There’s something wrong with the DS, and I’m noticing it now more than ever, since ZU gives me a little bit more spending cash than I used to have (not that much more, mind you, since I have to send most of it off to pay the gargantuan debt I’m in from buying the place). My suspicions began with Phantom Hourglass, but having moved on to Mario Kart and Final Fantasy III, both games that were released prior to Phantom Hourglass I know, I’m noticing a distinct pattern: DS games lack music.

This is a serious issue, especially in games such as Final Fantasy III. Usually, RPG’s and Adventure games such as the Zelda series are renowned for their diverse and entertaining scores, however the DS seems to inhibit that. Titles such as Golden Sun for the Game Boy Advance platform featured nearly a hundred brilliantly scored tracks by Motoi Sakuraba, one of my favorite composers. Naturally, I am filled with glee hearing those tracks. I expected better from the DS, which is now far out of its infancy and moving into adulthood as a handheld system, having virtually destroyed its younger brother Game Boy. But the fierce lack of music on the DS goes far enough to offend me, the avid listener of game music, to the point where I feel these statements are necessary.

Perhaps it is only a few studios that have mastered the art of audio compression. Sega seems to have gotten on the right track, no pun intended: Sonic Team was able to compress about 125 songs into a single cartridge. Unfortunately, they are short and not pleasant to the ear, but that is beside the point. They did it, and nobody else seems to want to jump on that bandwagon. Is it budget? Doubtful – huge studios produce these games, and while I’m sure that the games’ productions have budgets, I just know that deep down there is enough cash to spare for some better music. It needs attention. Play a video game without music, I dare you; you will notice that most, if not all, of the game’s atmosphere is lost. It is the music that conveys the true emotion of the game and all the situations the characters go through. Likewise, it is impossible to have a great game without a great musical score. Why do developers think that large review companies such as IGN place a “Music” section under each and every review? It’s the atmosphere they’re truly reviewing, not simply the quality of the scores, because it is the quality of the scores that determine the all-consuming atmosphere of a game.

If developers continue to throw away music in this fashion, there will be terrible consequences. I can imagine withholding a purchase because I’d heard that the music was terrible, or non-existant. Naturally, I can’t see this happening with an FPS, where music is replaced by the bursting sounds of gunshots, but for an Adventure game, for an RPG – most certainly I will withhold a purchase if there is little to no music. And if a game pays little attention to its music, its atmosphere, then what’s to say that the rest of the game might see little bumps and slip-ups as well? Let’s not forget – Phantom Hourglass has few scores, many of them stolen directly from its prequel, and although the gameplay was spectacular across the board, the dungeons were not. There were sections of the game that seemed to have been tossed together simply to increase length (Temple of the Ocean King, hint hint), and I must say that I believe the lack of care given to the game’s music production and the lack of care given to its dungeon production are invariably related.

I gave Sega credit one paragraph ago for producing a lot of music, but also criticized Sega for an indisputable lack of care given to the music’s production. Likewise, the game itself wasn’t very enjoyable – though who am I to make such a judgement – and, overall, the game fails to live up to the standard that the Sonic series set back in the 1990’s. It’s a standard that, unfortunately, the series has never met since the introduction of the Sega Dreamcast. But one will notice that with Sonic’s downhill spindrive, so too did the music take a turn – to ugly guitars and sickly drums, to overall un-melodic pieces that left no striking impression upon the listener. Again, this overall decline in quality must represent the entire game, not specifically the music. Not specifically the speed of the Sonic series. Not specifically the horrible camera and poor level design. It’s all related.

So when we let the music go, we let the games go. And that’s got me a little worried. I hope it has you a little worried, too.

Sponsors, developers, large companies take note: The DS has the capacity for music. A lot of it. But for some reason, you’re not making a lot of it. Or you’re not finding the right people for the job. Or you’re making a lot of it, but the songs are so short, and they loop again and again, and it feels as though we’re running through a Flinstones trademark looping background. This is a serious issue, and it must be resolved. Because when games only include seven or eight tracks – not just one game or one series, but a consistent stream of games from different companies surrounding the same system – then it’s clear that there must be a problem. It worries me, and it should worry everybody. But most of all, it should worry you guys. If it’s Nintendo’s problem, rectify the situation. Is there not enough space on the DS cartridge? I believe that there is. So there’s no reason, not a single one, why gamers shouldn’t be hearing some beautiful scores by people like Motoi Sakuraba, not just in small doses but in heaping piles.

In the meantime I’ll go back to my N64, which clearly has a greater capacity for music than the DS does at the moment.