Disturbing Video Game Music [68]: Praya Dubia, The Final Scream
disclaimer: my DVGM picks aren't really meant to be scary. i prefer to find songs that disquiet me for some reason besides just SOUNDING frightening, so if you wanna come in here and be like "duhhhhh this isn't scary! lol", just... save yourself the energy.
one last piece from Another Crab's Treasure for the road-- y'know, like how last batch I had three songs from OMORI and three from Outer Wilds, remember that?
praya dubia is a FASCINATING and kind of gut-wrenching antagonist-- it's essentially a legion of souls in the form of a giant siphonophore, and it nails the game's environmentalist message by basically representing... utter, crushing despair. this entire godlike being is potentially comprised of hundreds if not thousands of souls brought together in sheer hopelessness at the state of their world, and its entire motivation in the story is to try and basically groom you so that it can use you to finish the world off out of twisted, despairing spite
in the second phase of its boss fight, after you defeat the host it inhabits instead of you, it just... keeps attacking. you can't damage it at all, and yet its health bar steadily drains while it just brings hell down on you, a torrential downpour of aggressive and chaotic attacks from every angle while it just screams and rips itself apart in sheet agonizing torment. it's horrifying and uncomfortable and sad and the music, "the final scream", just hammers it home. i've felt this feeling before. looking at the world, at problems with no end in sight, help that isn't coming, fingers that aren't lifting and a future that seems to be looking down at me and sneering, and felt so crushed and hopeless and helpless that i felt it underflow in my brain so that all i wanted was to just scream and rage and cry. it doesn't help anything... but it sure feels cathartic in the brief moments you have while you feel yourself circling the drain about to fall in, doesn't it
i love how some of the high notes seem to squeal, almost in a wailing whimper. it's pathetic and angry. it's unfair. it's pointless, and helps nothing, but it hurts. aaaAAAAAAAAAAA AA A A A AA A A A AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA