Game info: website (Japanese)
Listening: soundtrack album
Info
Now for the remakes of both games! Three of the five arrangers from BATSUGUN Saturn Tribute Boosted ARRANGE returned, and we also added seven(!) new ones for some reason. Like with that game’s arrange soundtrack, the arrangements here tend to be pretty electronic, though with plenty of guitars to keep the rock flavor of the original soundtrack alive. Besides the electronic shift, several of the arrangements enhance the more jazz/funk aspects of the soundtrack, which makes sense given some of the arrangers like Shinji Hosoe and HAGANE, and several tracks also have new sections because some of the folks wanted to solo a bit or otherwise extend the piece.
Aside from the aforementioned differences, most of the arrangements don’t depart super far from the original material, though it depends more on the arranger than anything else; folks like HAGANE and Hirokazu Koshio took things a lot farther harmonically and stylistically than Daisuke Matsumoto, as examples. As with the Batsugun remix soundtrack, everyone wrote music in their usual styles so you can very easily tell when the track switches that someone completely different wrote the next one. I liked pretty much all of the Skull Fang arrangements more than the original tracks, because I didn’t like that original soundtrack very much, but for Wolf Fang it was pretty mixed about whether I liked the original composition with FM sounds more than the modern reinterpretation in a different style or with new sections.
The Wolf Fang portion also includes two arrangements of new tracks written for the opening movie and staff roll of the PlayStation and Saturn ports, which credit Taro Tokiwa for sound. The entire PS/SAT soundtrack is actually completely original, which is unusual for this kind of thing, but for whatever reason only those two specific tracks were covered. (Its originality is why I didn’t bother reviewing it.) The Skull Fang portion includes three of the four Saturn extra mode tracks, with “VAPOR TRAIL [ARRANGE VERSION] (EPILOGUE)” being omitted.
Recommended tracks:
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“STORMY BLADE – ‘Assault’ / MISSION 3-A, 5-D” (arr. Ayako Saso) is one of the most direct covers in the soundtrack, and it’s funny to me that Saso specifically ended up doing the one track with polymeter in it because she likes polymeter in her own compositions
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“SLAUGHTER MACHINE – ‘Destruction’ / 3-A, 4-A, 5-ACD Boss” (arr. FANTOM IRIS) adds in a synth, bass, and guitar solo, and thankfully does keep in the rhythm change bit at the very end
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“REQUIEM – ‘To the Nameless Hero’ / Ending 5-BCD” (arr. Shinji Hosoe) actually doesn’t depart too far from the original compositionally, but does completely chill jazz-ify it
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“FLAMING ARROW – Threat – (BOSS BGM 1)” (arr. Hirokazu Koshio) takes the original to the dance floor; the weird bit at 1:14 works really great in this style
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“SONIC DIVER – Gale – (STAGE BGM 2)” (arr. HAGANE) enhances the original with some HAGANE standards: good chords and fake piano with delay on it
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“AIR ASSAULT – Roar – (STAGE BGM 3)” (arr. O.T.K) takes the jazziest Skull Fang track and turns it into a little bit of a jam
(track titles are unofficial translations from VGMdb)
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