Hip Shop – DELTARUNE Chapter 1

About game/music

This is “Hip Shop” from the RPG “DELTARUNE” created by Toby Fox.
This is composed by him as well.

OST is here.

The story is about a world where monsters and humans live together, and the main character, a human, wanders into a strange world at school.
Like UNDERTALE, the game continues to use a unique battle system that you can win without killing enemies by winning their hearts.

And, as you probably know as you’ve come to this page, DELTARUNE Chapter 2 was released last September!
(You can download it from the official page)

This music is played in the store run by Rouxls Kaard, a puzzler(?) with a pompous way of speaking.
In the conversation with him, you can hear a little bit about his relationship with Lancer.

Analyzing

It has a slow rhythm with accents on the backbeat.
But in the chord progression there is a 4-degree ascension that give the song a sense of movement.
Also, the melody has a lot of syncopation, so it has a nice groove.

The overall feel is gentle, probably because the continuous inner voice doesn’t move a lot, and there are notes that don’t change between chords (e.g. a = 2nd fret on 3rd string).
This is in contrast to the bass movement.

Chord progression is Imaj7 – V+/3rd – iii7 – [ii-V+].

(2023/3/30 edited; below seemed to be mistake)
Chord progression is IVmaj7-IIIaug-vi7-(related ii7-)Iaug = Dmaj7-C#aug-F#m7-(Em7-)Aaug.
(If you consider vi to be the center of the key, then bVImaj7-Vaug-i7-bIIIaug)

Personally, I feel it comfortable to play is where the fifth degree of I+ (=f♮) settles smoothly in a semitone to the third degree of IVmaj7 (=f#), where it resolves (bar 8th to 9th).

I missed to play a note… Ah, it’s so hard to play the guitar, isn’t it?😭

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