Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,957
edits
Songs in the Key of Panic: Difference between revisions
restored video embed with YouTube link suggested by original contributor
(update links) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (restored video embed with YouTube link suggested by original contributor) |
||
| (3 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
<div style="float:right; margin-left:5px; margin-bottom:3px; padding:0px; border:1px solid #ffffff; font-size:100%; line-height:120%; padding:0.4em; background-color:#eeeeee; border-bottom:1px solid #ffffff"><youtube width="480">
It's a frequent trope in [[Video Game]]s for the current music to suddenly take on more dire tones or have additional warning sounds play when a situation is suitably dire. These '''Songs in the Key of Panic''' are often referred to as "pinch" themes (representing the pinch you're likely to be in), and generally occur in three main types:
* '''Hurry Music:''' Plays when a
* '''Song in a Key of Warning:''' Music speeds up when a player is in a disadvantageous situation
* '''Nearing the End Music:''' Music speeds up when nearing the end of
▲* '''Hurry Music:''' Plays when a time of something is running out, meaning player has to hurry.
▲* '''Song in a Key of Warning:''' Music speeds up when a player is in a disadvantageous situation of some sort. For an example: low health.
▲* '''Nearing the End Music:''' Music speeds up when nearing the end of the task/level or some other progress in the game. Usually the situation gets tenser in this case.
See also [[Variable Mix]], [[Critical Annoyance]], [[Theme Music Power-Up]], [[Musical Spoiler]].
Line 20 ⟶ 16:
** The music also gets faster when you damage most bosses enough. Naturally, they get harder.
* ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' has the theme appropriately named [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpSU_hbjrAA "Hurry! Hurry!"] that most memorably plays during the timed escape from the burning Karnak Castle... and when you're starting to run out of time, the already frantic theme ''[[Up to Eleven|speeds up even further]]'', thus also making this an example of Song in a Key of Warning.
* ''[[Bubble Bobble]]''{{context}}
* ''[[Mappy]]''{{context}}
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' does it with the drowning music. Said music has been known to scare a surprising number of people.
** Also played if you're nearing the 10-minute time limit, or if you're in a 2-player match in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]] 2'' and the 1-minute time limit that plays when one player finishes the stage is down to 12 seconds.
** Also, ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles]]'' does this again in The Doomsday zone, speeding up the music when your rings run low as [[Super Mode|Super/Hyper Sonic]].
* ''TMNT Tournament Fighter'' on the NES{{context}}
* ''[[Mendel Palace]]''{{context}}
* ''[[The New Zealand Story]]''{{context}}
* The player has ten minutes to defeat the final boss in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3''. The music becomes louder and more intense as the time limit nears its end.
* A ''[[Metroid]]'' game isn't complete without at least one of these.
Line 35 ⟶ 31:
* One level of ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Chaos Theory'', where you have to disarm [[Time Bomb]]s, integrated the beeping of the bombs into an increasingly frantic techno piece.
* In the 3D ''Zelda'' games, music will speed up in minigames when time is almost out. Similarly, timed switches in many of the games emit a series of rhythmic clicks or ticks which gradually become faster until the switch deactivates itself.
** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's
* In ''[[Battletoads]]''' Rat Race level, the music speeds up as Scuzz gets closer to the bomb.
* ''[[Spelunky]]'' inverts it: The music slows down when you have only 30 seconds left to finish the level before the ghost appears.
* In ''[[The Journeyman Project]]'''s Mars Maze, the music creepily slows down and fades to a heartbeat and heavy breathing sounds as your oxygen supply depletes.
* In the ''[[Super Mario World (video game)|Super Mario World]]'' ROM hack ''[[A Super Mario Thing]]'', this trope gets taken to a bizarre extreme with 'Puzzle Panic,' a level that immediately starts the player off with 100 seconds remaining (thus triggering the speed-up), and playing an already rather frantic-sounding tune. Whenever the player enters a pipe, the time resets back to the 100 seconds, and speeds the music up '''''even further'''''. The nature of the level's puzzle means that this has to happen multiple times throughout the level, rendering the music a chaotic mess by the time the player reaches the end. Best demonstrated [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw-eDaXHfw here,] in [[Raocow]]'s original playthrough.
Line 100 ⟶ 96:
* Seth's stage music in ''[[Street Fighter]] IV'' becomes more urgent as the fight goes on.
* During the final lap in races in ''[[Split Second]]'', the background music will swell and become more tense. The effect is handled nicely as its crescendos happen after a bullet-time show-off of a wreck, which are usually triggered by the player.
* ''[[Tetris]] DS'' uses the Death Mountain music from ''[[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|
* Boss music in ''[[An Untitled Story]]'' speeds up once the boss is down to 1 HP. All its bosses will have [[Turns Red|Turned Red]] by this point.
* In the ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' series, as you wear the witnesses down in cross-examination, the music becomes more urgent and elaborate. This is actually a separate track on the soundtrack, the 'Allegro' version. In ''Investigations'', a 'Presto' version is heard during the final testimony of any of the antagonists. [[Crowning Music of Awesome|And it is epic.]]
| |||