Video games have come a long way in their 30 some odd year history.  Blocky pixels have been replaced with smooth, 3-D polygons.  Controlling your character has gone from one joystick and one button to actually moving the whole controller yourself.  And what was jarring bleeps and bloops is now sweeping musical scores worthy of an orchestral soundtrack.  And now, finally, people can enjoy their favorite video game songs played by a real orchestra with Play!  A Video Game Symphony.

I attended Play! last weekend in Ft. Worth, TX along with a few friends and little brother Jeff.  Now this wasn’t the first time we’ve been to a video game concert.  Last year we all attended Video Games Live at the Meyerson in Dallas, and the year before was Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy at the Bass Performance Hall in Ft. Worth.  For Play! we made a return trip to Bass Performance Hall, and while Video Games Live had more showmanship thanks to the charisma of Tommy Tallarico and audience participation, Play! was still a rousing experience.  I actually like the acoustics better in Bass Performance Hall anyway.

Like most good things, Play! opened with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Choir performing The Star Spangled Banner.  I can’t remember if the other video game concerts begun with that.  Then they performed a song called Play! Fanfare.  It’s not from any video game, just a theme song especially written for Play! by Nobuo Uematsu, composer of music from such popular games like the Final Fantasy series. 

After that, the program said they would play Liberi Fatali, a rousing choral number from Final Fantasy 8 that I first heard in concert two years ago at the Dear Friends performance.  But instead they played another piece by Nobuo Uematsu.  This time it was Blue Dragon, last year’s hit Xbox 360 RPG.  I guess they probably print the programs long before the concerts, that’s why it was subject to change.  Then they played yet another song from Uematsu.  This one was from Lost Odyssey, an upcoming 360 RPG from Mistwalker, who also made Blue Dragon.  I may have to check that one out since I liked Blue Dragon so much.  Aw, who am I kidding?  I won’t check it out; I haven’t even BEATEN Blue Dragon yet!  The choir and harp were especially prominent in the Lost Odyssey tune.

Next they performed something a little more familiar to everyone: Super Mario Bros.  This peppy medley had the main Super Mario theme, (which is still a popular cell phone ring tone), as well as the underwater and underground themes from Super Mario Bros.  Then it went to the title theme from Super Mario World and the main stage theme from Super Mario 64 before concluding with Bowser’s theme and a reprise of the main song again.  And while these songs were playing, high above the stage were three projection screens showing scenes from each game, as well as close ups of the conductor and performers, which is always good to see just how intense they look up there on stage while playing.  Also, during the Mario song, the conductor was wearing a Mario hat, which looked pretty funny juxtaposed with his tuxedo.

Since you can’t have Mario and not include another favorite game mascot: Sonic the Hedgehog, the next piece was a medley of themes from the Sonic series.  This included the main title theme, Green Hill Zone, and Marble Zone from the first game, featuring a talented oboe player.  Then a slide whistle led into the finale, a creative samba remake of the Starlight Zone song.

Next were a couple of songs from Konami’s popular game series: Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania.  The choir and cello were especially good in the Metal Gear song.  And even though I don’t like Castlevania games much personally, I do have to admit that the series has produced some great music.  And the Castlevania piece here was one of the best in the whole concert.  I didn’t recognize all the songs in the medley, but I did catch the first level theme from the NES Castlevania game.

Before the intermission, they played a piece from Kingdom Hearts.  The creative thing they did with this one was it was instrumental versions of the main vocal songs from both Kingdom Hearts and its sequel.  Interestingly enough, they were able to show footage from the game at this concert, whereas at Video Games Live, they could only show footage from Disney cartoons.

The songs after the intermission were mostly from fantasy games.  First was songs and footage from Oblivion, then after that was songs from a game that is near and dear to my heart: Chrono Trigger/Cross (actually I really only like Chrono Trigger). Along with Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Chrono Trigger was one of my favorite SNES 16-bit RPGs.  In the orchestra piece, they played the main themes from both Trigger and Cross as well as a snippet of the Guardia Castle and ending themes from the first game.  I have to admit, even though I don’t like Chrono Cross as much, the battles were kind of an interesting and cleverly disguised card battle simulator, and it did have some of the best graphics and sound on the PSOne.  Too bad the story didn’t make any sense.  It didn’t even have hardly anything to do with the first game.  Oh well.

After playing themes from popular titles like World of Warcraft and Halo, they were supposed to play a song from Silent Hill.  But this performance was going to be the debut of a new piece from Guild Wars, so they played that instead, much to the disappointment of many a Silent Hill fan.

They winded things down with themes from the Legend of Zelda series of games, which began with the title theme from Ocarina of Time for the N64, then the main Zelda theme, the dungeon song from the first Zelda game, as well as snippets from Zelda 2, the Hyrule Castle and rain themes from SNES Link to the Past, and a short little flute solo of the Ballad of the Wind Fish theme from Link’s Awakening (which is my favorite Zelda game, so I was thrilled to hear that).

To conclude the whole event, the conductor told a funny story about how when he was getting ready in his dressing room for the Los Angeles performance, the audience started clapping already and he thought he was late.  But the audience was only clapping because Nobuo Uematsu simply came in and took his seat!  So then they finished up with one last song, the popular final battle theme from Final Fantasy 7: One Winged Angel, which of course, largely features the choir as well.

Now, usually at concerts, they do an encore piece.  And usually, it’s a different song than what they played before.  But here, the conductor asked the audience what piece they would like to play again as the encore.  Which was a big mistake, since nothing was audible amidst all the noise.  Thought I did think it was funny when I heard some people yell out suggestions like Mega Man or Streets of Rage songs.  Just for fun, I yelled out Pac-Man and Kirby, but that fell on deaf ears, unfortunately.  Of course they probably already had this planned anyway, but for the encore piece they just played the same song they just did minutes before: One Winged Angel.  They did that at the Final Fantasy concert and it just ruined it for me.  You just don’t do that.  That song is so overrated now.  Oh well, at least the rest of the concert was good.

And that’s all there was to Play! A Video Game Symphony.  You can see if it’s coming to your area at http://www.play-symphony.com/.  It’s nice to see that this kind of thing has really caught on and video game music composes and their work is finally getting the recognition it deserves.  If you’ve never been to an orchestra concert before, or if you’ve never taken your kids to see one, I’d highly recommend you do so if they’re old enough to sit still for it.  Many symphonies and performance halls do lots of kid friendly concerts, so see what’s coming up in your area.  There’s nothing quite like live music with an orchestra!

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