Game info: Bulbapedia
Listening: soundtrack album (tracks 4.01~15), extracted audio
Info
The first DLC for Sword & Shield has a kung fu movie plot where you train at a dojo and battle through a gauntlet of challengers while ascending a tower, all very British to go along with the base setting you understand. They added a handful of new tracks to the game for it: three character themes with battle variations, a few area themes, and some cutscene tracks and jingles. The DLC soundtrack does have a bit of kung fu movie Asian flair added in there to the standard Pokémon sound.
Hitomi Sato’s back, baby! She wrote all three of the new character themes, while Minako Adachi handled their battle arrangements and all the rest of the soundtrack (with Keita Okamoto assisting on one jingle). They’re pretty quirky, like a lot of Pokémon character themes are, probably because the characters are all weirdos. Adachi’s arrangements of them are all pretty solid, adding in an additional quirky electronic sound. Other than that, I didn’t really care for the music to this all too much.
Recommended tracks:
-
“Battle! Avery” (Adachi, orig. Sato) adds in some cool electronic chirping sounds
-
“Mustard’s Theme” (Sato) is a bouncy R&Bified version of stereotypical kung fu movie pentatonic riffs
-
“Tower of Waters” (Adachi) has some fake harp and subtle synth that make it my preferred variation of the two tower themes
(track titles are unofficial translations from Bulbapedia)
Leave a Reply