The Music of Go

In this day and age of electronic games, it is undeniable that music completes a game, no matter the size of its role. For the Pokémon games, and in particular Pokémon Go, this is no exception. Just like its main series brethren, Go also has its share of incidental music for its various situations, and the quality is on par with the main series, which is neat. Many players might not hear the music since they most likely play with the volume turned down, without headphones, or the audio settings turned off, but otherwise, the music is clearly audible and present in many parts in the game.

All the music are unique, but they still share some links with the main series games. The daytime overworld music, for example, shares several motifs with "route" music from the first-generation games, but is otherwise a completely original piece to Go. During Halloween, the nighttime overworld music was instead a full remix of the Lavender Town music, owing to its spooky qualities. Links like these show that Go wishes to deliver the Pokémon experience from the main series, yet still in its unique fashion, which is still appreciable.

I'm personally taken with the "professor" music, the one that plays the very first time the game is opened to the login screen (which also happens if you sign out for whatever reason). Similarly, I'm also taken with the login fanfare, which sounds like it echoes the "professor" music; it also sounds like a certain incidental music for exiting contestants from a certain quiz show, only this one serves to welcome "contestants" into a new world of Pokémon. Other music from Go that I like are the wild Pokémon encounter music and the subsequent successful capture fanfare. The influences from the main series are heavy in the former, while the fact that the latter does not resemble the one from the main series affirms the game's uniqueness.

Few electronic games today are complete without music, and Pokémon Go is one of them. The main series of Pokémon games itself has a rich history of music, and the music of Go attempts to take that history and adapt it to its unique form. It's a small thing that occasionally gets ignored, but it really is a part of what makes the game what it is, as a quite different take on the Pokémon games. I'm glad to be playing the game even just for the sake of its music.

One year ago: Alt+0233 and Its Kin