The PC Engine launched in Japan in October 1987, designed by Hudson Soft and manufactured by NEC — a collaboration that produced one of the most musically distinctive platforms of the 16-bit era. At its core was the HuC6280, a custom CPU with an integrated six-channel wavetable synthesiser that allowed composers to program their own waveforms rather than work with fixed timbres, giving the hardware a more flexible and characterful sound than the square-wave chips found in many of its contemporaries. The platform’s most significant audio development came with the CD-ROM² attachment, released in 1988, which added Red Book CD audio and a single ADPCM channel — making the PC Engine the first home console to offer full-quality CD audio and placing its composers years ahead of the competition in terms of sonic scope.
The shoot ’em up dominated the PC Engine’s library as it dominated no other platform’s, and it shaped what the platform’s composers were asked to do: write music of high energy and melodic density, capable of holding its own against arcade hardware, at a pace that left little room for subtlety or restraint. That brief produced a remarkably coherent musical tradition — hook-driven, rhythmically propulsive, built on metal and synth-pop hybrids that rewarded technical mastery as much as melodic invention. Hudson Soft’s in-house composers defined the template across the Star Soldier franchise; T’s Music, formed in 1990, became its most accomplished practitioners, producing four outstanding scores that drew on metal, hard rock, and orchestral bombast with equal fluency; and Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata pushed its possibilities furthest, layering arrangements of unusual density and sophistication onto the genre’s familiar framework. The platform’s non-shooter scores are fewer but no less significant: Ryo Yonemitsu’s most fully realised Ys score, Nobuyuki Nakamura’s classically inspired Star Breaker, and Kenji Ikeda’s overlooked synth-orchestral gem on the short-lived PC Engine successor each demonstrate what happened when composers with different ambitions encountered the same generous hardware. The eleven scores collected here represent the full range of what composers achieved on a platform whose musical legacy remains underappreciated outside Japan.
An alphabetical list of soundtracks, selected for the excellence of their compositions from 748 PC Engine and PC-FX scores. Soundtracks for 19 games on the platforms not found — no rip or soundtrack release are available.
Each playlist has been carefully curated to include the strongest cues from each soundtrack. Audio is encoded at 192 kbps Opus. All rights remain with the original composers/publishers; this is for personal listening only.
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
Keizo Nakamura / Mikio Saitou / Tomoko Sano / Akira Souji, 1993
By 1993, the list of the PC Engine’s musical highlights consisted entirely of shoot ’em up scores, most of them heavy on hook-driven synth pop, rock, and metal mélanges. Considering that the PC Engine CD had introduced Red Book audio to the console market in 1988, it had felt as though composers had not made the most of the format’s capabilities — as entertaining as it was, a score like Nexzr was essentially a sonically polished version of what had come before.
All that finally changed with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood — easily the most colourful soundtrack in the entire PC Engine discography, as well as within the venerable Castlevania franchise up to this point. Castlevania III and IV had both greatly expanded the series’ aural palette, with the latter featuring some audacious mixes of jazz influences and ambient soundscaping, while still drawing heavily on Gothic orchestral strains.
Rondo of Blood both continues on this trajectory and breaks with it. It builds upon Castlevania IV by indulging in even wilder genre experiments than its predecessor — including a samba, excursions to the dance floor where orchestral elements re-emerge as disco strings led by a funk flute solo, and clanging percussion layers that give way to a soaring 1970s-style keyboard solo straight from one of the decade’s prog rock albums. That the quartet of composers manage to keep the heady brew they have concocted coherent is testament to their songwriting and, particularly, their arrangement skills. Each composition is couched in layers upon layers of carefully crafted instrumental colours, segueing effortlessly from one surprising idea to the next.
Rondo of Blood also returns to the franchise’s roots, with its renewed focus on catchy melodies and defiant anthems. Most cues here are rock, pop, and orchestral hybrids, joyfully erecting flamboyant walls of sound. Series mainstays “Bloody Tears” and “Vampire Killer” have never sounded as grandiose as they do here, the composers clearly relishing the sonic possibilities that working with CD audio has opened up — fittingly, “Bloody Tears” is the one major-key track on a score otherwise rooted in minor, its brightness a measure of the distance this soundtrack keeps from the franchise’s Gothic tradition.
Whether it is the game’s bright anime leanings or the composers’ exuberance shining through, no other Castlevania has sounded this much fun. Almost every cue is brimming with upbeat energy, vibrant colours, and immediately memorable melodies — the franchise’s excursions into creeping horror, heard particularly on Castlevania III, are but a distant memory. This is a soundtrack that wants to entertain from the very first minute, and it does so by delivering a kaleidoscopic experience unlike anything else on the platform.
Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams Soundtrack
Kenichi Hirata / T’s Music, 1993
Stick with what works — and there are few better examples of this principle than the PC Engine version of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams. Kenichi Hirata’s score for the 1991 arcade original delivered crystalline synth pop melodies that were undeniably catchy, but his compositions also felt threadbare and thinly arranged. The ingredients for something great were in place, but the mix was lacking.
Enter T’s Music, a prolific group of Japanese composers and sound designers that formed in 1990. They had turned heads earlier in 1993 with one of game music’s all-time classic heavy metal scores: Lords of Thunder (the only reason that soundtrack is not listed here is that its Sega CD version features a far cleaner, more robust guitar sound). A few months later, they got their hands on the PC Engine CD port of Cotton and worked their hard-rocking magic once again.
Conceptually, T’s Music’s approach to arranging Hirata’s original is simple. The composers keep the melodic material intact and lean fully into its anthemic surge by handing the melodies to rock organ, blistering guitar, or solo trumpet. Those enthusiastic hooks receive enthusiastic support through far more ebullient arrangements than the arcade original delivered. This is unabashedly vigorous hard rock, revelling in the force of its guitar riffs — so exuberant that the cues can easily coast by on Hirata’s melodies rather than generating new ones. None of the six level tracks needs to deviate far from the formula established so winningly on “Stage 01”. In the hands of T’s Music, Cotton is a short, hypercharged endorphin rush — music that arrives at full force and holds it there, rarely pausing for breath across its entire runtime.
The use of solo trumpet — almost mariachi-style — marks one important difference from Lords of Thunder. The drumming on Cotton does not go for driving metal rhythms; instead it is lighter, almost swinging. Add the joyous synth brass fanfares that permeate the score and the result is a metal-flavoured party soundtrack that keeps its pedal to the metal for its entire run time. Those eruptions of energy ensure the music never feels lightweight or undersells the battle being underscored. This is music that feels massive and dramatic, finding subtle ways to sound majestic when the time comes to raise the stakes on “Stage 06” — which features the soundtrack’s most varied drumming and particularly excellent guitar work, capping off a blisteringly enjoyable piece of work.
Final Soldier Soundtrack
Masakatsu Maekawa, 1991
In some respects, the Final Soldier soundtrack resembles the game it accompanies in that it innovates very little. Instead, the music concentrates on doing familiar things exceptionally well. Its inspirations are obvious enough: melodic metal with a fair amount of pop sheen, alongside power-metal traits such as galloping drums and anthemic leads.
So far, so standard for an early-1990s Japanese shoot ’em up score. Final Soldier excels in two crucial areas, however. First, Maekawa’s optimistic, energetic melodies strike an ideal balance between repetition and development, riding their hooks long enough to land fully while always moving on before the music begins to labour the point. These dynamic melodic lines are everywhere on the soundtrack, giving even relatively short cues real substance and profile. Notably, every track on the soundtrack is rooted in a minor key — yet the music never sounds dark or brooding. Maekawa deploys those minor keys for propulsion and urgency rather than shadow, wringing empowerment from harmonic territory that lesser composers reserve for menace.
The second key to the score’s success is its stellar drumming. Very few game composers managed to program synthesised drum parts that sound this much like a gifted human drummer: full of inventive fills, nimble rolls, and rhythms that play around the beat rather than simply marking time. On many cues, the drums effectively function as a second lead instrument. Combined with the score’s vigorous melodies, they turn these pieces into fully fledged synth-metal tracks that just happen to be realised on PC Engine hardware.
While Maekawa’s overall method is fairly straightforward, he still shapes a predictable but compelling album arc through confident variations on the formula. “Taking Off” bursts from the gate with galloping drums and singalong leads that immediately establish the score’s 1980s pop-metal credentials. On “Sole Warrior”, a more prominent steely bass adds tension and focus, while the bright synth melodies remain joyful and empowering. Staccato elements lend “Progression” extra drama, helping its upbeat groove drive the proud melodies forward.
From here, the music grows steadily more intense. On “Sky High”, both melodies and rhythms become more urgent and hurried without sacrificing the score’s tunefulness. “Infinity” is the soundtrack’s most fully developed cue. Particularly exciting is the B section, where a mechanical bassline powers a thin, precariously suspended melody. “Turn On” provides a thoroughly satisfying culmination to the soundtrack’s gradual tightening of the screws. Here the melodies become surprisingly dissonant and ghostly, at times climbing perilously before plunging down immediately after reaching their peak.
Final Soldier does not merely stand as the finest score in the Star Soldier franchise. It also emerges as one of the finest shoot ’em up soundtracks of its era: a melodic gem elevated by outstanding rhythmic writing.
Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire Soundtrack
T’s Music, 1995
Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire was consciously designed as a last hurrah for the PC Engine, one final showcase of what the platform was capable of. Visually, the game and its pseudo-polygonal graphics certainly fit that bill, even if the gameplay was not necessarily stellar. To ensure the game’s aural presentation would be just as spectacular as its visuals, publisher Hudson relied on a familiar name: T’s Music, who would deliver their fourth outstanding PC Engine shoot ’em up score with Sapphire.
Is Sapphire also the pinnacle of T’s Music’s accomplishments on the platform? That would be a stretch. But while T’s Music do not reinvent their tried-and-proven approach, they introduce some subtle changes, in tune with the game’s character as the culmination of shoot ’em up history on the PC Engine. This is not the party metal of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams or the poppy hair metal stylings of Super Darius II. Instead, T’s Music go for something grander, returning to the power and neo-classical metal of Lords of Thunder — less focused on catchy hooks and more on long-spun soli performed by the guitars rather than keyboards, backed this time by fuller, richer arrangements.
“Stage 1” immediately announces that the stakes have been raised, thanks to what might be the greatest musical intro of any PC Engine shooter — the thunder gods descending from the heavens to the tune of a hammering march in 5/4 time. Surprising touches like the funk breakdown around the mid-way point — mirrored by “Stage 2″‘s spaced-out, sitar-laced mid-section — underline that amidst all the bombast, T’s Music have not lost their taste for playful experimentation.
“Stage 3” and “Stage 4” raise the soundtrack’s sense of scale to new heights, building towards massive climaxes aided by the inclusion of classical elements. “Stage 4” is particularly impressive in the way it steadily builds, patiently shifting from a mid-tempo stomper toward a rousing climax where the composers throw harmonised guitar leads, organ, and choral vocals into the mix — the cue’s energy cresting only in its final moments, making the towering arrival feel genuinely earned.
No matter where the music is headed, the lead guitar heroics tie everything together, effortlessly leading the charge on each cue with just the right mix of virtuosity, inventiveness, and melodicism. The quality of the soundtrack is such that even the boss music impresses. “Boss 1” may well be the greatest shoot ’em up boss track of the 16-bit era — a feast of white-hot, guitar-driven note-shredding whose energy holds back until the very final bars, complemented by genuinely ferocious orchestral staccato hits. Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire was designed as a loving, grandiose swansong to an era, and T’s Music effortlessly rise to the occasion.
Magical Chase Soundtrack
Masaharu Iwata / Hitoshi Sakimoto, 1991
On a platform flooded with shooters, Magical Chase managed to stand out with its candy-coloured presentation and quality gameplay. The score by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata was central to that identity — at that point the two were still mostly known for their portfolio of ambitious shooter scores, and Magical Chase turned out to be one of their greatest outings in the genre. It was also the first game they scored for developer Quest, the beginning of a most fruitful relationship — and not for the first time in his career, tech wiz Sakimoto designed a custom sound driver for the game.
With music as colourful as this, pushing the PC Engine’s limited hardware capabilities was crucial. The soundtrack’s opening plays by the rules of cute ’em up scoring — music that can hardly contain its excitement, its sparkly melodies beaming with confidence and enthusiasm. “Rampish Chase” might well be the catchiest track Sakimoto has written in his entire career. In typical style for both composers, the cue’s arrangements are lovingly shaped: lead melodies rarely play on their own, instead intriguingly harmonised or surrounded by countermelodies, while several percussion instruments are layered on top of each other in competing metres.
Such resourceful scoring is one reason why Magical Chase feels larger and more adventurous than its pop instincts might initially suggest. Iwata and Sakimoto have a further surprise in store, however. The music soon takes a turn for the more dramatic, even abstract — but not abruptly so. The soundtrack first flexes its storytelling muscles on Iwata’s “Azure Way”, which moves through significantly more sections than earlier stage tracks before tightening the screws and culminating in a chilling finale full of dissonant background harmonies, ostinatos that rise in panicked motion, and a spooky lead melody.
Sakimoto then takes Magical Chase in a most intriguing direction. “Waltz of Meditation Part 2” is the score’s most withdrawn moment — almost motionless in its pacing, using percolating, glistening synths to evoke a vast, dark space full of mystery and foreboding, merely hinting at what is hiding in the depths. He also wilfully contrasts this lugubrious mood with a slow, almost regal melody backed by pounding rock drums: a striking moment of sci-fi drama before the melody disappears again without a trace. Final level track “Variations On A Ra Melody” is more traditionally maximalist, but at its core is a harsh battle of musical elements — from infectiously poppy beginnings to a heady, prog-inspired finale, all tied together by the composers’ dense arrangements. Magical Chase is the PC Engine’s most versatile and creative shoot ’em up soundtrack.
Miraculum – The Last Revelation Soundtrack
Kenji Ikeda, 1996
The mid-1990s were a veritable console graveyard, as scores of established companies and newcomers tried to make the jump to 32-bit — with almost all of them crashing and burning. NEC and Hudson Soft’s PC Engine successor — the PC-FX — was one such victim of the console wars, with only a paltry 62 titles released in a little more than three years. One of those games, at least musically, lived up to its title and delivered an unjustly overlooked synth-orchestral gem: Miraculum: The Last Revelation.
Like its visuals, Miraculum‘s soundtrack is a celebration of 16-bit JRPG aesthetics — a first-rate pop-orchestral hybrid. The pop genre makes its presence felt through the prominent use of a drum kit, the orchestral leads’ focus on hooky melodies, and the compositions’ usually straightforward, compartmentalised structure. Where composer Kenji Ikeda (with few other substantial scoring roles to his name) particularly impresses is in the quality of his fluid, colourful orchestrations and his knack for memorable melodies, the two qualities coming together most vividly in his penchant for delectable woodwind leads.
The result sounds like an outstanding SNES RPG score presented on better-quality synths — minus some obnoxious distortions in the bass. A series of delightfully upbeat, mellifluous marches opens proceedings. Dungeon tracks balance creeping threat and thinned-out textures with enough melodicism to sustain interest. Several tracks beguile with their laid-back, sunny attitude that leans into gentle hints of melancholy and genuinely pulls at the heartstrings — “Track 11”, for instance, feels rustic, idyllic, and yet wistful. The score’s tonal language reinforces this arc: the first half is anchored largely in C major, its brightness giving the world a sense of openness and possibility, while the battle material that arrives later shifts the harmonic centre firmly into minor territory.
The battle cues emerge towards the end of the album, starting with “Track 15” — a textbook example of how to write a great classic JRPG battle cue. On later tracks, Ikeda neatly folds electric guitars into his template, surprising with piercing, pained motifs on “Track 17” before raising the stakes with “Track 18″‘s gnarly riffs and nervy rhythms.
While Miraculum is less heavy on the histrionics and emotional outbursts that make JRPGs so engaging, it can go big and dramatic. “Track 17″‘s wind-swept, trudging march suddenly explodes into a moving expression of near-operatic tragedy, while “Track 14” blossoms into a glowingly romantic piece that only grows richer through its intertwining melodies. Final cue “Track 21” brings the score home with an utterly triumphant, life-affirming reprise of the earlier airship cue — shades of Final Fantasy VI — its soaring melodies building into a conclusion that could scarcely be more joyous.
Nexzr Soundtrack
Yasushi Wada / Tatsuya Watanabe / Katsuya Yoneda, 1992
A listener could be forgiven for hearing Nexzr‘s first stage track and thinking they had encountered it before. Not only does Nexzr look very similar to other PC Engine shoot ’em ups like Blazing Lasers or Final Soldier — it was developed by the two companies behind Super Star Soldier and Star Parodier. At least initially, that family lineage is audible in Nexzr‘s music as well. “Stage 1” delivers the same kind of endorphin rush that powered Final Soldier and Soldier Blade, distilled here to its stadium-sized, fist-pumping essence — and it builds with unusual patience, its energy accumulating steadily throughout until it peaks at almost the very end of the track. The main difference from those earlier games is the absence of metal-adjacent elements; the rhythms here are pure, sugary synth pop.
Does Nexzr then turn into yet another hooky power pop and rock delight like those soundtracks — once more executing to near-perfection a well-worn but effective formula? Not quite. Instead, Nexzr lands somewhere between those earlier works and Magical Chase — not growing as experimental as that game’s later level cues, but still eventually venturing off the beaten track. What immediately stands out is the soundtrack’s production quality, which sets a new standard on the PC Engine CD: all those colourful synths and booming drum pads sound crisp and lush.
Composition-wise, Nexzr keeps quality levels impressively high with “Stage 2” — a wintry synth anthem wonderland full of tinkling arpeggios and ethereal, frosty hooks — and “Stage 3”. That cue swings in the opposite direction of “Stage 2″‘s expansive arrangements, its single-minded focus pitting echoey, brief leads against driving rhythms that push the cue onwards, injecting just enough emotional texture into the music’s relentless propulsion. “Stage 3” is also the score’s most tonally grounded track, its C minor centre held with quiet assurance throughout — a contrast to the more restless harmonic character of the surrounding cues.
With the stakes raised, Nexzr allows itself to go off on a few intriguing tangents. “Stage 4” is the score’s take on 1980s funk pop, its synth fanfares gesturing towards that era’s brass fills in pop songs rather than towards classical music. The rhythms become quirkier and more layered, with a playfully industrial edge. “Stage 5” and “Stage 6” do not quite reach this level of self-assured song construction and feel more like collections of effective ideas — but they maintain their momentum and broaden the score’s stylistic scope further still. “Stage 5” contrasts its industrial rhythms and triumphant fanfares with a silvery, faintly wistful countermelody. “Stage 6” settles into a mid-paced chug that powers the cue along nicely, while its varied electric guitar leads — while not immensely striking in themselves — give the music just enough colour and flavour. It falls short of the promise of its opening cue, but Nexzr stands as another outstanding PC Engine shoot ’em up score.
Soldier Blade Soundtrack
Keita Hoshi / Makiko Tanifuji, 1992
Hudson Soft concluded its highly-regarded Star Soldier series with fourth entry Soldier Blade in 1992 — not revolutionising the genre but still delivering another polished product that in the years since has come to be regarded as one of the PC Engine’s most beloved shoot ’em ups. Musically, the Star Soldier franchise had reached its first peak with the previous year’s Final Soldier — and clearly, the developers were happy to keep running with its winning formula.
While Final Soldier‘s composer Masakatsu Maekawa was replaced for Soldier Blade with PC Engine veteran and Super Star Soldier composer Keita Hoshi (with support from Makiko Tanifuji), there is not much separating the music of the two games. This is still impeccably written pop metal, combining the grit and thrust of galloping drums and churning bass lines with soaring synth melodies. The latter flawlessly straddle the difference between riding their fists-to-the-sky hooks for all they are worth and developing sufficiently to carry each track. The music’s tunefulness is matched by its inexhaustible energy, radiating enthusiasm all the way until the credits roll — it is impossible not to get swept up in the soundtrack’s upbeat fervour. Stylistically it is more of the same — but the fact that Hoshi and Tanifuji keep the quality consistently high throughout remains a rarity. Much of the score is anchored in C# major, giving it an unusually stable tonal identity that underpins that sense of unbroken momentum.
If anything, Soldier Blade is more focused still than Final Soldier had been. Stripped to its essentials, Soldier Blade uses the same approach over and over again, arguably with less variation than Final Soldier — but each time with another set of fantastic, bold melodies and just enough variation to make the formula stick. “Operation 2”, for example, benefits from a particularly steely, racing bass line that powers the soundtrack’s most expansive melody lines along beautifully — all the way to the key change that cements the cue’s feel-good character.
The score’s two standout tracks are those that marry all of the qualities listed above with a well-judged amount of experimentation. The drum programming on Soldier Blade bests almost all rivals on the platform, though it does not quite reach the heights of Final Soldier — until “Operation 5” introduces off-kilter ostinato leads and the drums lean seamlessly into complex syncopations that never undermine the cue’s irresistible forward drive. “Operation 6” is the score’s one minor-key track, and it shows: the jazz-inspired, improvisatory keyboard runs that surprise here contrast more effectively with the surrounding material precisely because the harmonic ground has shifted beneath them. Soldier Blade plays a lot like Final Soldier part 2 — but when the music is this polished and this much fun, there is nothing wrong with that.
Star Breaker Soundtrack
Noboyuki Nakamura, 1994
Given the PC Engine CD’s sonic capabilities, it is remarkable how little first-rate orchestral fare it produced. The platform’s first truly great orchestral soundtrack only appeared in early 1994, at which point the SNES had long ushered in a golden age for this kind of game score.
Nobuyuki Nakamura was a veteran of anime scoring and arranging, and his experience shines through constantly in Star Breaker‘s portions written for synths rather than for the PSG sound chip. Here is a composer who knows how to handle his ensemble, writing fluently orchestrated and constructed compositions that move with a self-assuredness and elegance unmatched on the PC Engine — easily the platform’s most classically inspired soundtrack. The only problem is that Nakamura’s approach — complex arrangements, expert use of orchestral colours, less reliance on hummable melodies — does not translate well to chiptunes, which make up the majority of the score.
Even with less than 25 minutes of orchestral music to enjoy, what is on offer belongs in the pantheon of the greatest 1990s orchestral game scores, such is the aural richness of Nakamura’s cues. Opening track “Federal Cosmic Force” charts the course — as grand a curtain-raiser as a space opera could wish for, moving seamlessly between its cleverly layered, brassy bombast and interludes for solo woodwinds. Inspired woodwind inserts amidst frenzied musical activity become a trademark of Nakamura’s impressively dramatic action cues. “Final Battle” shows the composer in full control of his material. The soundtrack’s bleakest, most jagged cue, it never turns particularly melodic, instead relying on short motifs violently clashing — and yet the downright vicious music is never less than gripping.
“Intruders” achieves a similar feat within the framework of a heaving march whose varying orchestral colours are just sufficient to stave off monotony, the cue’s dogged determination propelling it toward a determined grandeur it fully earns. The score’s most atmospheric moments are also its most harmonically withdrawn. “Weird Space” — the most motif-based, sparse cue on the entire soundtrack, barely a note disturbing its eerie stillness — first intrigues as a collage of uneasy, mysterious fragments before blossoming into heavily chromatic violin and woodwind lines full of nocturnal grace and wonder: voluptuous, shimmering, yet heady enough to disorient. “Planet of Sorrow” weaves an utterly beguiling spell by unmooring its peaceful leads from their rhythmic foundation through interlocking, shifting string ostinati. The result is music that seems to exist both in blissful stasis and a constant state of flux — the best demonstration, in its unshowy way, of why the Star Breaker soundtrack is so rewarding despite its brevity.
Super Darius II Soundtrack
Hisayoshi Ogura / T’s Music, 1993
T’s Music had proven with Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams that they knew how to improve a score they had been asked to adapt for a more powerful platform. Arranging Hisayoshi Ogura’s work for Darius II was a trickier proposition altogether, however — courtesy of the trademark oddness that Taito’s in-house composer team Zuntata brought to its eccentric oeuvre. That approach yielded limited results on Darius II. A few tracks like “War Oh!” are strikingly original, but most feel like grab bags of curious ideas that do not come together as consistently interesting cues — and the feeble sound of average 1989 chip synthesis does not help.
There is not a lot for T’s Music to latch onto, then — so the first thing they do is play fast and loose with the source material. On a few tracks they are happy to adapt melodies (most notably on opening track “Olga Breeze”), but often it is hard to spot any obvious connection between the original tracks and their arrangements. The most extreme example is “Planet Blue”, whose bleeping synths and only intermittently intriguing awkwardness are transformed into the most exuberant Saturday morning cartoon theme imaginable. The arrangements on Super Darius II smooth away nearly all of Ogura’s idiosyncrasies — yet while the result is a soundtrack that sounds far more genre-typical, it is also far bigger, more imposing, and importantly, more fun.
T’s Music move through a wider range of styles here than on Cotton, always with aplomb and obvious skill. Like “Planet Blue”, “Olga Breeze”, “Jamming”, and “Say Papa” lean into the pop-friendly 1980s hair metal stylings so popular on Japanese shoot ’em up scores of the era, executed with infectious enthusiasm and benefiting from top-tier production values. More surprising is “Muse Valley”, where the arrangers maintain something of the original’s approach and craft a gorgeous piece of soundscaping, filled with melancholic synth pads and a vast sense of scale — the score’s most atmospherically patient cue, its warmth arriving only after a long, unhurried build.
Then there are the compositions that reach for a level of cinematic drama unimaginable on the original. “Cynthia”, “To Nari”, and “Ending” all prove that T’s Music not only know how to rock, but also have a solid grasp of how to write classically inspired material that thrives on elegant string melodies, grand brass fanfares, and energising percussion, taking the music into space opera territory. Such versatility turns Super Darius II into another score that marked the PC Engine as possibly the greatest platform for excellent shoot ’em up music.
Ys IV: Dawn of Ys Soundtrack
Naoki Kaneda / Masaru Nakajima / Atsushi Shirakawa / Takahiro Tsunashima / Ryo Yonemitsu, 1993
First, the elephant in the room: where are Ys I & II and Ys III: Wanderers From Ys, both long-standing fan favourites and some of the most famed game music releases of the early 1990s? The former work undeniably features plenty of catchy hooks, but relies far too much on repeating them. The comparatively tinny production quality is another drawback. Ys III has its standouts, but also its fair share of repetitive filler cues — landing on “good” rather than “great”.
With Ys IV: Dawn of Ys, such reservations are no longer required — this is the franchise’s musical pinnacle on the platform that first brought it such fame among game score collectors. Returning arranger Ryo Yonemitsu delivers his most colourful and varied Ys score. His arrangements are not as splashy as Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, but they are immensely precise, full of little musical details that land exactly where they need to — far denser and more ornate than what earlier series titles offered. The many percussion layers on “Burning Sand” interlock beautifully, underpinning its beguiling mix of earthy flute lead and synth backing.
There is also far more variety in mood and colour here than on the score’s predecessors, moving Ys IV closer to RPG territory — while its unbridled energy, even during the music’s quieter moments, still marks it as an action RPG score. Rarely has the famed, genre-spanning Falcom sound been executed more joyously than here. That exuberance reaches its gloriously riotous conclusion on “Tower of the Shadow of Death”, grounded in D minor throughout yet building steadily toward its mid-section peak — first combining swinging synth brass set against a wall of percussion before switching to live brass when the cue erupts into a strutting funk breakdown, which in turn leads into a hard rock guitar solo.
Plenty of synthy metal remains on display — more powerful and better recorded than ever before on a Ys title. Thanks to the lusher arrangements, the cues lean more strongly towards grandiose power metal, while keeping a foot in prog metal territory once the lengthy keyboard soli take over. Touches like the bluesy stylings of “Inside the Scorching Blaze” or the synth pads on “Last Battle” — helping to turn the cue into the epic showstopper it needs to be — add yet more versatility to some of the best metal written for any console of this era. It took a few attempts, but with Ys IV, the venerable franchise finally delivers an unassailable classic.
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