The Greatest Game Music - Page 2 of 15 - Reviews of truly outstanding game music

Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Soundtrack – Review

Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Soundtrack, Yury Poteyenko, 2005

It would be easy to assume that with their quartet of pirate games, Russian developer Sea Dog simply surfed on the coat tails of a certain Hollywood franchise and its (initially) humongous success. But Sea Dogs saw the light of day in 2000, three years before Johnny Depp made pirates cool again. And again one might assume that the title of its sequel – Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales – was an attempt to find a name that was as close as possible to Pirates of the Caribbean, without breaching copyright rules.

But then again, Sea Dog had published the official Pirates of the Caribbean game a couple of years before. In other words, this was a team of developers that just really liked pirate games. What was more problematic was that they reprised the same – potentially very attractive – mix of action, RPG and trade elements in all of their games, without refining it much between titles or remedying its various issues. The result was a handful of intriguing, but flawed games that with a bit more fine-tuning could have achieved greatness.

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Gokinjo Bouken Tai Soundtrack – Review

Gokinjo Bouken Tai Soundtrack, Akihiko Mori, 1996

Gokinjo Bouken Tai is one of those 16-bit games that could have only come out of Japan – and of course was never released anywhere else. It’s a joyous, upbeat adventure, befitting its protagonist – young kindergartner Mana, who lives in a small Japanese town with her family. What makes Mana special is her ability to see and interact with youkai – Japanese spirits, gods and demons. Gokinjo Bouken Tai’s gameplay arguably hews closely to traditional JRPG tropes. However, its anime-inspired, unusual setting and the obvious love and care that has gone into creating its colourful world turn it into a small, largely undiscovered gem.

Approaching the end of his sadly short career – and coming off the creative triumph that was Mystic Ark – composer Akihiko Mori turns in another outstanding effort, once more expanding his stylistic palette while maintaining the strengths that had made previous works so outstanding. Given the game’s quirkiness and its kindergarten-aged protagonist, it’s no surprise that the Gokinjo Bouken Tai soundtrack is more overtly child-friendly than a magnum opus like Mystic Ark or a whirlwind action score like Shien’s Revenge. But this is children’s music done right – with just as much care for substance and attention to detail as any great work of art, regardless of genre.

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Mystic Ark Soundtrack – Review

Mystic Ark Soundtrack, Akihiko Mori, 1995

Scarcity and nostalgia can have a powerful effect when working hand in hand – just take Mystic Ark. A representative of a particularly popular genre amongst retro game fans – the 16-bit RPG – Mystic Ark’s status was elevated further by the dual facts that it was released towards the end of the SNES’ lifespan and only in Japan. Was this one of the great untranslated SNES gems like Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia that pushed the hardware and its beloved pixel art to its limits?

As a ROM translation released years later showed, not so much. Mystic Ark’s gameplay turned out to be solid, but not particularly inspired either, settling for second-tier status in the SNES’ busy RPG library. The one thing that set the game apart from the pack was the inspired weirdness of the various worlds its heroes traverse. Pick your favourite: a desert whose only inhabitants are pirate cats and a witch named Matoya; worlds where colour and sound disappear depending on your location or where all adults have disappeared – or maybe cities made of fruit and vegetables?

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The 7th Saga Soundtrack – Review

The 7th Saga Soundtrack, Norihiko Yamanuki, 1993

It’s probably no surprise that sometimes, games are remembered not for the whole of their various strengths and shortcomings, but rather simply for their most outstanding and pronounced feature. And so when seasoned gamers think back to developer Produce’s The 7^th Saga, what’s brought up first isn’t so much the game’s peculiarly sombre atmosphere, or the variety of characters to control. Instead, what dominates retrospective conversations about The 7^th Saga is its absolutely unforgiving difficulty level (dialed up for the US release), which required hours and hours of grinding right from the very start. It’s a shame then that its reputation as the SNES’ most difficult RPG often overshadows The 7^th Saga’s several accomplishments.

One of these is a surprisingly understated, at times haunting score by Norihiko Yamanuki that plays counter to almost all JRPG clichés and norms. It’s difficult to contextualise the stylistic surprise that is the The 7^th Saga soundtrack within Yamanuki’s body of work – mainly because his discography is so small. Outside of The 7^th Saga, the only game music credit for Yamanuki identifiable on English-language websites is Madou Ou Granzort, a solid if not outstanding PC Engine score.

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Wonder Project J2 Soundtrack – Review

Wonder Project J2 Soundtrack, Akihiko Mori, 1996

Wonder Project J was an entirely delightful SNES adventure game, but its relatively unusual storyline and gameplay mechanics – teaching a robot boy to behave like a proper human being – meant it would never be released in the West. However, the game was successful enough in Japan to warrant an N64 sequel – one of developer Almanic’s final titles (they had renamed to Givro in 1995). Interestingly enough, this time Western gaming publications took note – mainly because they had to somehow fill their pages during the continuous drought of new N64 games. Wonder Project J2 maintained its predecessor’s gameplay, gorgeous 2D graphics and main story idea – the robot that wants to become human, requiring tuition from the player, be it about small daily tasks or philosophical questions like the meaning and permanence of death.

After scoring Wonder Project J like the world’s most lavish children’s movie, Akihiko Mori returned for Wonder Project J2 – writing his last major score before he would pass away in 1998, at the age of 31, from stomach cancer. Drawing parallels between a composer’s life circumstances and the music they produce is often a fraught undertaking, but it’s hard not to take note of the Wonder Project J2 soundtrack’s wistful mood without thinking of what was ahead for Mori.

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