Bounty Sword First Soundtrack

Bounty Sword First Soundtrack, Kohei Tanaka, 1997

Before the success of Final Fantasy Tactics, turn-based strategy games were few and far between in the West; most such titles never left Japan. One example was 1995’s Bounty Sword for the SNES. Set in the year 4093, the game nevertheless sported a medieval fantasy aesthetic, beautifully realised through detailed 16-bit visuals. Its gameplay, however, was something of an oddity. Player input during battle was minimal: one set units’ strategies before combat began, after which the only active intervention was ordering special moves. Even amid the wider interest in late-era SNES obscurities, Bounty Sword has remained little known, and its PlayStation remake, Bounty Sword First, even less so. Ambitiously conceived as the opening chapter of a trilogy, the series ultimately produced only one sequel, Bounty Sword: Double Edge.

Looking at screenshots of Bounty Sword First, it is difficult to identify many visual improvements over the SNES original. The soundtrack, however, is another matter entirely, and it also raises some interesting questions of authorship. Kohei Tanaka is credited as sole composer on the SNES original, with the gifted Akihiko Mori handling sound design, as he had on earlier collaborations with Tanaka. It seems they resumed those roles for the Bounty Sword First soundtrack, which quite faithfully reprises the musical material of the SNES game.

What is striking about the Bounty Sword soundtrack is how unlike Tanaka’s other work it sounds, and how much closer its character lies to Mori’s oeuvre. The immense detail of the orchestration and the sheer density of the writing make it a natural companion to Mori’s scores of the mid-1990s, while a passage such as the four-way counterpoint from 1:50 onwards in “Choukishin” has no real equivalent elsewhere in Tanaka’s catalogue. It is equally hard not to notice how comparatively underwhelming Tanaka’s Bounty Sword: Double Edge, without Mori’s involvement, turns out to be. Tempting as it is, however, to wonder whether Mori contributed compositionally to Bounty Sword and therefore to Bounty Sword First, that remains speculation and nothing more.

What can certainly be credited to Mori is the soundtrack’s outstanding sound quality, especially by PlayStation standards. Music with so pronounced a martial character depends on a forceful brass sound, and Bounty Sword First delivers that in abundance; the openings of “Federal Heavy Weapons” and “Choukishin” alone provide floor-rattling evidence of the score’s power. Beyond that, Mori gives the synthesised ensemble a resonant concert-hall acoustic that marks a major advance over the SNES original and perfectly suits the music’s ambition and character. On both SNES and PlayStation, this remains one of the most classically inflected soundtracks in the respective systems’ catalogues, exuding imposing grandeur from start to finish.

Part of that ambition lies in the score’s robust thematic writing. Tanaka, who is not otherwise especially associated with densely thematic scores, threads his main theme through several compositions in elegant and inventive ways. It helps enormously that the theme itself is among the strongest melodies he ever wrote. In its initial form on “Main Theme”, it appears as a sturdy rather than overtly heroic brass line set over a riding, almost bouncy snare-drum accompaniment. The melody’s strength lies in its particular blend of qualities, combining brassy weight with unexpectedly buoyant undertones.

What is truly impressive about “Main Theme” is the way Tanaka develops this material across the cue’s brief two-minute span. He never merely restates the theme, instead introducing new melodic ideas around successive variations of it, so that fresh material seems to appear every few seconds without ever disrupting the flow. It is supremely assured orchestral writing, perfectly calibrated in its sense of growth, and the result is one of the finest main themes in game music. Later cues go on to quote not only the theme itself but also the secondary ideas first introduced around it here.

The theme returns most prominently in the soundtrack’s militaristic battle cues, again woven in with greater elaboration than is usual in game music, and with frequent shifts in colour and character. “Decisive Battle ~Invincible Knight~” makes the most spectacular case simply by presenting the main thematic block from “Main Theme” in an accelerated form. The result is astoundingly powerful and at moments almost overwhelming: one of those rare action cues that is both whirlwind and monument. During the score’s first half, other battle tracks preserve the initial optimism of the march-like writing, and the main theme underpins the buoyant mood of “Heroic Mission”. Later, as the atmosphere darkens and hardens, it is entirely fitting that the raging “Federal Heavy Weapons” recalls the theme in a more desperate, sombre guise.

Appropriately enough, the main theme also leaves its mark on the soundtrack’s conclusion. The thrilling final battle cue “Choukishin” introduces choral voices and a subtle modern edge through persistent percussion to music already bursting with drama and fresh ideas. Its climax best captures the score’s richness. After all the preceding tumult, the cue does not intensify into something simply bigger. Instead, it turns unexpectedly towards an almost delirious string melody that sweeps the listener away and brings the score’s other defining trait, its esoteric streak, to a culmination. After that, only a return to the main theme can restore a sense of solid ground. Finally, “Staff Roll” closes the score with yet more majestic statements of the theme and its related material, an unsurprising move perhaps, but one that still brings the soundtrack to a suitably momentous close.

There is, however, more to Bounty Sword First than magnificently realised grandeur. Tanaka not only scores battle scenes with eloquence; he also gives vivid life to the world those conflicts inhabit. Some of the quieter cues are every bit as impassioned as their stormier counterparts. “Rescued Soldiers” is one of the rare 16- and 32-bit-era pieces for synthetic strings that genuinely works as a string adagio. Tanaka’s melodies are so emotional and subtly unpredictable, and his control of dynamics so well judged, that the result is profoundly moving despite the artificial timbre of the ensemble remaining obvious throughout. “Theme of Furis” grows from a circular piano figure suggestive of struggling to move on into a duet for piano and solo cello, before the ballad is gently sealed by a lovely acoustic guitar solo.

“Farewell, My Friends…” is just as affecting. Beginning with an arid, resigned guitar motif, the cue passes its melody to the piano before Tanaka’s deft orchestration brings together choir, clarinet and acoustic guitar; it is the choral underpinning that lends the clarinet line’s sorrow a sense of inevitability. “Bounty of Gods” crystallises the score’s mythical undertones, supported by the music’s pervasive gravity. Ethereal choral vocals combine with another unexpected instrumental pairing, reedy flute and chimes, to mesmerising effect. Finally, “Walking in Peace” and “South Europea” show Tanaka in a lighter vein, animated by layers of colourful percussion, gangly woodwind calls and syncopated rhythms. Assuming the music here is indeed entirely his, Tanaka delivered the strongest score of his career with Bounty Sword First.