On August 26, the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO) held their Video Games Symphonic at the Ayala Museum, their 2nd show of the same kind since May 2019. Apparently, this particular show was so in demand, tickets got sold out on the 1st week of its release. The concert also had a virtual screening via Zoom for those who were unable to go to the venue.

Under the baton of Maestro Marlon Chen, the Manila Symphony Orchestra performed a one-hour concert that turned out to be a dream-come-true for gamers and anime fans across different generations. It featured soundtracks from powerhouse titles like the Nintendo classic Super Mario Bros, the 2D wonder game Undertale (“Megalovania”) and the highly popular open-world RPG Genshin Impact (“Rapid as Wildfires”).

The enduring Final Fantasy series had its time in the limelight with the action-packed “Opening – Bombing Mission” from FFVII Remake and the bittersweet “To Zanarkand” from FFX, both composed by Nobuo Uematsu.

The show was also a treat for anime fans as MSO performed tracks from Ghibli movies Kiki’s Delivery Service (“A Town with an Ocean View”) and My Neighbor Totoro (the main theme) composed by Joe Hisaishi.. A stand-out performance was their heart-rending and soul-permeating rendition of Shiro Sagisu’s “Never Meant to Belong” from the anime Bleach, featuring a violin solo from the orchestra’s Concert Master Diomedes Saraza Jr. 

Other songs that were part of the program were Monster Hunter’s “Proof of a Hero” and Assassin’s Creed’s “Under the Black Flag”. For the encore, MSO played the theme from Mobile Legend’s.

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Video games have come a long way from the flat, black and white pixels on Game Boy to the mind-blowingly pore-accurate textures of the PlayStation 5. Playing video games is a gateway to living in a different world, one as wide as wide as your imagination can take you. 

If you’ve ever sat through an hour of playing Super Mario on Game Boy in the ‘90s, (trying your best to avoid mushrooms and monsters and jumping across bricks), you can probably call upon its main theme by memory alone. Likewise, Final Fantasy, especially during the PS1 Era when the games did not have any vocal narrations, had such distinctive soundtracks that even now, you can hum the Victory Fanfare or the world map theme without much effort.

The experience of playing video games, virtual as it may be, is driven and remembered not only by its visuals and story, but also by its soundtrack. It’s amazing that the Manila Symphony Orchestra spends enough of their time, effort and skills to pay homage to those pieces with a high-caliber performance. Every pull of the string, every silencing pause and every pulsating beat bring to memory the stories of the heroes and villains of video games we loved, and along with them, our struggle to keep progressing to the next phase.

The Video Games Symphonic was a top-notch orchestral, worth every minute. In fact, I only wished it had gone on longer and the orchestra played more songs. Fortunately, I was also able to attend their show in 2019, and after their show last Thursday, I can definitely say that they improved a lot. They retained a few songs from their old setlist such as “To Zanarkand”, “Proof of a Hero” and “Under the Black Flag” which were still as enthralling to listen to live. The new setlist additions from Undertale and Genshin Impact were so masterfully played, even if you are not too familiar with the games, you’d still feel the thrill from the music alone. 

Too early to say, but I’m already looking forward to the next installment and the next MSO performance, hopefully with a longer setlist and a much-deserved bigger audience. 

The Manila Symphony Orchestra is set to perform in Tokyo, Japan in October as part of the Asia Orchestra Week, organized by the Association of Japanese Symphony Orchestras. They’ll also be having a send-off concert on September 29.

By Sandra Mae Laureano