Game info: Bleeding Cool
Listening: soundtrack album
Info
At the very end of 2024, Sword of Convallaria got its first major expansion update. For Night Crimson, Hitoshi Sakimoto returned to do about a third of the soundtrack; the remainder of the music was done by Chinese composer Sai Ma, whom I know absolutely nothing about, but the game is by a Chinese developer so it makes sense.
The storyline of this expansion is apparently darker than the base game’s, though you wouldn’t know it from the soundtrack; it’s certainly not all happy music, but it never gets as violent or evil-sounding as the base soundtrack does. Instrumentally there’s a lot more acoustic guitar this time around in both composer’s tracks. Ma’s contributions also tend to be a bit more strings and piano focused than Sakimoto’s more orchestral pieces, though Ma did also write some full orchestral music and Sakimoto did get folky here and there again. The result makes it feel a bit more stripped down and intimate than the original, and I generally found it a little less interesting, though Ma did write several tracks I enjoyed; a few of them have nice chords, mess around with whole tone a bit, or otherwise have some good bits of orchestration.
Recommended tracks:
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“Beacon of Hope” (Sakimoto) is one of them brisk and bright overture-y tracks
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“Home for Two” (Ma) has a little bit of a French café music vibe to it
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“After Hours” (Ma) was I think my favorite orchestrated Ma track, and it gets a little spicy with some of the movement like at 0:27
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“Mastery’s Edge” (Sakimoto) starts off with a real nasty pipes lead that I like
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“Glimpse of the Heart” (Ma) is one of the more ambient tracks in the game, pretty stuff
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