The Greatest Game Music - Reviews of truly outstanding game music

Legend of Mana Soundtrack – Review

Legend of Mana Soundtrack, Yoko Shimomura, 1999

While the 32-bit generation saw a seismic shift in gameplay and graphics design from 2d to 3d, that didn’t mean nobody created pixel art masterpieces during those years. And given how much Square’s 16-bit games had pushed the envelope in the early 1990s, it only makes sense that the company would occasionally return to the art style that had endeared its products to countless gamers. Square’s major forays into 2d gaming on the PS1 were SaGa Frontier 2 and Legend of Mana – and it’s probably no coincidence that both games were produced by Square veteran Akitoshi Kawazu. That probably also explains the non-linear style of RPG gameplay both games tried to pioneer. However, while the lack of a strong central narrative was typical for the SaGa games, it set Legend of Mana apart from its franchise predecessors, reaping strongly divided feedback from gamers and reviewers alike.

There were other aspects of Legend of Mana that found more unanimous praise – particularly its audiovisual presentation, which included gorgeous visuals and one of Yoko Shimomura’s best scores. For Shimomura, working on the Legend of Mana soundtrack was a thoroughly positive experience. One of the reasons for Shimomura to move from Capcom to Square had been her desire to work on a fantasy title – and of course Square’s line-up of high-profile RPGs would be the perfect outlet for that ambition. As Shimomura put it in an interview: “I kept saying I wanted to work on a fantasy and this title finally came around. I really had fun with it. I tried hard to make it fit the style of the game and to express myself!!”

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Ultima VIII: Pagan Soundtrack – Review

Ultima VIII: Pagan Soundtrack, Nenad Vugrinec, 1994

In case the cover art – with its flame-engulfed pentagram – didn’t make it clear enough, Ultima VIII: Pagan was a far darker game than any of its predecessors. From Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar onward, series creator Richard Garriott had turned the Ultima games into explorations of morality. These pioneering titles didn’t reward gamers for the usual monster killing and treasure hunting that governs RPGs – instead Garriott asked players to act virtuously while pondering ethical dilemmas that had no easy answer. Pagan followed the same design philosophy, but added a grim twist. The game’s antagonist – the Guardian – transports the Avatar to his own realm Pagan – a blasted wasteland that is beyond redemption and hope.

What’s worse, winning the game – as in defeating all enemies – will inevitably bring suffering to the people of Pagan. As Garriott put it: “The challenge was that you had to stay true to your core personal beliefs without totally ransacking the place to achieve your ends and work with the system that was there.” Garriott combined this change of tone with a gameplay style previously unseen in an Ultima game. Pagan was an isometric hack-and-slash, not far removed from Diablo, released two years later. Unfortunately, all of these grand ambitions were foiled by publisher Electronic Arts (once again) imposing a punishing project deadline on developer Origin. As a result, the version of Pagan that was released was effectively incomplete. Consequently, Pagan has always been one of the Ultima franchise’s black sheep, although it’s often admired for its daring reinvention of the Ultima universe.

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Warriors of Might and Magic Soundtrack (GBC) – Review

Warriors of Might and Magic Soundtrack (GBC), Matthew Simmonds, 2000

By the late 1990s, the Might & Magic franchise was going strong, with a number of successful main line games and the recent establishment of the Heroes of Might & Magic series. Not surprisingly, publisher The 3DO Company were keen to branch out further, making the most of the valued brand name. Its first attempt to do so in 1999 via 3d-action RPG Crusaders of Might and Magic didn’t cause much excitement. Interestingly enough, The 3DO Company tried again with a similar game concept a year later – however, Warriors of Might and Magic didn’t meet with much more enthusiasm amongst gamers and critics than its predecessor.

While the PS1 and PS2 versions of Warriors of Might and Magic didn’t cause much of a stir, the same goes doubly for the Game Boy Colour conversion – not necessarily a surprise, given the game’s poor reviews and the sheer number of games being published for the platform in 2000. However, the one positive thing to come out of this run-of-the-mill 2d-action RPG was an outstanding soundtrack by Matthew Simmonds (maybe better known under his demo scene handle 4mat). At the time the in-house composer for developer Climax Group, Simmonds had started out in 1989 as part of Amiga demo scene group Slipstream, before transitioning into a professional game music career in the early 1990s. Interestingly enough, Simmonds is one of the few game music composers who remained active in both the game industry and the demo scene decades after first starting out.

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Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream Soundtrack – Review

Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream Soundtrack, Yoko Kanno, 2000

Occasionally legend is indeed more intriguing than reality. One such case is Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream, a Japan-only Dreamcast title that initially made waves for having been developed by a predominantly (or even exclusively) female team. Unfortunately, a look at the game’s credits quickly shows that this wasn’t the case, although key design roles were indeed held by women. Ultimately, Napple Tale didn’t need these sorts of urban myths to stand apart from the competition. While not particularly challenging, the game created a wonderfully whimsical, dreamlike 2.5D world that mixed platforming with RPG elements. Around this framework, developer Chime Corporation wrapped a narrative that dealt with how the passing of seasons impacted the personality of the game’s characters.

While the game never left Japan, it did gain a certain level of popularity in the West – and that’s really due to Yoko Kanno’s involvement with this project. By the time she wrote the Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream soundtrack, Kanno had firmly cemented her position as one of Japan’s finest anime composers, coming off the twin successes of Cowboy Bebop and Turn A Gundam (maybe the greatest score ever written for this long-running franchise). What exactly inspired Kanno to make a return to video game scoring after having firmly established her film music career is unclear. However, it’s safe to say that Napple Tale is just as outstanding as her other scores of this era.

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Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack – Review

Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack, Yoko Kanno, 1998

After a somewhat rocky start (that initially didn’t even see all episodes screened), Cowboy Bebop went on to become one of anime’s cultural milestones – on both sides of the Pacific. Setting itself apart from almost anything else produced for TV animation in either Japan or the USA, Cowboy Bebop merged disparate genres and visual styles in ways that helped the series introduce many new Western viewers to anime. Its cross-cultural appeal was partially based on its use of tropes that were familiar to Western audiences – Western, pulp fiction, film noir and cyberpunk (all within a space opera setting). Shinichirou Watanabe’s creation turned out to be popular enough to spawn a movie sequel and feature on many ‘best of’ lists in the years that followed.

As one would guess by looking at the series’ title, music played a crucial role in its eclectic aesthetic. Not surprisingly, the collaboration between director and composer on Cowboy Bebop was closer than usually – and the result was one of the most distinctive, attention-grabbing anime scores ever written. After her breakthrough with the orchestral fantasy masterpiece that was The Vision of Escaflowne, Yoko Kanno changed gears in spectacular fashion. Using jazz (and its many permutations) as the basis for Cowboy Bebop, Kanno branched out into a dizzying array of genres. She successfully dappled in everything from blues and metal to country music and opera, matching the series’ free-wheeling stylistic approach. Ultimately, Cowboy Bebop cemented Kanno’s status as one of anime’s foremost composers, able to seemingly nail just about any musical genre.

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