Part 24: Bonus Update 4

Bonus Update 4

Artwork:
Future Dreams
Treasure Alliance
Unfinished Dreams
Heated Wilderness
Dragon's Nest
Awin concept art 1
Awin concept art 2
Awin concept art 3
Threia concept art 1
Threia concept art 2
Reyfer concept art 1
Reyfer concept art 2

Episode 9 ending card
Episode 10 ending card
Episode 11 ending card
Episode 12 ending card

New heroes

And thus, the anime ending cards come to an end. I wonder if Shallie's heroines making a cameo at the very end of the final episode means they'll adapt Shallie into an anime, too. Guess we'll have to wait and see, but that is a subject for another thread, much like Shallie is.

On another anime-related note, the outcome of the whole "Desert village" subplot is completely different in the anime. in the game, despite Escha and Logy's best efforts the village's residents decide to leave. In the anime, Escha and Logy (the anime is bit more realistic, with fewer characters joining for investigations. In particular, Reyfer isn't seen much in the show. But then again, in the game, it would be a mess to keep track of all the characters who are in the party.) discover some ancient water recipe in some desert ruins (Assignments 2, 3, and 4 are more or less merged together), and save the village using the item recipe discovered within.


Music:
Close to the Edge Part 2
A remake of the battle BGM used for the Wind King fight in the previous game. Due to directorial decisions, the intro was cut in the previous game, but after many comments from people who liked the demo with the intro, we decided to include it this time. I hope you like it. (Shimoda)

In a Place Where People Once Were
I wanted to express the loneliness of an abandoned village in this track. (Shimoda)

Cliff of Burned Place
I used the FM synth YM2151 (OPNA) that I used for old games to make this heated fire field track. I'm sure some people wll recognize the bass tone. I used playback equipment called GIMIC to recreate the synth from old computers and game consoles. (Shimoda)

Roar
What do "perfume", "directions", "duty", and "wandering" have in common? They all sound the same in Japanese! Okay, enough nonsense; Dani's guitar, bass and bouzouki are howling! It's like they could start breathing fire at any moment! (Achiwa)

Shall We Talk?
The image behind this tune is coming home after work and relaxing. (Shimoda)

Blow! Wind, Call! Storm -Full Metal Slug-
The BGM when confronting an enormous Slag. I really would love to create a game where you fight giant Slags while piloting an alchemic robot. (Shimoda)

Big-Breasted, Melancholic Woman
The ending portion sounds very much like it fits the title, and I was even able to write some choral lyrics for this piece. Yay! (Achiwa)

Consolation
A piano piece written for two pianos. I played ths ad-lib while thinking of negative emotions such as melancholy and anxiety. (Kinoshita)

Since this song played in a big Escha / Logy scene, allow me to do a Voice Actor Chat Redux. Apparently Escha's voice actress is a woman named Ariel Winter, who interestingly has not done a lot of video games. She's mostly known for her roles in movies and TV shows, while her video game roles have been decidedly limited so far.

As for other characters, Awin is obviously voiced by Johnny Young Bosch (a man who cannot hide his voice), Reyfer is Ben Pronsky, Threia is Danielle McRae, and Micie is Erica Mendez. I'm not familiar with a lot of these VAs, actually. I guess part of the fun with games with uncredited English VAs is guessing who they might be, but I still feel every game should credit the voice actors. Apparently there's union stuff getting in the way of that when it doesn't happen. Oh well, would be nice.

Evening Melody
This is a ballad written as a piano solo. I played this while thinking of easy listening from the 90s. Like "consolation", this piece is based on ad-lib play. I usually don't write pieces lke this so it feels very fresh and new to me personally. (Kinoshita)

A Road Full of Unknown
I was told to make a minimalistic track, so I went all out, but perhaps I went too far and this was discarded? If you're reading this, though, it must have been used. (Yanagawa)

Mugendai Chronicle (Infinity Chronicle)
The original song used for Awin's Finishing attack, by ACRYLICSTAB. The extremely fiery melody and tune development is the perfect fit for a boss battle. (Okamura)

Commentary for FJ: Infinity Chronicle: We used ACRYLICSTAB's song for Awin's Finishing attack jingle. We really think you should change BGMs and try listening to the full version of this song during boss fights. We're sure it will fire you up for battle. (Okamura)

I think having a 4 1/2 minute or so song written for an FJ is the most effort we're ever going to see out of FJs in this series. It still surprises me they actually used part of a full-length song as part of an FJ.

Also, sometimes in the game they'll translate Awin's name as "Arwin". Following with my policy of correcting translation mistakes automatically, you'll never see the name "Arwin" in this LP.

FJ: Purple Haze
After starting in Atelier Meruru, we've played around with many different types of Finishing Jingles. I think a calmer tune like this is nice, too. (Achiwa)

FJ: Journey
I used "a hard working, cute girl" as the keywords for writing this track, and I was so happy when I heard my tune running alongside her in the game... After that, I've developed a routine of listening to this first thing every morning to motivate myself. (Asano)

Videos:
Alternate Micie balloon docks scene
Using the Slumber Incense

I haven't forgotten about the documents, but between Bonus Update 2 and now I haven't acquired that many in-game. Using the Slumber Incense means you can fight the metal-eating dragon later, but I'm glad the LP version of how things went down was a bit more exciting.

I'd say we'll be done with the LP in about a month and a half, if I keep up my current progress of five updates every couple weeks or so.