Game info: Steam
Listening: Steam
Info
New year, new PEPOSOFT! This is the newest game by Team Ladybug, getting back to their Metroidvania roots after releasing the shmup DRAINUS in 2022, though like DRAINUS this is also an original property and not based on another franchise.
PEPOSOFT has been Team Ladybug’s composer for years, though I wasn’t entirely sure they were doing this soundtrack based on the music in the first trailer, which was in a fairly generic electronic style in terms of both composition and the audio design and not really what I’d expect from them. The last trailer did have a little bit of hyperactive writing and hard-panned mixing that’s more their style though, and indeed the whole soundtrack ended up being them!
To an extent, my initial impression of the soundtrack wasn’t totally incorrect; this soundtrack does tend more toward fairly straightforward electronic tracks with bland, out-of-the-box synth production than any of their previous works that I’ve heard. However, most of those tracks do have occasional bits of weird, exciting composition or more interesting synth/keyboard choices, enough so that I think you can tell most of the time that you’re still listening to a PEPOSOFT soundtrack. The majority of the soundtrack is also not like that, with a lot of tracks mixing up the sound selection and/or style, ranging from maximalist, DRAINUS-style electronica to funk jams to luscious, calming tunes. As a whole I think these tracks still end up being a little less interesting than their best work, but there’s still plenty of good stuff here.
A couple of notes about the audio production I want to mention, before we go. First off, the mixing and mastering on this soundtrack is notably better than PEPOSOFT’s past games, which are extremely bricked; BLADE CHIMERA’s music actually has, like, headroom! And dynamics! It’s pretty cool. The other thing is that this soundtrack has some NES-ish PSG chiptune mixed into some of the tracks (along with one full chiptune remix of a track from DRAINUS); PEPOSOFT’s most recent works haven’t been original compositions but rather chiptune arrangements of shmup soundtracks, so it seems like that’s bleeding into their scores now.
Recommended tracks:
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“BLADE CHIMERA” is a good example of the “normal electronic track with a weird PEPOSOFT bit in it” archetype, with a cool panning part at 0:49
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“Dawn of the Forsaken” has a bunch of sparkling synths in it, also a little sparkling piano because we need sparkle everything
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“Central City -STAGE2-” is the main track I was thinking of when I said this soundtrack has funk jams in it
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“Theocratic Sanctuary” has a high-pitched whistling synth doing a nice syncopated figure throughout
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“Mind’s Mirage” has a slightly weirdly-phrased piano part that gives the track a little bit of a faux polymetric feel
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“Nightmare Revelation -STAGE7-” is some of the closest we get to that classic brick PEPOSOFT sound
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