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). It was the last Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be released on the PC-98 series of Japanese personal computers and the last franchise title to see the light of day on 16-bit platforms. Most importantly for our purpose, it was the final Nobunaga’s Ambition game to be scored by franchise mainstay Yoko Kanno.
Kanno’s star had been steadily rising throughout the early 1990s and by 1994, she was ready to focus on anime and film scoring – an area she had dabbled in as an arranger in recent years, with her breakthroughs Macross Plus and The Vision of Escaflowne just around the corner. For her farewell to the Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise, KOEI once more increased the budget allocation – and considerably so.