Legend of Mana Soundtrack

Legend of Mana Soundtrack, Yoko Shimomura, 1999

While the 32-bit generation saw a seismic shift in gameplay and graphic design from 2D to 3D, that did not mean nobody was still creating pixel-art masterpieces. Given how far Square’s 16-bit games had pushed the medium in the early 1990s, it makes sense that the company would occasionally return to the style that had endeared its work to so many players. Square’s major forays into 2D gaming on the PlayStation were SaGa Frontier 2 and Legend of Mana, and it is probably no coincidence that Square veteran Akitoshi Kawazu produced both. That likely also explains the non-linear style of RPG design both games attempted to pioneer. Yet while the absence of a robust central narrative was typical of the SaGa series, it set Legend of Mana apart from its franchise predecessors, drawing sharply divided reactions from players and critics alike.

Other aspects of Legend of Mana, however, received near-unanimous praise, above all its audiovisual presentation, which included gorgeous visuals and one of Yoko Shimomura’s finest scores. For Shimomura, working on the Legend of Mana soundtrack was an entirely positive experience. One of her reasons for moving from Capcom to Square had been a desire to work on a fantasy title, and Square’s line-up of high-profile RPGs was the ideal 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!!”

Of course, by taking on composing duties for the latest Mana instalment, Shimomura had large shoes to fill. Hiroki Kikuta’s Secret of Mana remains one of the all-time great RPG soundtracks, and its idiosyncratic yet accessible style gave the franchise a musical identity distinct from its competitors. Shimomura’s Legend of Mana score does not innovate in quite the same way. Instead, the immensely colourful idiom she creates here is rooted much more squarely in late-Romantic orchestral writing, with generous helpings of metal and touches of electronica and pop.

In that respect, Shimomura’s approach places Legend of Mana somewhat closer to broader JRPG convention, but that does not mean she abandons the series’ established musical character. Rather, she expresses many of the same qualities through somewhat more conventional means. Consider the album’s opening run of “Nostalgic Song”, “Place of Soul”, and “Hometown Domina”. All three are led by idyllic, serene woodwind melodies, animated by gently driving orchestral rhythms and clothed in lush instrumentation. These earthy, heart-warming tunes, with their folk-inflected lilt, may not be as harmonically surprising as Kikuta’s famously unstable melodies, but they are every bit as lyrical, and their charm is impossible to resist. In Shimomura’s hands, the world of Mana remains a realm of bucolic beauty and wonder. She is also helped by some of the finest sound synthesis on the PlayStation, with crisp, lifelike samples capable of conveying the score’s rich emotional shading.

That charm persists across the entire soundtrack, but Shimomura finds many different ways of expressing it. Her gift for sumptuous orchestration and delightful melody, established right at the outset, culminates in “City of Flickering Destruction” and “Those Who are Shining”. Both cues, placed near the end of the album, use chamber-sized textures and exquisite solo writing to present radiant, yearning melodies. “Those Who are Shining” in particular feels like a natural extension of the score’s opening mood, reprising its optimism while lending it greater depth and elusiveness through the use of choir and the echo placed on the lead instruments. As the final confrontation approaches, the game’s world has not changed entirely, but the emotional stakes clearly have.

Like Kikuta, Shimomura combines the whimsical and the ethereal with apparent ease. The latter tendency leads her towards some of the score’s most intriguing and experimental material. “Moonlight City Roa” most obviously recalls Secret of Mana’s mysticism, combining that score’s gamelan percussion with Legend of Mana’s more orchestral slant through an emotive solo cello line. “Missing Truth” sets a serene, slightly ritualistic flute melody against a background of gongs, layered rhythm instruments, and sitar, turning the cue into a quietly mesmerising experience. Most intriguing of all is “The Other Truth”, with its fleeting woodwind fragments drifting through a thick, hazy summer atmosphere. Shimomura’s lightness of touch is just as evident here as it is in more humorous tracks such as “Cliff Town Gato”, “Southern City Polpota”, and “Mystic City Geo”, whose boisterous percussion and tongue-in-cheek shifts between lively bombast and quieter interludes never feel overplayed.

One major difference between the Legend of Mana soundtrack and Secret of Mana is that the former feels markedly heavier. This is partly due to Shimomura’s more overt reliance on orchestral sonorities, but other factors are involved as well. She uses percussion far more frequently than Kikuta did. On “Wanderer’s Path” and “Earth Painting”, she combines rhapsodic woodwind leads with constantly active snare drums and staccato strings, successfully fusing fantasy and action-scoring idioms. More spectacular still is a sequence of marches placed towards the end of the soundtrack, appropriately preparing the way for the finale. In Shimomura’s hands, “The Excitement of Both of Us”, “Complicated Destiny”, and “The One Who Waits for the Breath of Destiny” balance martial resolve with the score’s trademark melodic sweep and emotional nuance; one need only hear the struggling yet valiantly persistent lead melody of “The Excitement of Both of Us”.

Speaking of heavier tones, Shimomura mentioned in interviews that she was surprised to be asked to write heavy metal cues for the soundtrack’s boss battles. It is a style she absolutely nails here. “Pain the Universe” and “The Darkness Nova” arrange their triple-guitar onslaughts with real skill, generating escalating thunderstorms beneath borderline cheesy yet irresistibly catchy and triumphant keyboard melodies. These are easily among the 32-bit era’s finest metal tracks outside the Guilty Gear series.

For final boss cue “Silence of Time”, Shimomura again reaches for heavy guitar sonorities, though she interestingly avoids obvious theatricality. Instead, she combines churning slow riffs, pounding timpani, a dispassionately relentless organ motif, and an eerie chromatic percussion line dancing above the cosmic furnace below. Oozing the malign spirit of a dark planet mercilessly charting its path across a blackened sky, “Silence of Time” does not reinvent the wheel. But like the Legend of Mana soundtrack as a whole, it uses familiar elements to create something memorable and individual. This is a prime example of a traditional JRPG score done right, full of creativity and panache.