Nobunaga’s Ambition: Bushou Fuuunroku Soundtrack (PC-88), Yoko Kanno, 1990

Developer Koei didn’t rock the boat much with this fourth instalment of its Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise. The game continued its predecessors’ brand of menu-heavy strategising, set amongst feuding warlords in Japan during the 16th century. As before, it targeted those gamers who preferred intensely in-depth gameplay over elaborate visuals. Despite the geographically specific subject matter, Koei felt there was an overseas audience for Bushou Fuuunroko, bringing the SNES and Sega Genesis ports to the American market under the title of Lord of Darkness.

[Read more…]

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Tenshouki Soundtrack (PC-98), Yoko Kanno, 1994

Tenshouki, the sixth instalment of Koei’s long-running Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise, heralded the end of an era in several ways (despite its strategy gameplay that focused on medieval Japanese warlords not changing much). The last Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be released on the PC-98 series of Japanese personal computers, it was also the final franchise title to see the light of day on 16-bit platforms. Most importantly for our purpose, it was the last Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be scored by franchise mainstay Yoko Kanno.

[Read more…]

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Haouden Soundtrack (PC-98), Yoko Kanno, 1992

As with previous instalments of the Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise, Koei only tweaked details for its fifth instalment, Haouden. Clearly, Koei had hit upon a winning formula, happy to churn these games out to an audience hungry for their fix of historical strategy games that prioritised gameplay depth over fancy graphics. Not surprisingly, what stood out most about Haouden’s presentation was its soundtrack, provided by series regular Yoko Kanno.

[Read more…]