The Lost Angelic Chronicles of Frane: Dragons’ Odyssey Soundtrack

The Lost Angelic Chronicles of Frane: Dragons’ Odyssey Soundtrack, Jordan Steven, 2011

With the rise of mobile gaming, one of the 16-bit era’s most beloved genres made a triumphant return: the 2D JRPG. Given how varied and ambitious those earlier scores so often were, the resurgence of this kind of game was good news for soundtrack fans. One of the finest retro-styled JRPG scores of the new millennium turned out to be The Lost Angelic Chronicles of Frane: Dragons’ Odyssey.

Intriguingly, there is not a huge amount of information available on the game itself. Dragons’ Odyssey is the localised version of a Japanese mobile RPG titled Lost Memory of Angel Story Frane 3. A PC version briefly appeared on GamersGate, though it is no longer available, and a planned Steam release never materialised. The surviving screenshots suggest a fairly generic product and reveal little about whether Dragons’ Odyssey offered especially strong gameplay.

Despite being attached to such an unassuming game, the soundtrack is an impressive achievement. The fact that it came from Jordan Steven Aguirre – better known as bLiNd – may initially seem surprising. One of the most established contributors to OverClocked ReMix, Aguirre had built his reputation largely through electronic game-music remixes.

Yet the orchestral-rock character of The Lost Angelic Chronicles of Frane: Dragons’ Odyssey in fact has deep roots in Aguirre’s musical background. A devoted admirer of Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda, he had spent the years from 2007 to 2010 writing music for an RPG demo intended for companies such as Square Enix and tri-Ace. While that game was never made, the material eventually landed him the job on Dragons’ Odyssey. Released under his Jordan Steven moniker, the demo was strong enough to convince developer Exe Create to let him rescore the game completely for the US release. By his own account, Aguirre had been preparing for a project like this for nearly six years.

The passion and labour poured into this two-hour soundtrack become obvious very quickly. Aguirre certainly does not reinvent the wheel. Instead, he embraces the conventions of 16- and 32-bit JRPG music at every turn – but with such expertise and enthusiasm that the result is continually rewarding. Crucially, he places strong melodies, in the plural, at the centre of almost every cue, constantly introducing new and ingratiating ideas. What is more, nearly every composition becomes a richly arranged collection of musical thoughts: orchestrations are consistently lush and inviting, melodies frequently move in enticing counterpoint, and cues rarely remain static, instead unfolding gracefully from one section to the next.

Any number of the soundtrack’s location themes demonstrate Aguirre’s gift for melody. Whether it is the unexpected acoustic-guitar lead of “Snow Angels” set against heavy strings and melancholy woodwinds, the bouncy pop influence of “On the Upside!” with its echoes of Hiroki Kikuta’s Secret of Mana, or the pastoral beauty of “When the Sun Shines” and “When the Birds Sing”, these cues consistently charm through their colourful, warmly shaped tunes. Aguirre is equally comfortable slipping into more overtly stylised writing when a setting demands it: there is the requisite excursion into big-band jazz on “Lucky Seven”, the crunchy hard rock of “Fired Up!” – a perfect fit for an arid desert locale – and the hushed but awe-inspiring orchestral writing of “Sanctum Sanctorum”, whose slightly quirky melodic turns evoke the necessary ethereal atmosphere.

This constant melodic richness and youthful sweep help make the world created by the soundtrack an inviting and optimistic one. Even obligatory fantasy locations such as the Gothic manor and the mines are given full-bodied treatments that make them feel emotionally resonant rather than merely ominous, as heard in the yearning, languorous saxophone and trumpet lines of “Clauveh Mines”.

The same qualities carry over into the score’s many boss battle tracks. These maintain the soundtrack’s remarkably high standard, relishing the chance to bring more pronounced rock and electronic elements into contact with expertly handled orchestral synths. The results are consistently forceful and energising, even as their constant rush of adrenaline preserves the score’s buoyant, confident outlook. That remains true even of a track like “Angelus Domini”, which, despite deploying the inevitable full-flight church organ, retains a lightness of touch through solo flute and violin counterpoint. There is ample gravitas here, but Aguirre never overloads the texture despite the number of forces in play. And he also delivers the soundtrack’s biggest surprise in “Playing the Harlots”. Beginning with Latin dance rhythms and zany organ writing before bursting into raucous brass fanfares and Santana-esque guitar leads, it is easily the album’s most original cue.

If there is one dominant impression the soundtrack leaves, it is that of a gifted composer approaching the assignment with genuine enthusiasm and aiming to make the score as large and varied as possible. Nowhere is that ambition expressed more clearly than in the final boss track, the ten-minute behemoth “Fugare Draco”. Its surprisingly pronounced dynamic contrasts – descending all the way to pianissimo before surging upward again – only heighten the piece’s monumental effect when the music finally regains full force. Aguirre’s decision to introduce uilleann pipes within a distant, reverberant acoustic is an especially striking way of lending the cue an air of otherworldly majesty. While Dragons’ Odyssey falls just short of the standard reached by a retro-JRPG peer such as Cthulhu Saves the World, it still ranks among the finest Western RPG scores of the new millennium.