The Caligula Effect 2 Soundtrack

The Caligula Effect 2 Soundtrack, Various, 2021

Expectations were high for 2016’s The Caligula Effect – unsurprisingly so, given its pedigree. With writer Tadashi Satomi and composer Tsukasa Masuko, both of whom had worked on several Persona and Megami Tensei titles, the links to those beloved series were obvious. Unfortunately, critical reaction to The Caligula Effect itself was tepid. Still, the game made enough money to justify an expanded remake in 2018 and, finally, a sequel in 2021, developed by Historia. Its plot is close to a reprise of the first game’s. An almighty virtuadoll has created a utopian virtual reality – once again a high-school setting – offering refuge to wounded souls desperate to flee reality. A group of students attempts to escape the simulation after one of them has his memories of the real world restored by another virtuadoll. Reviewers were somewhat more receptive this time, though only slightly.

For The Caligula Effect 2 soundtrack, the developers broadly retained the first game’s musical model, pairing Masuko with a team of Vocaloid composers, each responsible for one vocal number, while Masuko handled the instrumental underscore. Historia also reused some music from the original Caligula Effect. Unfortunately, the soundtrack’s album history is rather messy. There are no fewer than four releases: three short vocal-song compilations issued around the Japanese launch, followed by a complete score album when The Caligula Effect 2 reached US shelves. Those first three releases, centred on boss themes, are of course rendered entirely redundant by the complete album.

That complete album has problems of its own. Almost every vocal song appears in at least three versions: one for each of the two seiyuu voicing the respective virtuadoll, plus a TeddyLoid remix. It is these remixes that form the basis of this review. The result is a bloated album that needs substantial trimming to become an ideal listening experience. Masuko’s contributions only reinforce that impression, since his underscore is a bland affair that never approaches the imagination or intensity of the songs. One final caveat: because this review was originally written before the complete album’s release, some of the tracks in the playlist below still carry their cryptic names derived from the game rip.

Thankfully, most of those complications matter very little once the music starts. The large team of artists behind this kaleidoscopic score did a tremendous job. The songs on The Caligula Effect 2 soundtrack hit with the force of a freight train at full speed, each one a maximalist manifesto piling hooks, textures and rhythms on top of one another. There is so much happening in these tracks, and the music possesses such scale, that one could almost describe it as a techno-pop opera operating at near-constant full intensity. What is most impressive is that the score gets away with this sensory overload for two reasons: the outstanding songwriting, which keeps the flood of ideas moving smoothly, and the composers’ knack for memorable vocal melodies that hold everything together.

Those vocals also bring a punky urgency that sharpens the songs’ contours and ensures that the music registers as visceral rather than merely overblown. Every song appears in two main versions, one for each of the two seiyuu – Mayu Mineda and Arisa Kori. There are few, if any, meaningful differences in arrangement between them. Since both singers do sterling work, preference will largely come down to whether one favours Mineda’s lighter, girlish tone or Kori’s deeper alto. What both have in common is an impressive ability to hold their own against these full-throttle arrangements. Mineda and Kori can twist their voices into nervy, agitated shapes while still shading them with subtle emotion. Take “Miss Conductor”, where the singers’ borderline manic performances ride a tsunami of frantic, head-spinning breakbeats into a euphoric chorus.

Crucially, The Caligula Effect 2 soundtrack finds multiple ways of realising its wall-of-sound ideal, which keeps monotony at bay. Jazz is a significant part of the score’s stylistic arsenal. Just listen to the drumming on “Alter Garden”, which fuses jazz and metal impulses, or the jumpy piano writing in “Designed Desires”, a lavishly arranged jazz-pop track that also incorporates gritty guitars. The nervous vitality of such jazz rhythms translates beautifully into the lighter, more playful world of “SINGI”, with its layers of tinkling metallic percussion and spaced-out synths. Other tracks, such as “SW” and “xxxx/xx/xx”, lean more heavily into highly technical metal. The latter is especially revealing, because it shows that the composers are not merely hurling every available idea into the mix. There is real structural care here: note the cyclical guitar riff buried in the background, whose full force only registers once it combines with the track’s dissonant, claustrophobic synth progression.

Other cues such as “DOC”, “KDN”, “KUR” and “PDR” present whirlwind combinations of electronic subgenres, cycling through multiple sections packed with intricate instrumental detail before plunging head-first into enormous EDM choruses. This is music intoxicated by its own inventiveness, bursting into ecstatic club bangers. Once again, Mineda and Kori are astonishing. “KDN” in particular gives Kori room for a tour de force, as she moves from deep-throated swagger to childlike innocence without breaking the performance’s internal coherence. Another route the soundtrack takes to reach maximum altitude is the addition of orchestral elements. Given the music’s unrelenting intensity, it is hardly surprising to hear strings and choir crowning the soaring chorus of “Eternal Silver”. “MKN” is more intriguing still, building its mid-tempo beat around an almost Baroque woodwind ostinato before elegant string writing lends the cue an unexpected touch of refinement.

And then there are the tracks that simply opt for total war. “BUR” opens hostilities with gargantuan synth pulses and vocals that might as well double as air-raid sirens, before crashing into hardcore techno that barely contains the singer’s feral energy. Hardcore again rears its abrasive head on “WIC”, supported by wiry, gnawing guitars, and on “Suicide Prototype”, whose chorus sounds like suns exploding. “Distorted Happiness”, with its mix of discordant electronics, metal guitars and sticky pop melody, recalls some of Devin Townsend’s most excessive work. “Q – Love – Señorita” pursues a similar combination of sweet singalong appeal and punishing metal sonics, while also throwing in a wild, disorienting piano solo before accelerating into a blazing finale. It is a perfect encapsulation of The Caligula Effect 2 soundtrack: a brazen work that never stops demanding attention, but repays that attention with an absolutely exhilarating experience.