CronoDAS comments on Firewalling the Optimal from the Rational - Less Wrong

86 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 October 2012 08:01AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (339)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Kindly 07 October 2012 01:59:02PM 6 points [-]

Anyway, what I'm really asking is, are those old game soundtracks actually any good, or do I just have no taste?

The third option is that you like them because you played the game in question. There's two sub-explanations here: the nice one is that you have a strong emotional attachment to the music due to having played the game, and the cynical one is that you just heard the tracks over and over when you played and got used to them.

I also like music from the video games I played as a kid, and also think that more recent video game music isn't as good. But listening to the tracks you linked to did nothing for me. On the other hand, my brother (10 years younger than me) thinks that the soundtrack to Skyrim is the best thing ever. So I'm inclined to be skeptical of our music tastes here.

Comment author: CronoDAS 07 October 2012 02:52:05PM *  2 points [-]

A counterexample: I noticed and liked the music from Lufia: The Ruins of Lore despite not having played it in childhood, although I don't rank it as being among my favorite soundtracks.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that at least some of my fondness for the Final Fantasy VI soundtrack is the result of playing the game in childhood; the music, in context, is a lot more moving than merely the music alone, and some of that spills over when I listen to the soundtrack. (As far as I'm concerned, Final Fantasy VI is the definitive example of how to use music to enhance a story.)

Although that Skyrim soundtrack does seem pretty good, now that I've tried listening to some of it on Youtube... (I've never played the game.)