Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: emulated audio, YouTube (playlist, single video)
Credits
Sound Effects Programmer: Dogen Shibuya
Music Composer: Motoaki Takenouchi
Info
Another game I replayed after a thousand years. I had mixed feelings about this when I played it the first time and I still have mixed feelings about it now, but the soundtrack’s still pretty great. Motoaki Takenouchi is another one of my all-time favorite game composers, even though he was only active for about five years or so. He started working under the supervision of Dragon Quest guy Koichi Sugiyama and ended up writing music mostly for fantasy RPGs and action games before getting disillusioned with the industry because of inherent limitations on background music and what he viewed were substandard products being released, so he transitioned into the pop music industry for a few years, doing mostly direction-level work. He’s also done stage work for experimental noh productions, taught music at a university, and also joined a random indie pop band called Autumn River-Willow. Truly a life well-lived.
Takenouchi wrote three Genesis soundtracks: Jewel Master, which is prog, Shining Force II, which is orchestral, and Landstalker, which is a bit of a hybrid of the two (a very video game combination). It’s not the first soundtrack by Takenouchi I heard, but it’s the one that really got me into him. It hit me at a time in my life when I was becoming aware of two things: (1) every piece of music I listen to has compositional features I could pick apart and engage with if I want to, and (2) prog rock exists and sounds like all those boss themes from video games I like. So listening to this for the first time really wowed me, filling me with thoughts like “wait what’s going on with that chord progression” and “wait why does this melody sound so weird” and “wait you can just change time signatures multiple times in every song??? Is that legal???”
I’m a little less wowed with this soundtrack these days than I used to be, and for a while I was really down on it compared with his later rompler prog (which rules), but it still holds a special place in my heart and still holds up quite well I think. It’s a good cross-section of various aspects of Takenouchi’s music and the instrumental programming is pretty nice overall, with a few tracks incorporating some unusual timbres and interesting noises.
An album for the game was released in 1992, though it doesn’t contain any original game music: the first two tracks are arrangements by cool guy Kenichi Koyano (the “Labyrinth” section of the opening medley is very good, I may like it even more than the original), and the rest of the album has “grade-up remixes” of most of the music from the game, which are basically the original soundtrack but with different percussion and some added layers. Takenouchi said this was done at the behest of the label and he hated butchering the music like this; I really don’t think it’s that bad, but it’s easy enough in this day and age to just listen to the original Genesis music if he hates it that much.
Recommended tracks:
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“Wicked God’s Banquet” is a weird piece, groovy despite its unbalanced time signature (or maybe because of it)
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“The Death God’s Invitation” is one of a few corrupted variations of the base dungeon theme and has a bunch of neat sounds in it
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“The Silence, the Darkness, and…” is another cool sound design piece, more ambient than the last one; this is a town theme if you can believe it
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“Labyrinth” explodes at you as you enter the final dungeon of the game, sinister and imposing and full of jazz
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“Mysterious Island” begins with some of the most beautiful call-and-response I’ve heard in video game music; the third and fourth phrases when the flute and chime swap which voice is leading is a simple technique but adds so so much emotion
(track titles are unofficial translations from VGMdb)
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