Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis: The Hellfire Vanguard (PC/PS4/XBO, 2022)

Game info: update post
Listening: soundtrack album

Info

The second expansion of 2022, The Hellfire Vanguard, takes place in the volcanic Stia Region. The music direction for the area themes this time was fairly muscular, militaristic orchestral tracks, which isn’t as stereotypical as sleigh bells for wintry music, but it’s a pretty straightforward way to evoke majesty and danger. This was the least-interesting region to me musically so far, though the chords are still great, and Mitsuharu Fukuyama did a couple of electronic tracks for industrial areas that are good stuff.

This album is organized in the same way as the last one where halfway through it switches to boss themes and other plot-related music, with these themes being in the broadly standard PSO2 house style. On the first album I liked this half of it a little more, though on this album the difference is more pronounced, due to me liking the first half of this one a little less. Not that the first half is without highlights! I just think the second half shows off a lot more of what I like about the series’s music than the first half, generally speaking.

Recommended tracks:

  • Stia Camp – Night View” (Hidekuni Horita) switches out of 9/8 for a little bit at 1:39, and I like the three-chord movement the phrases end with

  • Dreisen Plant – Scenery” (Fukuyama) sounds pretty technological

  • Stia Outskirts – Day – Battle” (Hideaki Kobayashi) adds electronic beats to the normal area theme and speeds it up a bit, the latter of which really amplifies some of the jarring harmonic choices

  • Slashing Blaze” (Horita) is some hyperactive chordspammy Horita nonsense, this is the content I crave

  • Zephetto’s Monologue” (Horita) is Horita’s turn to do the weird synth dark ambient theme for a while, before getting a little more straighforward with strings, chorus, and organ halfway through

  • Remnants of Ambition – Venogia Vera” (Fukuyama) has pretty slappy bass for this kind of PSO2 boss theme

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