as the only melodic elements in a track that’s otherwise mostly about the raw, pounding percussive noise, which starts out in focus and slowly becomes more buried in the mix behind the harsh, metallic sounds as the song goes on; it’s a wonderful little progressive element. In fact, a lot of the soundtrack has some really neat displays of progression in their composition; This track’s progression feels very methodical and even subtle, but in place of that frantic sense of panic is an even more horrid sense of dread, encapsulated by those low piano notes, the warping and tweaking synth notes underneath the mix, and that loud, screaming synth whine.

But then, there’s the Ghost Encounter tracks, which elevate the soundtrack to a whole new level, and are actually the main reason I wanted to do this article in the first place. The main draw of the game, of course, is the use of the camera to combat ghosts; enemies that by definition, you can’t kill with guns or swords. Enemies without a physical presence but, as a result, are a lot more dangerous and unpredictable, especially given all the feelings of rage, loss, despair and pain that bleed through every crack in the walls of this damned mansion. Even their visual forms don’t conform to any sense of cohesion or reality we understand; one has their neck broken so badly their head has fallen to their back, and they approach Miku- us- with their back turned to us, yet their head facing us. One ghost is specifically named after it’s freakishly long appendages (which it has used to drag children down to hell, by the by), for crying out loud. So how, as a composer, do you choose to audibly represent this lethally evil force?Ayako Toyoda did it by focusing primarily on voices and vocalisations, and repetition. And I couldn’t think of a better approach; ghost lore is often ripe with tales of spirits and spectres repeatedly going through the motions, repeating their last moments over and over in limbo. And the fear we all have when we think we hear something or someone calling out to us is universal, even primal, so what could be worse then the dead themselves calling out to us? The dead calling out to us whilst trying to kill us and generally repeating themselves, of course. Every single ghost encounter track utilises voices or vocals in some way, through screaming, breathing, laughing, crying, pained shrieks, looped, filtered and otherwise edited and garbled vocalisations that barely sound human, but still sound like voices. In a lot of cases, the ghost encounter tracks don’t even sound like “music” anymore; they often become sound collages; voices, effects, bangs, clangs and screams layered atop each other in a crescendo of suffering. Hell, some of the songs have the voices of some of the ghosts you encounter embeded into the track directly, making the repetitive nature even more obvious, as not only are they saying the same thing over and over, they’re saying them with the same cadence, the same harmonics, the same infliction, over and over and over in an endless loop; it’s that repetitive nature- which the backing tracks themselves also reflect in composition, usually employing very basic rhythms, or a constant banging or hitting of something in the mix- that actually manages to make the tracks sound more terrifying, because of the unnatural, mathematical symmetry of the sound. It stops sounding human very quickly when every single moment, every single cry of “help me!” hits the same marks every time. I have no idea if that was every 100% intentional or a matter of space saving, but either way, Toyoda did the game a great service by truly making those encounters with the ghosts en experience unto themselves.

In the process of doing this SBP, I wound up writing about almost every single ghost encounter “theme”, as I had something to say about nearly all of them. I’m going to try and slim the list down and talk about specific factors that stand out for some of them to save on link overload, and so I don’t repeat myself too much, as a lot of what I had to say can be traced back to what I said above. First off, we have this one, which plays when you encounter Koji Ogata, the editor and the first “plot specific” ghost you fight against. You can really hear what I mean when I stress the repetition = heightened horror with this piece I think, what with the repeated cries for help, shouts about ropes, and that little bit about the woman in a white kimono. The piece is carried by very deep breathing, and the editors pained cries are offset by noises that almost sound like shrieks, but definitely not human shrieks. This piece is the encounter theme of Tomoe Hirasaka, Junsei Takamine’s personal assistant; the only real melodic element is that never ending, never changing drone, around which the hushed, whispy, faint cries of Tomoe (one cry of ‘Why?’ specifically sounding completely non-human), and what sounds like low pitched giggling build themselves. The encounter theme that plays for the writer himself, Junsei Takamine, is interesting because while his voice is embeded amongst the warbly, almost liquid sounding voices that sound more or less how something breaking from one world through to the next would sound like, he’s not actually saying anything; he’s just letting out cries of despair. It’s almost hard to differentiate them from the other cries and moans that make up the track. This track plays for the long armed man encounter, and does something really great with it’s rhythm, using a clanging, obviously synthetic, metallic effect alongside very ragged, very weak breathing. The discrepancy between the two sounds makes for a great effect aurally, and the low, garbled voices that make up most of the mix only add to the chilling effect. This one, which plays when you encounter Lady Yaen in the garden, is probably my favourite; it’s one of the outliers of the encounter themes by having a much more “melodic” feel to it, but it’s largely down to the fact that the sound effect used behind the subtle booms has a slightly harmonic resonance to it, and Toyoda used that to great effect by creating a short loop that feels extremely melancholic without being flat out sad; the whispy cries of Yaen only add to that air of despair the song carries. This one plays during the Demon Tag chapter, and has two other variants where the voice clips embeded in the song differ, but the main makeup of the track- the looped sounds of children giggling and laughing (because of course a game about ghosts has that) and that high pitched, disorienting noise- remain the same. It’s a very simple song in that regard, but the combination of the two main elements listed makes it a very unsettling song both in context and out. This one is probably the most subtle of the ghost encounter themes, playing in encounters against the Hands From Floor, and besides that booming kick, the track is more or less entirely made up of what kind of, perhaps, possibly sound a little like garbled, gurgling whispers. Maybe. It’s that raw simplicity and vacuum of sound that works to brilliant effect, however. The chugging rhythm returns in this track, which plays during encounters with the Headless Monk, only this time it’s a lot less subtle, much heavier, and a little more metallic, offset by warbling wind noises, which are pitched up, down, left and right to great effect, the odd pained moan, and the occasional cry of “Where’s my head...?” for extra creep factor. This one has a really nice effect in it with that one subtle metallic banging going on behind the pitchbending and warping cries of anguish, as it sounds almost like an alarm; perfectly fitting for the ghosts this song is used for, the Disaster Victims. And finally, I’d be a right fool if I didn’t make mention of this one, which is so perfectly unsettling on it’s own, but is absolutely horrifying within the context of the story, once you have come to understand the meaning of the ropes, and why you should probably be terrified of them. As one of the commentees on the

upload says, it might be five minutes and eighteen seconds long, but it feels so much longer listening to it, like the sound of tightening ropes and unusually calm breathing goes on forever, worming it’s way into your head and taking up permanent residence. Special mention must go to this piece as an example of one of the more progressive pieces mentioned earlier during the end of the walkaround section, borrowing it’s introduction from the Disaster Victims piece and getting more and more tense as it goes along, the hits and speed of the rhythms changing and dropping out, some points sounding vaguely more melodic as they go along, the inhuman, otherworldly sounds and shrieks constantly changing and morphing throughout the duration, starting out sounding like cries of pain before becoming largely synthetic, atonal electronic noises; it’s a very chaotic and uneven evolution, but it’s there, and it’s that frantic sense that really makes the track work. Even outside of context, this song feels dangerous.I’ve stated before that the direction, creation, and implementation of sound in a game is incredibly important, so much more so then people may realise- for example people love to talk about the same select few composers or wax lyrical about how good the music in Nintendo games is, and that’s excellent, but all too often the bigger picture isn’t ever really fully discussed or even realised; music and sound play such an integral part in the experience of a game, that if it wasn’t there, would actively hurt the overall product. Sound can sometimes be the tool that bypasses the cynical part of your brain and taps right into the raw emotion, the “soul”, if you will. I say all this because Fatal Frames use of sound is not only unique in it’s style and method, but it is one of the greatest examples of my case; the ghost encounter themes are not only stylistically interesting, but each one actively contributes to the personality and presence of the ghost it is identified with, to the point that it not only adds to their horror, but it actually becomes something of a gameplay element; you have to pay attention to the change in sound when a ghost comes into play, you have to pay attention to WHAT theme starts playing so you know who (or what) you’re dealing with and can adapt your technique accordingly, as some ghosts require a different tact to deal with. Eventually you form an intimate relationship with the sound and how it not only gets right into your head and helps terrify you, but also how it helps guide you through the whole experience; how it helps you learn to adapt and survive, often on the fly.Fatal Frame really would not be the same experience if the sound wasn’t as integral to the experience as it is, nor if it didn’t SOUND the way it did. And that, right there, is the hallmark of a truly phenomenal soundtrack; something that is not only well composed, arranged, and produced, but something that truly feels like it belongs with the product it’s connected with, and like it couldn’t possibly belong anywhere else. Ayako Toyoda’s work on this game (and indeed 2 and 3) should be celebrated as much as the contributions provided by Tsukiko Amano, for she took on the damn near impossible task of giving horror a new sound, and she succeeded with flying colours.

~ Decon, (10/16/14)

some images provided by Dio Maxwelle; other images sourced from securityledger.com, nick-prosch.de, and lifein16bit.blogspot.com