Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: soundtrack album (discs 1-3 & track 4.35), extracted audio
Info
This was the next completely new main Pokémon game to come out after Sun & Moon, the soundtrack of which I loved, so I was really excited about this one, but unfortunately I found the soundtrack pretty disappointing in comparison. Clearly it’s because this game was missing Hitomi Sato…
But it has Minako Adachi, so we can talk about her! She’s been composing for games since the ’90s, way before she joined GAME FREAK. I listened to a bunch of her earlier works with Chimeratio ages ago to get a sense of her as a composer, and one of our big conclusions was that she’s really adept at writing music in various styles without overt “Adachi-isms”: a chameleonlike ability to write in radically different genres A, B, or C, or to sound like composers X, Y and Z she’s working with. There wasn’t really much that sounded like Pokémon music in her catalog before she joined GAME FREAK, but as soon as she did she busted out music evoking some of Go Ichinose’s compositional quirks and Sato’s unusual chord progressions. I don’t mean this as a negative, to say she’s unoriginal or anything; I’d call it versatility! She clearly knows her stuff, and she for sure has the widest range of the Pokémon sound staff.
The wide range can be a pretty good tell that you’re listening to Adachi: if it’s something that feels out of left field for Pokémon like Japanese jazz fusion band music or hip hop or weird electronica, it might be her. When she’s writing more in the style of “Pokémon music” I find it a lot harder to tell her apart from the others, but one thing is that her audio production is a bit cleaner than the other staff. She also seems to have a thing for slipping in at least one (often exactly one) track in 5/4 into her soundtracks. Keep an ear out for it here!
The game also features one track composed by Keita Okamoto (and arranged by Ichinose), who has game design credits in a couple of earlier games, and, famously at the time, one battle theme by Toby “tobyfox” Fox.
Sword & Shield take place in Fake UK, so the soundtrack incorporates some stuff like bagpipes, punk rock, and football chants. It’s a fun music direction, though as mentioned earlier I found the end result to be a bit middling as far as Pokémon soundtracks go, but it’s hard to follow up what was at the time my favorite soundtracks in the main series! Ichinose and Adachi are great composers and always manage to drop some killer tracks, though, and this is certainly no exception. Ichinose particularly impressed me with his more electronic tracks this time around.
Recommended tracks:
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“In the Fog” (Ichinose) has a cool lead synth, though that’s not going to be anyone else’s takeaway from this track (that would be 0:34 when the bass drops)
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“Wild Area Station” (Ichinose) adds a little bossa nova flavor in there
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“Galar Mines” (Ichinose) is a supreme banger that confused me for the longest time because it sounds like a Hitomi Sato composition arranged for jazz fusion band by Minako Adachi with Go Ichinose production, but it turns out it was all Ichinose! Should’ve just trusted in the slap bass
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“Ballonlea” (Adachi) is a pretty orchestral waltz with some nice chord changes
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“Spikemuth” (Adachi) is some weird throwback dance music of a kind I sort of associate with her because one of her first soundtracks that I listened to has it
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“Battle! (Rose)” (Adachi) starts with this sick doubled piano and warped synth line at 0:11
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“Infinite Power” (Ichinose) crams a bunch of cool electronic noises in there because why not
(track titles are unofficial translations from Bulbapedia)
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