Table of Contents

List of Figures, Tables, and Musical Examples. Series Foreword.
Prologue: The Journey Begins.
Part I: Magical Melodies 1. Song and the Transition to “Part-Talkie” Japanese Role-Playing Games. 2. “The Things I Do for Lust …”: Humor and Subversion in The Bard’s Tale. 3. Mother/EarthBound Zero and the Power of the Naïve Aesthetic: No Crying Until the Ending.

Part II: Mystical Metaphors 4. Alien Waves: Sonic Reverberations of the RPG Interface in Lagrange Point. 5. The Penultimate Fantasy: Nobuo Uematsu’s Score for Cleopatra no Ma Takara. 6. Music in the Time of Video Games: Spelunking Final Fantasy IV. 7. Operatic Conventions and Expectations in Final Fantasy VI.

Part III: Meaningful Memories 8. Ludomusical Dissonance in Diablo III. 9. A Hidden Harmony: Music Theory Pedagogy and Role-Playing Games. 10. Soundwalking and the Aurality of Stardew Valley: An Ethnography of Listening to and Interacting with Environmental Game Audio. 11. Musical Landscapes in Skyrim. 12. Barriers to Listening in World of Warcraft.Notes on Contributors. Index of Video Games. General Index.

About the Author

William Gibbons is Associate Professor of Musicology and Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Texas Christian University.

Steven Reale is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Youngstown State University.