2003 Archives - The Greatest Game Music

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness Soundtrack

Disgaea: Heart of Darkness Soundtrack, 2003, Tenpei Sato

It’s always fun to cheer on the little game that could and see it not only succeed, but turn into a burgeoning franchise selling millions of copies – without losing its charmingly eccentric character. Before the release of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, developer Nippon Ichi had been releasing one game a year, constantly on the precipice of closure should that game fail. All that was about to change with Hour of Darkness, a zany strategy RPG starring Laharl, son of King Krichevskoy, overlord of the Netherworld – who passed away while Laharl was sleeping for a couple of years. Setting Laharl’s quest to reclaim the throne in a setting like the Demon Netherworld gave the developers liberty to apply an “anything goes” approach, according to producer Sohei Niikawa. The result was a strategy RPG that was as deep as it was irreverent (not many RPGs can claim exploding penguins as their mascots).

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Iridion II Soundtrack

Iridion II Soundtrack, Manfred Linzner, 2003

As the new millennium dawned, shoot’em ups were arguably nowhere near as popular as during their heyday of the 1980s and 90s. However, more than enough developers still had a fondness for the genre and kept the flame burning. One such studio was Shin’en Multimedia, founded in 1999 by former members of Amiga demoscene group Abyss. Focusing on Nintendo’s handheld consoles in the early years of their existence, Shin’en turned what had been conceived as a Game Boy shoot’em up into a Game Boy Advance launch title – Iridion 3D. Despite the game’s much-lauded pseudo-3D graphics, reviews were tepid due to frustrating gameplay. Two years later, Iridion II was received much more positively. Its gameplay broke little new ground, but critics agreed that it was a pleasant reminder of the more straightforward shooters of yore – and no review failed to mention Iridion II’s stellar presentation.

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Secret Weapons Over Normandy Soundtrack

Secret Weapons Over Normandy Soundtrack, Michael Giacchino, 2003

Among Michael Giacchino‘s WWII scores, the Secret Weapons Over Normandy soundtrack is conceptually and emotionally the most straightforward one. There’s none of the anguish and tragedy of Medal of Honor: Frontline here, none of the subtle character beats of Medal of Honor: Underground, or even the few injections of solemn patriotism of Medal of Honor – and the viciousness of Call of Duty, released almost at the same time as Secret Weapons, seems worlds away. Instead, the Secret Weapons Over Normandy soundtrack takes Medal of Honor‘s ‘war-as-adventure’ aesthetic to its extremely entertaining, bombastic extreme.

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