Game info: Raiden Wiki
Listening: soundtrack album
Info
We’ve got another new release in an old shmup series, so you know what that means: we’ve got some new HAGANE. Unlike previous posts here though, this isn’t a remaster with remixed tracks but rather a completely new entry in the series, but that didn’t stop them from getting HAGANE on board, like he always seems to be. There were three other composers besides him, two of which I’ve never heard anything by before, but their styles are pretty distinct so for the most part it’s really easy to tell who did what track:
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HAGANE of course did all the electronic tracks with fusiony chords and delayed piano in them.
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Takeshi Iwasaki is a violinist and composer for music production company F.M.F. who does a lot of string arrangement and scoring work, so naturally his tracks are all orchestral, with his in-game tracks specifically also having 4/4 drums and synths in there too to get you in the mood for shmuppin’. Some of them get a bit too anime for me, but they also have some cool random chord sections in them sometimes.
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Makoto Shozu is a freelance sound designer who’s part of the audioviusal unit FLIGHTGRAF with computer graphics designer Kento Tomiyoshi, though he composed a couple of tracks here. One of them is a straight electronic dance track and the other is strings piece with deep cinematic percussion, so he’s the hardest one to pin down.
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Go Sato has been working on Raiden music since the second game, and he arranged two pieces from the original arcade game composed by Akira Sato. These are also in an orchestral with drums style, though the orchestration is a little simpler and the production is different from Iwasaki’s tracks so it’s fairly easy to tell them apart.
HAGANE was the clear standout for me among the four; I didn’t really like the other composers’ contributions all that much, aside from the random surprise chord bits in Iwasaki’s pieces.
Recommended tracks:
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“Desert Eye (Stage 2)” (HAGANE) has some cute background trills at 0:44
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“THE DAY OF ARIES (Stage 5)” (Iwasaki) is one of the synthiest Iwasaki tracks, with a real goofy synth solo going ham at 0:44
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“Gallantry for Nova (Stage 6)” (Sato) remixes the original stage 1 theme from Raiden, I like the bit at 0:11 which is a little spicier than how the original track does it
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“Silent Fight (Main Menu)” has some slow and somber strings that contrast strongly with most of the rest of the soundtrack
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“Sidekick (Select)” (HAGANE) hits you with that funky ship select style that you love
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