Orchestral Archives - The Greatest Game Music

Afrika Soundtrack

Afrika Soundtrack, Wataru Hokoyama, 2008

You wouldn’t necessarily expect that one of the best orchestral game scores of the new millennium was written for what’s essentially a photography simulator. But that’s precisely what Afrika, an early PS3 title, achieved. The game itself garnered a fair amount of pre-release hype. The prospect of traversing the majestic landscapes of the African steppes and carefully ligning up shots of its exotic animal inhabitants had a fair amount of gamers and bloggers excited at the prospect of this relatively fresh gameplay idea. Ultimately though, Afrika’s reviews were fairly polarised. Some critics enjoyed the languorous gameplay, while others felt the game lacked substance.

Thankfully, there was little such ambivalence about the quality of the Afrika soundtrack – despite its scarcity. The score was only available as a pack-in bonus when purchasing the game, presented both on CD and in Dolby 5.1 on a supplementary DVD. Still, word among film music bloggers quickly spread, each new review praising the quality of Wataru Hokoyama’s creation. In the end, Afrika won Best Video Game Score at the 2008 Hollywood Music Awards, as well as three Game Audio Network Guild Awards.

Indeed, Hokoyama’s makes a most auspicious game score debut with the Afrika soundtrack. Born in Japan and musically trained in America, Hokoyama had worked on smaller TV and film projects prior to Afrika. Luckily for Hokoyama – and listeners – the game’s developers were clearly aware of how important music would be in successfully transporting listeners to the game’s faraway setting. Developer Rhino Studios made a sufficient budget allowance to have Afrika recorded by the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Pictures Studios Scoring Stage.

The money was well spent. Hokoyama writes the kind of grandly sweeping, gorgeously melodic score that soundtrack fans had more and more trouble finding in Hollywood movies around the time of Afrika’s release. According to interviews, Hokoyama’s ambition was to “make the music sound like a huge Hollywood movie score” and he definitely succeeded. As so often in these cases, John Williams’ influence – particularly of his late 80s and early 90s works – is hard to ignore. That being said, the Afrika soundtrack is less obviously shaped by this stylistic influence than say Medal of Honor and there are arguably traces of John Barry and Elmer Bernstein in Afrika’s musical DNA as well.

All these stylistic antecedents are an indication that Afrika isn’t breaking new musical ground. Ethnic instruments specific to the game’s location are somewhat sidelined. “Masai” and “Hatari” are brief percussion-only interludes that introduce some cultural authenticity to the score. However, these two cues don’t gel particularly well with the rest of the soundtrack, which is almost entirely rooted in Western orchestral styles. The two sound worlds – orchestra and local instruments – only mingle to a significant degree on “Base Camp”, one of the Afrika soundtrack’s most light-hearted pieces. Its unusual combination of timbres combines glockenspiel with various light percussion instruments. The result is a creative blend of sounds that is intriguing enough to carry the slightly repetitive track.

Otherwise (disregarding a few smatterings of percussive colour here and there), Afrika is a strictly orchestral affair. The score turns the game’s safari into an almost quaintly romantic, old-fashioned undertaking. Its stylistic familiarity invites listeners to readily marvel at the wonder of Afrika’s unusual (by Western standards) location and sights. What’s particularly striking here is Hokoyama’s brilliant handling of the orchestra. With the confidence and skill of a true master, Hokoyama makes striking use of all sections of the ensemble. He creates wonderfully colourful, dense orchestrations that carry his warmly flowing melodic material with the utmost brilliance. Particularly fun are “Savanna” and “Afrika”, where Hokoyama piles up such an amount of busy orchestral ornamentations that these turn into riotous counterpoint underlining the main melody.

Speaking of which, Hokoyama’s melodic skills are never in doubt either. Opening track “Savanna” quickly introduces the score’s main theme, a majestic, long-winded French horn melody that effortlessly evokes the wide open, awe-inspiring spaces of the African savanna. At the same time, this pastoral melody has sufficient forward motion to suggest adventure rather than just passive contemplation. Cycling through variations of the main theme, “Savanna” ends with a blast of orchestral colour and energy. It’s the most spectacular scene setter one could wish for.

The main theme returns in various disguises throughout the Afrika soundtrack, if not exactly on every track. The woodwind-heavy “Heaven” presents particularly lyrical, luxurious renditions of the theme, while “Jambo Jambo” is more animated. Here, Hokoyama graces his main theme with particularly florid, polyrhythmic counterpoint that feels like several competing musical lines playing at once. It’s as if the music can’t contain its giddy excitement, both rushing forward and clinging on to its majestic tune.

A marked contrast to the main theme and its measured progression is a secondary theme that Hokoyama introduces on “Safari”. This vigorous staccato tune has a far more adventurous streak and can’t help but recall Williams’ Indiana Jones scores in its audacious swagger. The theme – once more surrounded by wonderfully busy counterpoint – isn’t heard again on the Afrika soundtrack. That is, until final track “Afrika” uses the theme to take the score to a spectacular conclusion, pulling out every single stop Hokoyama can find within the ensemble. It’s impossible not to get swept up in “Afrika”’s whirlwind orchestral bombast that still moves lightly and with grace.

Other compositions that rely on new melodic material provide necessary variations of mood. The charmingly bumbling “Okapi” gives the Afrika soundtrack a comedic touch, with delightful writing for bassoon, trumpet and tuba that combines humorous intent with harmonic complexities. “Night Safari” predictably thins out textures and slows its string material down to a crawl, producing one of the few occasions where tension creeps into the score’s otherwise good-natured demeanour. And “Big Five” brings out a different side of Afrika’s epic tendencies with the score’s most imposing brass melody. It all adds up to what despite its short running time is one of the richest, most extravagantly orchestrated game scores ever written.

01 - Savanna Wataru Hokoyama 3:39
02 - Base Camp Wataru Hokoyama 2:56
03 - Safari Wataru Hokoyama 2:51
04 - Mission Wataru Hokoyama 1:47
05 - Jambo Jambo Wataru Hokoyama 2:02
06 - Heaven Wataru Hokoyama 2:10
07 - Okapi Wataru Hokoyama 1:29
08 - Night Safari Wataru Hokoyama 2:14
09 - Big Five Wataru Hokoyama 1:50
10 - Sunset Wataru Hokoyama 2:45
11 - Afrika Wataru Hokoyama 3:47

Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Soundtrack

Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Soundtrack, Yury Poteyenko, 2005

It would be easy to assume that with their quartet of pirate games, Russian developer Akella simply surfed on the coat tails of a certain Hollywood franchise and its (initially) humongous success. But Sea Dogs saw the light of day in 2000, three years before Johnny Depp made pirates cool again. And again one might assume that the title of its sequel – Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales – was an attempt to find a name that was as close as possible to Pirates of the Caribbean, without breaching copyright rules.

But then again, Akella had published the official Pirates of the Caribbean game a couple of years before. In other words, this was a team of developers that just really liked pirate games. What was more problematic was that they reprised the same – potentially very attractive – mix of action, RPG and trade elements in all of their games, without refining it much between titles or remedying its various issues. The result was a handful of intriguing, but flawed games that with a bit more fine-tuning could have achieved greatness.

The one area where Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales improved significantly upon its predecessor Sea Dogs was with its soundtrack. That’s not to say that Yury Poteyenko’s score for Sea Dogs was in itself deficient. Poteyenko – on his way to become one of Russia’s most sought-after movie composers through the success of Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch and Day Watch – had written a solidly symphonic score that was among the best early live orchestral game soundtracks. Where it all came undone was with the album recording and mix. Trying to create an opulent orchestral hall ambience, Sea Dogs ended up with an unpleasantly hollow orchestral sound that distinctly lacked presence, made worse by unnatural instrument balances on those tracks dominated by solo instruments.

Performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory (and with new personnel behind the mixing board), the Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales soundtrack achieves the classically-inspired grandeur its predecessor had aimed for. What’s instantly striking about Poteyenko’s score is just how unabashedly massive it sounds. Looking at historic pirate score forebears, Poteyenko’s score is certainly closer to Korngold than to Zimmer. However, while its brassy splendour might be reminiscent of 1930s/40s pirate movies, Poteyenko’s tempi are slower and generally heavier – imposing rather than swashbuckling.

Under his musical care, the pirate trade becomes a romantic and noble undertaking. Poteyenko shows off his knack for massive orchestrations on an opening trio of compositions that raise the curtain in spectacular fashion. “Hymn of Corsairs (Main Theme)” reprises one of the secondary themes from Sea Dogs – a steadfast, proud melody – and establishes it as this soundtrack’s main theme. Throughout the cue’s duration, Poteyenko displays his outstanding ability to patiently build a piece – sticking largely to the same material, but varying its intricately layered, brass-driven orchestrations just enough that the composition keeps moving with purpose, if at a slow pace. And once the cue reaches its climax, its brass calls have the force of a Roman imperial fanfare – and that’s before the male choir kicks in.

“Caribbean Archipelago” and “Morning Breeze” deal in equally ceremonial splendour but balance their brassy bombast with slow string passages of astonishing beauty. “Morning Breeze” has another irresistible build up, with a gigantic rendition of the main theme on French horns that turns the dawn of dawn of day into an awesome spectacle of nature.

It’s not just through its massive orchestrations then that the Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales soundtrack achieves a degree of gravitas that few other game soundtracks accomplish. The score’s effect is also a direct result of how Poteyenko constructs his cues. He builds his compositions around relatively limited material, usually favouring repetitions of an established melody that is strong enough to withstand such recurrences.

What’s remarkable are two things. Firstly, Poteyenko’s patience and willingness to give his melodies all the time in the world to cast their spell, never hurrying a cue’s development. Secondly, he manages to vary the orchestrations he clads his melodies in such that the music rarely turns tiresome. On the contrary, compositions develop a rare gravitational pull that on the quieter pieces can border on the hypnotic, and on the weightier compositions contributes to their monolithic appearance. It helps that Poteyenko’s orchestrations are stunningly beautiful, so that his material can languorously luxuriate in their splendour. The result is game music with a degree of elegance, luster and emotional heft that is indeed reminiscent of classical music.

Poteyenko manages to sustain this sense of gravitas during the quieter sections of the Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales as well, while providing some rest from the other tracks’ bombast. A couple of town themes, “Island Colony” and “Town Life”, highlight the score’s more playful side, both opening with lithe solo woodwind melodies that are as charming and lyrical as one could wish for. Once more, Poteyenko is happy to develop his material in leisurely fashion, confidently varying the compositions’ opening statements until the mood is ready to switch from idyllic to ceremonious with brass fanfares that once more recall Golden Age Hollywood.

More spectacular still in their unadorned beauty are “Quiet Bay” and “Moon Way”. Working with almost chamber-music sized orchestrations, Poteyenko writes a series of ravishing woodwind and violin soli. His use of repeating material is most obvious on these serene cues, with little to distract from the melodies keeping the music afloat. But if said material is as exquisite and moving as it is here, the stasis and unfailingly calm mood of these tracks simply registers as one moment of bliss, suspended in time to create a small world of enraptured beauty. And admirably, both tracks maintain thematic consistency: “Quiet Bay” presents the main theme on flute against wordless choir, while “Moon Way” returns the melody as a gentle woodwind call.

Mind you, not everything on the Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales soundtrack works. As on Sea Dogs, the score’s action material lags behind the rest of the music. Poteyenko’s generally languid tempi become a liability on these battle cues that should spark some excitement. However, their plodding rhythms, lack of noteworthy melodies and general absence of direction or strong development turn these compositions into fairly dreary affairs – their brassy bombast now feeling hollow and overbearing.

Thankfully, all that is forgotten when the score closes with “Boundless Ocean”, which takes the soundtrack to the gloriously melodic, grand conclusion that it deserves. Working with the score’s most moving melodic idea, “Boundless Ocean” effortlessly moves from introspective to hair-raisingly monumental – proudly looking back at past adventures and optimistically looking towards what’s beyond the horizon. It wasn’t a long journey – there are about 40 minutes of strong material on the soundtrack – but it certainly was awe-inspiring, indeed as if travelling the majestic oceans from one end of the earth to the other.

01 - Hymn of Corsairs (Main Theme) Yury Poteyenko 3:56
02 - Caribbean Archipelago Yury Poteyenko 2:55
03 - Morning Breeze Yury Poteyenko 3:56
04 - Island Colony Yury Poteyenko 6:18
05 - Quiet Bay Yury Poteyenko 3:26
06 - Moon Way Yury Poteyenko 5:15
07 - Town Life Yury Poteyenko 4:59
08 - Sunrise Yury Poteyenko 4:56
09 - Boundless Ocean Yury Poteyenko 5:17

Aquaria Soundtrack

Aquaria Soundtrack, Alec Holowka / Ian Holowka, 2007

By 2009, the indie game resurgence had already begun to make its mark on the gaming market at large. However, indie games’ impact on game music took longer to materialise. Existing digital distribution channels like iTunes and other online music stores didn’t cater to these often tiny projects. In this environment, the release of the Aquaria soundtrack was a watershed moment for Western indie game music. At the time, a 2CD album release for a Western indie game soundtrack was unheard of. Publisher Infinite Ammo’s courage was duly rewarded. Like the game, the Aquaria soundtrack met with an enthusiastic response from critics and gamers alike.

One thing that helped the Aquaria soundtrack break through is that the game placed music front and centre. It all starts with the ‘verse’, a twelve-note melody that the game’s developer and composer Alec Holowka came up with. Using the verse theme throughout the soundtrack, Holowka realised it was actually well suited to become a major plot point and gameplay mechanic.

Weaving music and narrative together so closely naturally has consequences for the Aquaria soundtrack. The most obvious one is the constant presence of the verse theme. In its most common representation (often on flute), it is an expansive, calm melody tinged both with melancholy and hope. It establishes a sense of yearning early on, representing both cautious optimism for the future and a pensive, elegiac relationship with the past. Both aspects perfectly mirror the game’s narrative that circles around the loss of memory and hope for self-realisation.

Outside of conceptual such considerations, Holowka’s theme is also simply a beautiful, immediately memorable melody. Writing a nearly two-hour monothematic score – as Holowka attempts here – is a major challenge. What secures his success is both the appealing nature of his main theme and his ability to integrate it throughout the Aquaria soundtrack in sufficiently varied disguises. A particular highlight is the yearning cello rendition of the verse theme on “Remains”.

In interviews, Holowka cited Nobuo Uematsu and other SNES composers as musical inspirations. These influences are most obvious in the way Holowka mixes orchestral and pop elements throughout the soundtrack. Many tracks are gently driven forward by a soft drum kit, while graceful, quickly accessible melodies – often performed by orchestral solo instruments – are layered on top. When pulled of as well as it is here, this familiar combination gives the music immediacy, colourful variety and gravitas. “Mystery” even revives the time-honoured JRPG tradition of the solo music box track.

It’s the orchestral elements that come to represent the soundtrack’s warm and sentimental side. During the verse theme’s renditions on oboe, flute or horns, it rings out most clearly and draws listeners into the world of Aquaria. Once this connection binds listeners and music, Holowka establishes interferences that turn the initially idyllic ocean waters into hostile territory. Particularly during the album’s final third, he uses electronic sounds to make Aquaria’s waters colder and harder to fathom. For example, “Dark Places” buries its melody underneath chiming sound effects and electronic rhythms. “Gullet” is more abstract yet, with its lonely tinkling sounds and a deep bass line that pulls the music to the bottom of the ocean. Melodies don’t entirely disappear from these tracks, but as on “The Body”, they have turned eerie and forlorn.

Crucial for an album of such immense length, the Aquaria soundtrack successfully builds a narrative arc that hooks listeners and carries them all the way to the album’s conclusion. Arguably, the musical pillars of Aquaria’s underwater world are fairly conventional. Compositions are usually serene, carried by expressive woodwind melodies and soft strings, with embellishments from piano, string pizzicati and light metal percussion, while occasional choir pads and bell strikes address the ocean’s majestic expanse and sometimes forbidding depth. But such familiarity simply allows Holowka to emotionally involve and move listeners without delay.

Just how powerful the Aquaria soundtrack’s narrative arc is becomes clear at the album’s end. Simply put, it is one of the most moving finales in game music. “Ending”’s resigned piano close and the following “Return” briefly offer redemption. Then vocal ballad “Lost to the Waves” brings the music’s persistent yearning to a head in genuinely affecting fashion. It’s the sound of the setting sun flooding the sky with golden light one last time before the lapping waves grow darker and darker. Resolution is still out of reach, the journey must go on.

And then there’s still bonus track “Fear the Dark”, sequenced at the end of the Bandcamp release. It’s the sort of big, sweeping pop-orchestral closing ballad that Western game composers unfortunately attempt so rarely. Impeccably arranged and constructed (and at times exquisitely overwrought), “Fear the Dark” is a nearly nine-minute behemoth that rises and falls with the confidence of a passionate, grand operatic aria. No need then to assume that indie scores feel smaller than their mainstream cousins. Aquaria’s music tells a story that warrants the soundtrack’s immense scope.

01 - Intro Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 0:35
02 - Title Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:36
03 - Light Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:00
04 - The Traveller Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:57
05 - Home Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:55
06 - Technique Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:29
07 - Mystery Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:04
08 - Archaic Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:15
09 - Fatal Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:30
10 - Undiscovered Waters Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:33
11 - Boss Fraught Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:42
12 - Remains Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:22
13 - Cathedral Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:48
14 - The Fall of Mithalas Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:42
15 - Heart of the Forest Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:51
16 - Hope of Winter Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:54
17 - Mother Nature Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:48
18 - Bright Waters Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:10
19 - Above Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 3:11
20 - Moment Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:12
21 - Li Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:31
22 - Sun Temple Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:55
23 - Inevitable Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:57
24 - Prometheus Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:03
25 - Lost Waters Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:43
26 - Dark Places Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:38
27 - Gullet Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:32
28 - Icy Waters Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:24
29 - Sunken City Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:57
30 - The Body Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:03
31 - Fallen Breed Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:24
32 - Worship Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 5:29
33 - Ending Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 3:45
34 - The Return Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 2:30
35 - Lost to the Waves Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 3:12
36 - The Verse Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:10
37 - Fly Away Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 1:05
38 - Fear the Dark Holowka, Alec / Holowka, Ian 8:53

Azkend 2: The World Beneath Soundtrack

Azkend 2: The World Beneath Soundtrack, Jonathan Geer, 2012

One of the most exciting experiences for music collectors is to come across a work that defies expectations and delivers something much more involving and satisfying than expected. Jonathan Geer’s Azkend 2: The World Beneath soundtrack is exactly that sort of album. It’s music for yet another match-3 game – a genre whose popularity soared with the advent of mobile gaming. This is not necessarily the kind of game one expects to deliver a full-bodied, lush (synth)orchestral score. However, that’s precisely what Azkend 2 achieves.

In an interview, Geer stated that “this kind of big, lush, adventurous soundtrack is really right up my alley and probably my strongest genre as a composer. My goal was to just write something very romantic and big.” You only need to listen to opening track “Azkend 2 Theme” to realise that Geer achieved his aims. If you walked into this soundtrack not knowing what kind of game it was written for, chances are that you’d never guess this was music created for a puzzler. Instead, this is the kind of mature orchestral score that you’d expect to hear in a big-budget RPG.

“Azkend 2 Theme” starts with a triumphant brass melody, filled to the brink with a swaggering sense of high adventure. Given the game’s protagonist is a pirate, the melody’s unabashed swashbuckling is entirely appropriate. The melody then reappears in various shapes and iterations, including on sweeping strings and in a dignified, flowing cello rendition. It’s obvious that Geer has a firm grasp of how to make full use of the orchestra’s resources. What’s more, his ability to manipulate the timbre and dynamics of his main theme is outstanding. The result is a composition that is constantly in motion yet always melodically focused.

Indeed, if you are a fan of big melodies, the Azkend 2: The World Beneath soundtrack delivers all the way. Each of the score’s five longer tracks features at least one gushing melodic outburst that is a pleasure to behold. On “Discovery” and “Awe”, these moments come courtesy of reprises of the main theme. The theme doesn’t grow old even during these relatively straightforward recapitulations, as it maintains its indomitable, rousing spirit. And the theme is hardly Geer’s only striking melodic creation. “Explorers” and “Rain and Mystery” rely on new melodies which crescendo into broad statements that are just as splendid as the main theme.

While “Azkend 2 Theme” let Geer build a boisterous roller coaster of a track, later compositions allow for more measured development of their ideas, beautifully balancing those build ups and melodic outpourings with moments of calm wonder and even playfulness and mischievousness. Take “Discovery”, which follows “Azkend 2 Theme”s romp with celesta and harp leads to set a beguiling mood of mystery. The main theme’s grand return celebrates the joys of discovering new worlds, but the following episode for gently driving violin ostinati and angelic female choirs combines the soundtrack’s impressive feeling of scale with a quiet sense of wonder and careful exploration. It’s a finely tuned balance that comes to mark the Azkend 2: The World Beneath soundtrack as a whole.

Other tracks keep tweaking the soundtrack’s lavishly orchestrated formula. “Explorers”’ big crescendo intriguingly doesn’t result in another big melodic statement. Instead, the composition returns to its opening figure, a flighty, Harry Potter-esque arpeggio idea. This unexpected twist adds a touch of light-hearted whimsy to the music. Later on, one of the score’s best melodies sweeps the music off its feet and irresistibly carries it waltzing through palace halls, anchored by confident timpani accents. With a climax that feels both romantic and enterprising, “Explorers” builds the soundtrack’s most intriguing narrative.

“Rain and Mystery” is the album’s most delicate composition, again changing the tone of the score. The track convincingly balances its expansive, slightly Gothic string melody with another delightful passage for harp and celesta. The composition also continues the album’s streak of whimsical wonder when it presents its main melody in a carefree piano rendition, set against violin pizzicati. At times, “Rain and Mystery” has the fairy tale charm of a vintage Disney soundtrack. It’s a homage Azkend 2 executes better than Cinders, an orchestral indie score with similar ambitions.

The only composition that falls short of the album’s high standards is “Awe”. Despite some noteworthy melodic moments, it ultimately relies a bit too much on its strident string ostinato rhythms. In the end, that’s only a minor blemish though and does nothing to diminish the fact that at the time of its release, the Azkend 2: The World Beneath soundtrack set new standards for orchestral indie game scores – and trumped the vast majority of its mainstream competition too.

01 - Azkend 2 Theme Jonathan Geer 2:46
02- Discovery Jonathan Geer 4:09
03 - Explorers Jonathan Geer 4:21
04 - Rain and Mystery Jonathan Geer 4:06

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Soundtrack

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Soundtrack, Mikael Karlsson, 2010

Battlefield: Bad Company’s soundtrack had turned heads through the involvement of classical composer Mikael Karlsson. As a successful writer of modern (sometimes avant-garde) classical music and with an impressive body of well-received orchestral works, ballets and operas under his belt, Karlsson seemed like an unusual choice to score a first-person shooter. The link between Karlsson and the Battlefield franchise was Stefan Strandberg, sound director at game developer DICE. Friends during their study years in Stockholm, they reconnected when Karlsson moved to New York and a demo tape of his made it into the hands of Strandberg.

Ultimately though, the Battlefield: Bad Company score album felt underwhelming. Its compositions were usually too short to develop meaningfully. Additionally, the music wasn’t as adventurous and refreshing as the references that Karlsson and Strandberg quoted in interviews (Rachmaninoff, Schnittke, Bartok) would suggest.

The Battlefield: Bad Company 2 soundtrack – while stylistically more conventional than its predecessor – is a considerable improvement. Ignoring some shorter tracks that feel like filler, the score album’s meat are four substantial orchestral cues. While they run for just over 15 minutes altogether, they are among Western game music’s best developed orchestral compositions. In fact, particularly “The Secret Revealed” and “The Ancient Weapon” feel more like small concert works than soundtrack compositions. Karlsson’s background in classical music is consistently manifest in his intelligent handling of orchestral forces and dynamics. It helps that according to Karlsson, “BC2 has a much more developed, cinematic story line than BC1”.

The fun kicks off with the robust “The Storm (Main Theme)”. Its opening gestures – a resilient, solemn trumpet solo over somewhat anonymously driving string ostinati and percussion – have become musical clichés of the FPS genre. But Karlsson establishes his credentials early on. His trumpet lead melody is more long-spun and less predictable than the vast majority of competitors in this field. Countless game (and movie) soundtracks have tried to mix traditional orchestral sweep with rhythm-focused modern action score writing – far too often to underwhelming results. “The Storm (Main Theme)” is one of the few game music compositions that gets the balance right. The piece never sacrifices carefully crafted dynamics and orchestrations for the constant forward surge that this type of composition requires. The track’s requisite sense of heroism never feels cheap and doesn’t have to rely on the tired, simplistic major chord progressions of other action games.

One of the surprising things about the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 soundtrack is that “The Storm (Main Theme)” is the only composition with the expected militaristic bravado. The other three substantial cues take more subtle approaches.

“Snowy Mountains” positions itself on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum to “The Storm (Main Theme)”. It’s a far more abstract, but still accessible composition, due to its immediately striking atmosphere. As the base for “Snowy Mountains”, Karlsson uses ear-catching layers of plodding, resonant string ostinati. The music’s motoric progression remains steady to suggest constant pressing forward to fulfill a mission in white, barren lands. At the same time, rhythmic subtleties and additions like busy string pizzicati keep the mood sufficiently unpredictable and tense. Massive French horn blasts underline “Snowy Mountains”’ stark atmosphere, which is alleviated through measured woodwind melodies.

If “The Storm (Main Theme)” is the barnstorming opening track and “Snowy Mountains” evokes a particular locale, the remaining two tracks deliver the bulk of the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 soundtrack’s cinematic drama – in remarkably mature and subdued fashion. Both “The Secret Revealed” and “The Ancient Weapon” surprise with their hushed, nocturnal atmosphere.

“The Secret Revealed” shifts gears after “The Storm (Main Theme)”’s swagger, opening with a rolling four-note piano motif on flute. The motif’s refusal to harmonically resolve sets the composition’s mysterious, agitated mood. A sense of foreboding flows from a high-pitched violin drone and ruminative deep string utterings. The melodic material is purposefully fragmented, but still developed smartly enough to tie the piece together. Composed with classical sensibilities and making judicious use of chamber music-sized orchestrations, all the tension that “The Secret Revealed” has carefully built up explodes in a towering brass variation of the four-note motif – suitably awe-inspiring to justify the track’s title.

“The Ancient Weapon” visits similar emotional territory, but with a more melodramatic flair. Karlsson writes a solo violin part that ranks among Western game music’s most fully-developed instrumental soli. By turns delicate, passionate, trembling, intimate, and always impeccably performed, the mesmerising solo violin is pitted against thumping percussion and hammering piano chords. Compositional subtlety once more leads to emotional ambivalence and intrigue. “The Ancient Weapon”’s solo violin part lacks any continuously flowing, comforting melody line. It refuses to deliver any definitive emotional payoffs, but offers constant allure and fascination. Karlsson’s background in modern classical music shines through once more, allowed to produce far more multi-faceted statements of intent than on Battlefield: Bad Company. Ultimately, “The Ancient Weapon” ends on the album’s most ambiguous, cliffhanging note, receding back into the darkness. It’s a welcome invitation to replay this anything but ordinary first-person shooter score.

01 - The Storm (Main Theme) Mikael Karlsson 4:30
02 - The Secret Revealed Mikael Karlsson 4:01
03 - Snowy Mountains Mikael Karlsson 3:03
04 - The Ancient Weapon Mikael Karlsson 3:50

Bounty Sword First Soundtrack

Bounty Sword First Soundtrack, Kohei Tanaka, 1997

Before Final Fantasy Tactics’ success, releases of turn-based strategy games in the West were far and few between – most of these titles were only ever released in Japan. One such game was 1995’s Bounty Sword for the SNES. Set in the year 4093, the game nonetheless featured a medieval-themed fantasy look beautifully realised through detailed 16-bit visuals. Bounty Sword’s gameplay was a bit of an oddity though. Gamers’ input into battles was minimal – they would set their units’ strategy before the fight began. After that, all they could do was command soldiers to use special moves. Even amidst the general interest for hidden late-era SNES treasures, Bounty Sword has remained obscure – and even less well-known was its PS1 remake Bounty Sword First. Ambitiously envisaged as the beginning of a trilogy, only one sequel (Bounty Sword: Double Edge) was released.

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Dead Space 2 Soundtrack

Dead Space 2 Soundtrack, Jason Graves, 2011

“The Same. But Different. Yet Better.” According to Jason Graves, those were the words that he stuck above his monitor when composing Dead Space 2. Considering the success of Dead Space’s aural aspects – two BAFTAs and a degree of media attention few game scores ever achieve – Grave’s goal was no doubt an ambitious one. Then again, no matter how ferocious Dead Space’s soundtrack was, there was room for improvement. Graves’ breakthrough work was the equivalent of a horror movie that tries to scare its audience with jump scare after jump scare. And at some stage, watching monsters leap at the protagonist for yet another “boo!” effect gets old.

Fortunately, Graves fixes this and other issues on the Dead Space 2 soundtrack. It is still unmistakably the soundtrack for a very scary game. But at the same time, through a more varied approach to creating unease and immersion, Dead Space 2 clearly surpasses its predecessor. It delivers a surprisingly multi-faceted exploration of the dark corridors of both a haunted space station and of its protagonist Isaac Clarke’s disintegrating mind.

Grave’s creativity and his improved judgment on how to let his music achieve maximum emotional effect are demonstrated right from the start on “Isaac, Are You There?”. Graves implements one key ingredient that allows his music to register with much greater impact than before – contrast. To put it in his words: “It’s the tonal versus the non-tonal, the calm versus the chaos.” And so, “Isaac, Are You There?” opens with the mournful sounds of a string quartet whose grip on tonality soon crumbles, giving way to tortured dissonances.

Arguably, the string quartet doesn’t appear as often on the Dead Space 2 soundtrack as the score’s more traditional components. However, these introspective interludes are of utmost importance to pace the album and they never fail to impress. They’re emotionally powerful, creepy and touchingly communicate Isaac’s loneliness. The first Dead Space didn’t have much more than the threat of someone being swallowed by the terrifying unknown. Now, Dead Space 2 makes us care about that someone.

This sort of emotional involvement is also anchored in the improved pacing of the album’s acidic action pieces. Sample a track like “Titan Station Elementary”, found on the soundtrack’s Collector’s Edition release. Its strategy to open with something decidedly non-horror related – a children’s song – and slowly move from innocence to terror all the more effectively is hardly new. But this measured approach is where Dead Space 2 triumphs over Dead Space and its nearly constant hyperactivity.

It helps these dynamic contrasts immeasurably that Graves’ writing for piano passages has much improved since Dead Space. Now these quieter sections are mesmerising and retain a sense of eeriness so that listeners’ attention never flags. “The Cassini Towers” only requires echoing bell strikes to shape an unfathomable space, before vocals intensify the music’s unsettling mood. Disembodied voices and whispered, indistinguishable words uttered from a close distance evoke tangible, yet uncontrollable dread that erupts into a violent orchestral outburst.

These engrossing stretches of relative calm form a foil against which the frenzy of Dead Space 2‘s action pieces can unfold even better. While fragile, this time Isaac is more in control than in the first game. Consequently, the action tracks on the Dead Space 2 soundtrack are less chaotic and more rhythmically focused than before. On Dead Space, the music often created a head-spinning effect by going in several different directions at once. This time, the pieces’ rhythmic foundation is steadier and more dominant to give the music a recognisable forward drive. Dead Space 2’s action tracks feel like hammers wrapped in barbwire, barbaric unisono rhythms mercilessly striking again and again.

Such rhythmic focus is the hallmark of much anemic contemporary soundtrack writing. Graves’ immense achievement here is to make this sort of thumping action music exciting. Often enough, his combat pieces have the confidence to simply rely on the sheer brutal force of their rhythms. Key to these compositions’ success is the fact that the chords which the orchestra hammers out with manic focus are fiercely dissonant and visceral. Even if this is music that doesn’t dazzle like its predecessor, its uncompromising focus is even more exciting. Rather than constantly trying to stun listeners with disorienting orchestral mayhem, Graves is happy to achieve more with less. And he does so in brutally effective fashion.

And when a funereal rendition of Isaac’s theme concludes the Collector’s Edition’s version of closing track “Lacrimosa” – one of Western game music’s most emotionally and harmonically complex pieces – Graves reveals that he has managed to move all the pieces of the puzzle into the right position to make the Dead Space 2 soundtrack both terrifying and emotionally devastating. It’s an achievement of rare maturity and easily Graves’ career highlight.

01 - Isaac, Are You There? Jason Graves 5:16
02 - Padded Room with a View Jason Graves 3:11
03 - Hospital Escape Jason Graves 2:21
04 - Much Ado About Necromorphs Jason Graves 4:36
05 - Canonical Aside Jason Graves 1:56
06 - Administering Control Jason Graves 2:46
07 - The Cassini Towers Jason Graves 3:59
08 - Fear of Flying Jason Graves 4:03
09 - It Had to be Unitology Jason Graves 5:16
10 - Isaac Get Your Gun Jason Graves 1:49
11 - Titan Station Elementary Jason Graves 3:45
12 - East of the Sun and West of the Solar Array Jason Graves 2:09
13 - Awesome Hulk Jason Graves 4:14
14 - Start Spreading the Limbs Jason Graves 2:31
15 - You Got Nill Jason Graves 4:13
16 - The Government Sector Jason Graves 2:41
17 - I Only Have Eyes For You Jason Graves 5:01
18 - You Got to My Head Jason Graves 4:14
19 - Convergence Delayed Jason Graves 3:46
20 - Lacrimosa Jason Graves 8:11

Dear Esther Soundtrack

Dear Esther Soundtrack, Jessica Curry, 2012

It seems fair to say that it’s usually indie video games that push the boundaries of the medium and have gamers and audiences asking “But is it a game?” (“Is it art?” being a close second). One of these games, Dear Esther, was initially a research project at the University of Plymouth. Players find themselves on a barren island in the Hebrides and are left to explore the surroundings. Meanwhile, a male voice-over reads out random letter fragments to a woman named Esther. With no threat of death and no tasks to be fulfilled, Dear Esther instead aims to capture gamers’ intrigue simply by letting them figure out – or just interpret – the fragmented narrative, hinting at a tragedy that precedes the events in the game. Encouragingly, this experiment in digital storytelling received significant critical acclaim and was a commercial success as well.

Dear Esther also launched the game music career of composer Jessica Curry. Curry’s body of work before Dear Esther included arts installations, film soundtracks and cross-media projects. A co-founder of Dear Esther’s developer The Chinese Room, Curry was closely involved in the game’s creation from its inception. Her aim was for the music “to add an emotional dimension” to the game. That was a crucial task, given that Dear Esther‘s challenge-free gameplay doesn’t reward the player with a sense of odds overcome, but instead must satisfy gamers by delivering a memorable experience.

And that’s something that the Dear Esther soundtrack most definitely achieves, if through somewhat unexpected means. Curry is content to move Dear Esther along at an often glacial pace, working only with a few instruments – string quartet, two pianos, a female vocalist and sound effects – to create minimalist, sometimes nearly ambient classical music that seeks to make its mark through haunting, often dissonant textures. Listen to the nine-minute “Always (Hebridean Mix”) to witness the stunning effects that Curry’s approach yields. The piece consists almost entirely of otherworldly, elusive string chords. But these lingering notes manage to create a spellbinding, fascinating aural landscape that catapults listeners – as long as pay close attention – into Dear Esther‘s dream-like world with remarkable ease. Some soprano lines add a sense of spirituality, but certainly not redemption.

This ambivalence, this refusal to deliver emotional resolution becomes the Dear Esther soundtrack’s defining and most intriguing characteristic. The piano parts on “Twenty One” and “The Bones of Jakobson” subtly clash both harmonically and rhythmically. They never do so in such volatile fashion that it would push listeners away. But it’s still enough to make you listen closely as you wonder where the pieces are headed next. Just as you start to enjoy the comfort of “Moon in my Palm”’s surprisingly melodic strains, the intertwining violin lines turn chromatic, as they threaten the music’s sense of tonal and emotional security. The resulting subtlety of expression highlights an artist’s impressive command of instrumental colours and emotional effects.

Amazingly enough, the Dear Esther soundtrack’s heady nature never diminishes its emotional appeal. True, Curry’s compositional style might feel angular to many listeners. But those willing to let themselves sink into Dear Esther‘s music will find it a haunted, memorable world upon itself, filled with palpable sorrow and regret. Dear Esther might be one of game music’s more sparse and austere scores. But it’s precisely this restraint that makes the tangible, bittersweet emotions at the core of each composition so powerful. Even when the soundtrack is at its starkest, the music doesn’t fail to deepen Dear Esther‘s anguished mood.

This balance between emotionality and austerity, between warmth and abstraction imbues the Dear Esther soundtrack with an emotional intelligence that is rare in game scores. There’s a refreshing absence of clearly sign-posted, intended effects on this soundtrack. Instead, the score creates layers and layers of emotional meaning that the listener is left to decipher.

And this ambivalence also brings Dear Esther to its satisfying, if not necessarily conclusive finale. On closing track “Ascension”, the score ventures into yearning major key territory for the first time. But then the eerie, pleading ‘remember me’ chants of “Remember Me (Jakobson)” return and the listener realises that the ghosts that haunt the Dear Esther soundtrack and its protagonist are impossible to shake. This is no ascension towards the light, but instead a strange, frightening destination. And when the piece finally ends with a voice insisting ‘come back’ and a single piano note turning into an ominously flat-lining sound, Dear Esther‘s music leaves us with the same rewarding challenge as the game itself: to figure out what it all meant, and what to make of the torrent of emotions this experience has evoked.

Comparing the Dear Esther soundtrack and Curry’s later Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture proves insightful. Both scores are explorations of otherworldly realms, pondering what we will face in the great beyond. Their music is static, existing in a space where time no longer counts. Emotional states are suspended, so the protagonists can await judgment and reckoning. But Rapture is a walk through sun-lit meadows and cathedrals, facing the past with a sense of clarity and finality. Dear Esther is a much murkier affair, a trek on rocky, perilous terrain in the fog. No promise of forgiveness lights the way and every part of the journey is another disorienting step into the unknown. It’s a challenging, daring and immensely satisfying prospect few game scores are bold enough to suggest.

01 - Dear Esther Jessica Curry 1:13
02 - I Have Begun My Ascent Jessica Curry 4:19
03 - Remember (Donnelly) Jessica Curry 0:37
04 - Twenty One Jessica Curry 2:52
05 - Golden Ratio Jessica Curry 2:08
06 - Remember (Paul) Jessica Curry 0:37
07 - On the Motorway Jessica Curry 2:00
08 - Standing Stones Jessica Curry 2:08
09 - Always (Hebridean Mix) Jessica Curry 9:04
10 - The Bones of Jakobson Jessica Curry 3:42
11 - Remember (Jakobson) Jessica Curry 0:48
12 - This Godforsaken Aerial Jessica Curry 3:26
13 - Moon in My Palm Jessica Curry 2:42
14 - Remember (Esther) Jessica Curry 0:36
15 - The Very Air Jessica Curry 1:17
16 - Ascension Jessica Curry 3:00

Dragon Quest III Soundtrack (Nintendo 3DS)

Dragon Quest III Soundtrack (Nintendo 3DS), Koichi Sugiyama, 2017

While its predecessors had been immensely successful in their own right, it was really with 1988’s Dragon Quest III that the venerable franchise turned into a commercial juggernaut. The original NES game itself sold a staggering 3.8 million copies in Japan alone. Add in a few more million copies for the game’s various remakes, and Dragon Quest III turns out to be the franchise’s most successful entry (it also spawned an urban myth about the Japanese government blocking future releases of Dragon Quest games on school days to curb truancy). The game itself didn’t revolutionise the JRPG genre. However, developer Chunsoft still expanded upon the first two Dragon Quest titles’ gameplay to introduce a character class system. This feature would become a staple of future Dragon Quest games.

After Dragon Quest II’s music had markedly improved over its predecessor, Koichi Sugiyama returned for the Dragon Quest III soundtrack, further expanding its breadth and diversity. Sugiyama continued to move away from the template he had established on Dragon Quest I, including a greater number of location-specific compositions (instead of using the same composition for each town/dungeon/castle etc.) The NES score’s quality remained somewhat patchy, but the soundtrack also featured several highlights, such as the magisterial ending theme “Into the Legend”.

As previously, orchestral arrangements created and conducted by Sugiyama followed soon – first with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 1988, then with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1996 and finally with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in 2005. Other versions of the Dragon Quest III soundtrack abound. The 1996 SNES remake featured a score that greatly expanded on the NES original, incorporating material from the orchestral albums. However, like the earlier Dragon Quest I & II SNES port, this remake suffered from poor sample quality that particularly gave the strings an unpleasantly hollow, glassy timbre. The 2000 Game Boy Colour port – different to the Dragon Quest I & II GBC remake – based its compositions on the NES game, not the orchestral arrangements. It improves on the NES original through its fuller timbres and remixing (prioritising melodies more clearly over the ostinato accompaniment), but still suffers from its uneven source material.

A 2014 release for mobile phones based its music entirely on the Dragon Quest III soundtrack’s orchestral versions, although its synth reproduction of the live performances was somewhat lacklustre. Finally, the 2017 Nintendo 3DS port managed to replicate the orchestral arrangements of the Dragon Quest III pieces convincingly enough (certainly outclassing the horribly encoded 2019 Switch version – there’s also the 2017 PS4 port, but no soundtrack rip seems available). In other words, at the time of writing, the Nintendo 3DS version is the best representation of Dragon Quest III orchestral arrangements.

However, Sugiyama’s work as presented in the N3DS game still sounds significantly less life-like than the orchestral recordings, although the woodwind solos tend to fare better than ensemble brass and strings. Is there much on the N3DS soundtrack that’s not already included on the orchestral recordings? The N3DS score indeed features material introduced on the game’s SNES remake that wasn’t present in the symphonic arrangements – and of course, these compositions sound far better on the N3DS than on the SNES. However, none of these pieces are truly essential. The one stand-out is “Adventure 2”, already present on the NES score. Quoting Dragon Quest I’s overworld theme, it was originally a somewhat flimsy composition. Thankfully, the N3DS arrangement turns it into a precious little gem, with its lead melody slowed down and turned into a dreamy, idyllic woodwind solo.

Still, if the N3DS score is essentially an acceptably downgraded version of the Dragon Quest III orchestral arrangements without much in terms of additional content, couldn’t we just stick with the symphonic suites? Essentially yes – there’s no reason why you would trade the live recordings for the N3DS port’s music. But what we are looking at here is music as it is used within the game – not as a separate album release (which is what the orchestral recordings are). In other words – the Dragon Quest III soundtrack has never sounded better within a game than it has on the Nintendo 3DS. As such, this port brings some of the best orchestral game music arrangements ever written back into the title that inspired them.

Indeed, Sugiyama’s arrangement of the original Dragon Quest III material turns an above-average score into a series of orchestral delights (with the odd letdown like “Gruelling Fight” and “Zoma’s Castle”). Of course, some of the NES compositions already held plenty of potential – foremost “Into the Legend”, which showed a staggering degree of melodic development that set new standards on the NES back in 1988. Sugiyama doesn’t have to try very hard to turn the already symphonically-minded piece into an orchestral showstopper that feels like the composer doing his take on the youthful vigour and swashbuckling bombast of John Williams’ Star Wars. “Castle Rondo” displayed Sugiyama’s usual knack for combining light-hearted yet regal melodies with elegant contrapuntal lines. This mix works as well on chiptunes platforms as it does when performed by an orchestra.

One thing that sets the orchestral arrangements of the Dragon Quest III soundtrack apart from the two earlier symphonic suites are Sugiyama’s significantly more creative and colourful orchestrations. His original NES compositions had already laid the groundwork for such increased variety. Take “Jipang”, which sees Sugiyama successfully replicating traditional Japanese music on the NES, making clever use of pitch bends and chromatic harmonies. His orchestral take on the same piece skilfully mixes in Western instruments such as French horns – a heady stew of instrumental colours preserved on the N3DS release. Where Sugiyama’s originality really comes to the fore is on the experimental “Phantom Ship”, which brings together several disjointed musical elements into a surprisingly coherent, eerie whole. It’s a perfect springboard for Sugiyama’s symphonic take on the same material, utilising a plethora of acerbic timbres to bypass easy descriptions of style and genre.

In other cases, it feels like the orchestral arrangements unlock the potential dormant in the NES compositions – as if this was the way the pieces were meant to sound in the first place. On the NES, “In a Town” ’s lead melody feels almost obnoxiously bouncy. Meanwhile, “Village” has a gently lilting tune that ultimately is too thin – and an intrusive ostinato accompaniment overshadows it. Listening to the orchestral takes on the same material, it becomes apparent just how much clever orchestrations can do for a piece of music. Sugiyama doesn’t change the melodic material much, happy to repeat it several times – but by cladding it in different instrumental colours on each occurrence, the melodies remain fresh and charming throughout. Meanwhile, “Village” ’s initially overbearing accompaniment turns into graceful string accents benefiting from the kind of nuanced attack and dynamics possible in a live performance.

Ultimately, the Dragon Quest III soundtrack’s orchestral arrangements – reasonably faithfully reproduced on the 3NDS port – are not the apogee of Dragon Quest symphonic suites. Still, they mark the first time the franchise’s music (by and large) achieved true greatness.

Since an internet search for screenshots of the Nintendo 3DS version came up empty, the screenshots above are taken from the Switch port.

01 - Town Sugiyama, Koichi 2:31
02 - Rondo Sugiyama, Koichi 3:29
03 - Adventure Sugiyama, Koichi 2:57
04 - Village Sugiyama, Koichi 4:00
05 - Dungeon Sugiyama, Koichi 3:17
06 - Fight Sugiyama, Koichi 1:27
07 - Temple Sugiyama, Koichi 2:50
08 - Pyramid Sugiyama, Koichi 2:25
09 - Sailing Sugiyama, Koichi 2:33
10 - Jipang Sugiyama, Koichi 2:05
11 - Phantom Ship Sugiyama, Koichi 2:00
12 - Heavenly Flight Sugiyama, Koichi 3:59
13 - Adventure 2 Sugiyama, Koichi 1:35
14 - Into the Legend Sugiyama, Koichi 2:59

Dragon Quest IV Soundtrack (Mobile)

Since an internet search for screenshots of the mobile version’s cover came up empty, a screenshot of the PlayStation port’s cover has been used above.

Dragon Quest IV Soundtrack (Mobile), Koichi Sugiyama, 2014

It is to the credit of developer Chunsoft and publisher Enix that coming off the jaw-dropping success of Dragon Quest III, they decided not to play things safe with the next game in the franchise. Instead, they went to shake things up, going so far as to turn the game’s story into a series of initially unrelated chapters that introduce the various party members – before they all come together in the final chapter. Other innovations included day and night cycles, an early artificial intelligence system to give non-playable party members combat instructions, and the choice of which characters to use in battle. Dragon Quest IV turned into another million-seller for Enix – not quite as successful as its predecessor, but 3.1 million copies sold just in Japan for the NES original is not exactly a bad result either.

As per tradition, Koichi Sugiyama was back on board to score the Dragon Quest IV soundtrack. It turned out to be one of the most expansive NES scores ever written, clocking in at nearly a whole hour (looped). Sugiyama once more increased the score’s breadth, writing a theme for each world map and several other location-specific compositions – on top of the pieces written for the usual suspects (town, dungeon, castle etc.)

Also, as per tradition, an orchestral arrangement of the Dragon Quest IV soundtrack followed soon. In fact, Dragon Quest IV might well have received more orchestral recordings than any other game or film score – with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 1990, the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1991, the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002 and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in 2005. The 1991 LPO album was the first time the orchestra recorded a Dragon Quest score. It was also the first occasion when an internationally renowned, top-tier orchestra recorded video game music, making this a seminal album release. Clearly, Enix had confidence in their product – and a generous budget. This became more obvious still when the company produced a VHS tape, showing the LPO performing the score under the baton of Sugiyama – interspersed with scenes of actors in medieval costumes acting out various short scenes on Warwick Castle!

Thankfully, all this care lavished upon the Dragon Quest IV soundtrack – or rather its orchestral arrangement – was well worth it, with game music fans often considering this work the franchise’s musical apogee. Of course, later remakes of the game – on PlayStation in 2001, Nintendo DS in 2007 and mobile phones in 2014 – preserved the orchestral arrangements and added some musical content, most of it underscoring a new, sixth chapter. As with Dragon Quest III, the new material isn’t all that noteworthy – although “In a Town (Night)” surprises by offering not just a stripped-down version of “In a Town”. Instead, it blossoms into a lovely, flute-led reverie. Out of the three remakes, the mobile phone version provides the most life-like sound – not surprising, given advances in sound chip technology. Still, no one will mistake it for the ‘real’ thing – the live-orchestral performance this soundtrack is based on.

And so, as with Dragon Quest III, once again the question arises – why bother with these console ports of the orchestral arrangements if they sound significantly inferior and add little additional content? In Dragon Quest III’s case, the issue was a bit less complicated – its Nintendo 3DS port was undoubtedly closer in sound to the live performances than the mobile Dragon Quest IV version is. Again, it comes down to the fact that we are looking at music as used in-game, not as a separate album release (like the orchestral live performances). In other words: if you ignored the fact that better versions of this music exist outside of the realm of in-game music, you would be left with what is still a fantastic RPG score.

It’s easy to take the excellence of the arranged Dragon Quest IV soundtrack for granted – but that would mean overlooking the almost schizophrenic quality of the material Sugiyama worked with. The NES Dragon Quest IV score is an odd duck. On the one hand, it is not just one of the longest NES soundtracks, but also the first franchise score where Sugiyama experiments more extensively with the console’s sound chip. Sugiyama gives the melody to the triangle channel in its higher registers on several occasions, while the two harmonising square wave channels provide nearly chordal support. Elsewhere – for example on “Expanding the Map” – Sugiyama makes clever use of echo effects to suggest thicker textures and a lusher sound. “Cursed Towers” and “Ballon’s Flight” are the composer’s most rhythmically daring NES compositions – the latter’s constant metre changes make it an almost head-spinning experience.

On the other hand, many of Sugiyama’s NES tracks are among the simplest he has written – take the various world map themes, all of which present fairly slight melodies against a repetitive rhythmic accompaniment. Other compositions come across as experiments rather than fully-developed compositions – just sample the two colosseum cues, which pit wispy, unpredictable melodies against absolutely overbearing arpeggios. As a result, on the NES the Dragon Quest IV soundtrack presents itself as a confusingly patchy affair, with dizzying heights and lackadaisical lows.

As with Dragon Quest III, it’s through the orchestral arrangement that many of the tracks come to life, courtesy of Sugiyama’s flair for luxurious, sometimes dazzling orchestrations, and the rhythmic and dynamic nuances a live performance allows for. Those previously drab map themes combine into “Comrades”, a ten-minute medley that might be the franchise’s most remarkable musical accomplishment, overflowing with colours as it moves from one delightful, vivacious section to the next. “Expanding the Map” – the sailing theme – becomes one of game music’s most ravishingly swooning compositions, underscoring the romantic nature of seafaring as much as the cyclical motion of the waves (the mobile version struggles to reproduce the density of the live orchestrations and their sheer emotional weight). And those two colosseum tracks sound like they had always been written with an orchestra in mind, turning into a serene woodwind meditation and an ebullient march, respectively.

But what if Sugiyama had indeed written the orchestral pieces first and then tried to convert them for the NES, and not the other way around as usually? Remember that the first Dragon Quest IV orchestral album was released only a month after the game. Without any further confirmation through interviews with Sugiyama or Chunsoft staff, we are left guessing. Still, this order of events might explain why the orchestral version of the Dragon Quest IV soundtrack is so consistently strong (even one of the battle tracks convinces!), but the NES music is so scattershot.

Of course, when the NES tracks soar, the orchestral arrangements easily follow suit. “Cursed Towers” builds on the NES version’s web of polyrhythms by adding a curious mix of constantly bubbling tuba lines, glockenspiel and ethereal string chords, giving the track a surprisingly playful mood. Meanwhile, “Balloon Flight”’s willowy chiptunes leads turn into complex, woodwind-heavy counterpoint clad in chamber music-sized orchestrations. And at the end, there’s even one occasion where the mobile phone port outclasses the symphonic recording. Sugiyama’s orchestrated version of “Finale” is a bit sedate, lacking the constant rush of ideas and excitement that turns the NES track into the platform’s most formidable approximation of symphonic orchestral writing. Thankfully, the mobile phone port of “Finale” is based on the NES cue, not the orchestral version – bringing the score to a truly spectacular finale that helps us overlook some technology-induced shortcomings along the way.

01 - The Warrior Conquers Alone (Chapter 1 Map) Sugiyama, Koichi 2:58
02 - Tomboy Princess' March (Chapter 2 Map) Sugiyama, Koichi 3:26
03 - Weapons Merchant Torneko (Chapter 3 Map) Sugiyama, Koichi 3:21
04 - Gypsy's Dance Sugiyama, Koichi 1:37
05 - Gypsy's Journey (Chapter 4 Map) Sugiyama, Koichi 2:14
06 - In A Town (Day) Sugiyama, Koichi 3:08
07 - In A Town (Night) Sugiyama, Koichi 2:33
08 - Casino Rag Sugiyama, Koichi 3:08
09 - Colosseum Back Stage Sugiyama, Koichi 2:06
10 - Colosseum Stand Sugiyama, Koichi 2:22
11 - Homeland (Chapter 5 Map) Sugiyama, Koichi 3:10
12 - Wagon's Wheel March (Chapter 5 Map with Wagon) Sugiyama, Koichi 5:09
13 - Frightening Dungeon Sugiyama, Koichi 3:37
14 - Cursed Towers Sugiyama, Koichi 3:13
15 - Mysterious Shrine Sugiyama, Koichi 2:12
16 - Expanding the Map (Chapter 5 Map with Ship) Sugiyama, Koichi 3:43
17 - Balloon's Flight (Chapter 5 Map with Balloon) Sugiyama, Koichi 6:09
18 - The Unknown Castle Sugiyama, Koichi 3:34
19 - Battle for the Glory Sugiyama, Koichi 2:06
20 - Finale Sugiyama, Koichi 10:55