Music is part branding and part experience for a game. Creating music that one can identify the game by is not always easy, but so delectable when done right. Nier composer, Keiichi Okabe, is in charge of bringing Drakengard 3 to life musically, but wonders if he can match Nobuyoshi Sano’s original works.
In an interview with Famitsu, Okabe remarks on Drakengard’s fanbase. Fans become attached to what makes a series tick, and sometimes that includes the epic music accompanying the environments and the themes that play over and over. For Okabe, “that makes it hard to figure out what to create to keep them satisfied.”
When you’re a newcomer to a franchise, it’s tempting to take what you’ve done successfully in the past or use what the original master formulated. Okabe mentions that he wanted to “avoid” both of those circumstances in regards to his work on Nier and Sano’s music.
Okabe hopes that his previous work won’t lead his fans to expect the same material in Drakengard 3. Diving into details, Okabe explains that he has “divided the musical style three ways between the stages, the events, and the boss battles, [then] deliberately aiming for a Nier-like feel with the event music.”
It’s difficult to follow in another’s footsteps, but with his own style and ability to back him up, Okabe will probably find a balance between the traditional Drakengard sound and his own.
Listen to Okabe’s rearrangement of “Growing Wings,” originally composed by Sano.
