Final Soldier Soundtrack

Final Soldier Soundtrack, Masakatsu Maekawa, 1991

There is no doubt that one of the TurboGrafx-16’s great strengths was its stellar line-up of shoot’em ups. That also meant, however, that any developer entering the field faced a harder task in standing out. Hudson Soft should have been well placed to hit the mark with Final Soldier, the third entry in its Star Soldier franchise and successor to the commercial and critical success of Super Star Soldier. Alas, Final Soldier offered little that other shooters had not already brought to the table. Contemporary reviews agreed that this Japan-only release delivered the polish expected from a Hudson Soft shoot’em up. At the same time, its relatively low difficulty meant that experienced players could finish it rather quickly. The general verdict, then, was of a solid, well-designed game rather than a great one.

Scoring duties on the Final Soldier soundtrack fell to Masakatsu Maekawa, who by this point had already accumulated several years of industry experience, likely having debuted with 1986’s Metro-Cross, though the available sources are not entirely clear on that point. A member of developer Now Production after graduating from university, Maekawa was immensely prolific throughout the 1990s, contributing to series such as Rolling Thunder, Adventure Island and Splatterhouse. Even after leaving Now Production in 1994 to form his own company, Music Worx, a game-audio subcontractor, his output scarcely slowed.

In some respects, the Final Soldier soundtrack resembles the game it accompanies in that it innovates very little. Instead, the music concentrates on doing familiar things exceptionally well, indeed far better than the vast majority of similarly styled shoot’em up scores of its era, which makes this the most substantial soundtrack in the entire Star Soldier franchise. Its inspirations are obvious enough: melodic metal with a fair amount of pop sheen, alongside power-metal traits such as galloping drums and anthemic leads.

So far, so standard for an early-1990s Japanese shoot’em up score. But Final Soldier excels in two crucial areas. First, Maekawa’s optimistic, energetic melodies strike an ideal balance between repetition and development, riding their hooks long enough to land fully while always moving on before the music begins to labour the point. These dynamic melodic lines are everywhere on the soundtrack, giving even relatively short cues real substance and profile.

The second key to the score’s success is its stellar drumming. Very few game composers managed to programme synthesised drum parts that sound this much like a gifted human drummer: full of inventive fills, nimble rolls and rhythms that play around the beat rather than simply marking time. On many cues, the drums effectively function as a second lead instrument. Combined with the score’s vigorous melodies, they turn these pieces into fully fledged synth-metal tracks that just happen to be realised on PC Engine hardware, which rarely sounded better than it does here.

If those two strengths, melody and drumming, do not sound especially remarkable in theory, one need only compare the next Star Soldier instalment, Soldier Blade. Written in much the same idiom, that soundtrack relies on solid but more repetitive melodies, and on rhythms that are effective yet noticeably more perfunctory. The result is a good score, but unmistakably a step down from Final Soldier.

And while Maekawa’s overall method is fairly straightforward, quickly establishing high-energy rhythms beneath buoyant melodies, he still shapes a predictable but compelling album arc through confident variations on the formula. “Taking Off” bursts from the gate with galloping drums and singalong leads that immediately establish the score’s 1980s pop-metal credentials. On “Sole Warrior”, a more prominent steely bass adds tension and focus, while the bright synth melodies remain joyful and empowering. Staccato elements lend “Progression” extra drama, helping its upbeat groove drive the proud melodies forward.

From here, the music grows steadily more intense. On “Sky High”, both melodies and rhythms become more urgent and hurried without sacrificing the score’s tunefulness. “Infinity” is the soundtrack’s longest composition and also its richest, most fully developed cue; anyone needing proof of Maekawa’s outstanding drum programming should begin there. Particularly exciting is the B section, where a mechanical bassline powers a thin, precariously suspended melody. “Into the Core”, by contrast, pushes the formula slightly too far, sacrificing some of the score’s usual rhythmic variety and melodic abundance. Yet the preceding stage theme, “Turn On”, provides a thoroughly satisfying culmination to the soundtrack’s gradual tightening of the screws. Here the melodies become surprisingly dissonant and ghostly, at times climbing perilously before plunging down immediately after reaching their peak. A brief burst of note-shredding just before the loop neatly channels all the tension Maekawa has built up to that point.

After all this, “Dead or Alive” and “Caravan Stars”, written for the game’s two time-attack modes, add little that is fundamentally new, but they maintain the score’s near-unbroken level of excellence. Ultimately, the Final Soldier soundtrack does not merely stand as the finest score in the Star Soldier franchise. It also emerges as one of the finest shoot’em up soundtracks of its era: a melodic gem elevated by virtuoso rhythmic writing.