Published on: Sat Aug 22
It’s not a common feeling that music evokes something from me on an emotional level, much less an instrumental track. Tokyo from SMT4 has done a lot to me recently and I’ve been exploring why. With having not played the game until after hearing the song for the first time, I don’t have any sort of emotional connection to it by proxy of playing, only created through listening to it excessively after my first time.
With how my life has been shaping up recently, I often find myself looking into the paths that I’ve shut down in my past. Thinking of them as ‘deaths’ of a certain flavour of Tal. It comes from a place of regret of actions, of a wish for a different present to find myself in. But in that unhappiness I think of my life outside myself and am quite proud of the circumstances despite the failures that have lead to it. Failures outside and inside my control. ‘Tokyo’ is this bleak industrial track that enhances those feelings in a freeing matter. Nostalgia exists in every moment but to dwell in it is to know nothing. The synths combined with the mix of progressively more aggressive drums gives a sense of the irrefutable meaningless of nostalgia. Countering the oppression of the synths and drums comes in the piano. It’s incredibly calming and almost feels like a gentle hug as the drums back out. It’s pouring but it’ll be okay. The world is not kind but your place in it is a blessing. You are the sum of every bit of cruel nostalgia. There is beauty in the wreckage of life. You can and will continue to exist in the purest sense. As the electric guitar weeps, the past is screaming for redemption. Sweet memories at the edge of consciousness taunt you but it will be okay. Cry at injustices and perceived failure, but you are all you have.
After having played SMT4 to the point where Tokyo does play I can appreciate it even more. Tokyo is set underneath a huge dome in this game, swimming in the wreckage of demonic invaders, with the people forced to live underground. All the while our main characters hailing from the Eastern Kingdom of Mikaido, that lies on top of the dome Tokyo finds itself under, are introduced to this foreign world with technology beneath them. Their entire lives only knowing Tokyo as the place where “Unclean One’s” dwell. The mystery of the game revolves around how our ancient samurai find their way through a technologically advanced wasteland in Tokyo and it is an incredibly compelling concept. The theme of Tokyo plays in the overworld as one explores the ruins. Evoking a feeling of a crushed city in a dystopian world so perfectly. Which lined up very well with my feelings of the mood of the theme earlier :). And it is just as fun to listen to the music in game as it is outside of it!
The emotions I get while listening to ‘Tokyo’ do differ often, yet I find that the song calms me through many emotional turmoil’s. It might be the reminder of morality, or the acceptance the song makes me feel. All I fully understand about it is that it is exactly what I need in parts of my life. While walking through the city at night, while longing for a future, and while reminiscing on unobtainable pasts.
🏶