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• 1 media/pokemon battle 4.jpg 2016-12-05T12:00:48-08:00 Pokemon Battle Themes 6 Exploring the music of Pokemon battles image_header 2016-12-06T16:40:29-08:00 The battle music is some of the most iconic music in the Pokemon games. This makes sense, given how important battling is to these games. Players progress through the games by collecting Pokemon and by defeating other Pokemon trainers. Both of these are accomplished primarily through Pokemon battles. Battles act as what RPG players call a "random event": they're often unpredictable (particularly with catching wild Pokemon, where a player walks in a specific area and waits for them to come) and they visually take you out of the map. The player moves to a separate screen that focuses only on the battle, between the player and opponent's Pokemon. Like songs in a musical film, the game comes to a "stop" for this, with nothing else possibly happening to the player in the game world while they are engaged in this battle. It shows just how central the battle mechanic is to the Pokemon games.
  
  In the original series of Pokemon games, Pokemon Red, Blue, Green (Japan only) and Yellow, the battle music is divided into three different themes. These themes increase in complexity and intensity, to reflect the "stakes" of each battle. The first is the one used with battles against wild Pokemon:
  
  
  
  The second is the one used against ordinary trainers, that players find just by moving through the game world.
  
  
  
  The third is used against gym leaders, the "bosses" of the Pokemon games. These are trainers who specialize in one of each of the elemental Pokemon types. (For example, Brock of Pewter City uses Rock-type Pokemon, Misty of Cerulean City uses Water-types, etc.) They are usually more difficult than regular trainers, although their difficulty is staggered throughout the game to match the player's approximate level. Players must go to gyms in specific locations, usually cities, to find and beat these trainers.
  
  
  
  There is one last theme, used only once: when the player faces the Pokemon League Champion. This character is essentially the "final boss" and beating them is considered "beating the game."
  
  
  
  Later games would vary the music more among different types of trainers, but that same basic three-part structure still applied. These three themes are repeated so often that they become iconic parts of each game soundtrack, and therefore are among the most frequently transcribed themes in the Pokemon series. For the sake of this project, I will focus on the themes from that first generation of games, Red, Blue and Yellow, as they were called in their U.S. release.
  
  The Internet is full of "literal" transcriptions of these themes, and from viewing them, we can see how they pose problems for transcribers. All of them include at least three lines of music, and at least one is a rapid ostinato. This can make it tricky to transcribe for a two-line instrument like the piano, which seems to be the automatic choice of fan transcribers when they don't have specific ensembles in mind. It doesn't help that, unlike some of the other themes on the Pokemon soundtracks (like "Lavender Town"), the music doesn't suggest specific timbres, so fans are free to transcribe for any instrument they want. So they tend to resort to the piano default or their own instruments, rather than taking more creative approaches.
  
  This video of a piano roll transcription for the "Wild Pokemon" theme shows the difficulty of the piece when transcribed strictly to piano:
  
  
  
  One version of the score I found on MuseScore tried this same literal approach by including three different lines in their "piano" transcription.
  
  
  Others attempt to condense the various themes into a format that is easier to play:
  
  This version simplifies the "melody" part when the right hand is involved in the rapid ostinatos. It is still difficult, but easier to imagine an accomplished pianist playing than what the Synesthesia score shows. (Note: The author of this is not a pianist herself, and so can only guess from her training as a composer.)
  
  The most interesting were the versions for other instruments. The Wild Pokemon theme had a version on MuseScore for electric guitar and bass. It is also very condensed, to fit the two-line structure:
  
  
  One can also compare the piano version of the "trainer battle" with another one for solo violin and piano, allowing it to emphasize one line as more "melodic" and also making it easier to divide up all the different ostinato lines:
  
  
  With the Gym Leader theme, the most interesting version was someone who did a "remix" (mostly changing some of the rhythms) for a full orchestra. This is contrasted with a more literal version for piano here:
  
  
  
  Expanding these many lines into more instruments allows arrangers to more easily accommodate all of them, and can provide an interesting orchestrational challenge--as with the Gym Battle orchestra arrangement, as the music changes hands between different instrument groups. It shows how video game music challenges ideas of authenticity. While the 8-bit Pokemon themes also sound like they're played on the same "instrument," they demand larger ensembles. This is one case where completely letting go of "how it is meant to be heard" seems to result in the best arrangements.