Music info: VGMdb
Info
A two-disc 16-bit arranged album for Unicorn Overlord featuring 20 tracks with more SNES-y or PS1-y instruments was also produced, available as a physical bonus in the Monarch Edition collector’s set and also as a DLC side app with a digital artbook if you like listening to music on your game console for some reason. They don’t seem to have explained anywhere how exactly they produced these arrangements, like whether they used something like chipsynth SFC/Super Audio Cart or a more manual approach, though with so many people I wouldn’t be surprised if they did several different things to replicate that old RPG sound.
Half of the tracks were arranged by the original composer, with an extra four being medley arrangements where they also incorporated another theme by a different composer. Of the six remaining tracks, three were arranged by people who weren’t involved with the original soundtrack at all: two by freelance composer Norihiro Furukawa and one by Hitoshi Sakimoto, the CEO of Basiscape.
With the exception of the final track on disc 2, which is marked as a “special arrangement,” all of the arrangements are exceedingly close to the originals; these really are just 16-bit covers of the original soundtrack. This allows some of the background writing to pop out a bit more than it does in the original music with thicker orchestra sections, which can be cool alternate look at the song, though for the most part the preference factor is definitely just going to come down to what kind of instrumentation you like more.
Recommended tracks:
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“Elheim Medley (Stage Theme – Battle Theme)” (Toki Takeda, orig. Rikako Watanabe) I’m throwing here as a comparison since I included the first part of the medley on the OST post; I definitely prefer the original “Elheim Stage” but the brief EDM-y(?) background synth that comes in for a little bit at 1:10 has a nice sound to it
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“Medley (Mid-Boss Battle – Dark Marquess Battle)” (Yoshimi Kudo, orig. Mitsuhiro Kaneda & Kudo) is one of the few arrangements with a short new outro instead of just looping and fading out like the original track
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“Cornia Theme (Final Chapter)” (Mitsuhiro Kaneda) is one of the tracks I thought felt most natural with this instrumentation
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“Tavern – Quarry Game (Special Arrangement)” (Hitoshi Sakimoto, orig. Mitsuhiro Kaneda) departs significantly from the original compositionally, instrumentally, and tonally, turning it into this cool trip-hoppy thing; I can’t tell if this is insane Hunter van Brocklin-level SNES manipulation or if Sakimoto just said “fuck it” and added a downsampled church bell to an electronic track
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