Game info: VNDB, Amelie Doree (YouTube essay)
Listening: soundtrack album (original release, rerelease), YouTube
Credits
BGM: Momoko Sapporo
Theme song: Momoko Sapporo, Kazuya Takase
Info
I think this is the first sexually explicit game I’m posting about? Neat! It’s about time, quite frankly. This is apparently an early and rather influential entry in the genre of “psychological horror visual novel where a bunch of weird stuff happens and it’s not immediately clear if the protagonist is going crazy or if reality is unwinding,” so there’s a warning to maybe not investigate this video game too deeply if you’re not up to some dark and violent subject material.
The composer is Momoko Sapporo, a singer-songwriter and illustrator who had a brief pop career in the late ’80s under the name RIKA, releasing four singles and one full album. After her contract with the label ended, she decided she want to get into some kind of job involving music, so she answered a job posting from a company that made adult video games, and then she had a career doing art and music for adult video games. And you know what? That rules, good for her.
Sapporo’s ’80s releases were all synthpop, and she apparently describes herself as “a remnant of ’80s new wave,” and I think it’s actually pretty easy to tell that from this soundtrack. Rather than being overtly poppy a lot of the time, it tends more toward a synthy new age/healing music vibe, with plenty of piano, chimes, drum machines, and other dated synth sounds. A few tracks have more pop-sounding melodies or edge a bit into other genres like funk and techno, though the instrumentation is still similar to the rest of the soundtrack.
It’s pretty enjoyable! I have no idea how a lot of this music fits the context of the game which it’s apparently supposed to accompany, but it’s enjoyable. It never gets out there compositionally so it doesn’t feed the part of me that requires chaos and disorder in order to live, but it does activate the part of my brain that loves short repeated figures played on synths, and besides that there’s some nice sound design here and there.
Recommended tracks:
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“soiree des au revoires” mixes some fun, slowed-down dance music piano patterns with mechanical and whooshing synth sounds
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“l’ange a contre jour” has a nicely mystical sound palette
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“secret de folie” was the main techno track in the game
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“comment te dire adieu…” (arr. Kazuya Takase, vo. MELL) is the theme song and is the most sinister-sounding track in the game through its disconcerting sound design
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