Game info: playthrough video
Listening: extracted audio
Credits
BGM: Kousuke Matsuoka (eki)
The game is downloadable for free, and the music can be extracted from the game’s sound.dat file using the yanePackDX utility (click the bottom button in the window).
Info
Following right up with the second Alpha Secret Base game without a proper soundtrack release that Kousuke Matsuoka composed for. ProjectN is a scrolling… “shmup” where you kill enemies with a sword: you’re always holding it out a specific direction in front of you, and you can spin yourself around to slash enemies with it until they die. There’s also a mechanic where you can directly warp behind enemies anime style, which is pretty funny.
This is the one game we’re going to be listening to that was composed entirely by Matsuoka, so we’re getting the complete, unadulterated eki experience here. Not to say that the other composers couldn’t possibly also write in a shmup style, but Matsuoka’s style that he used in the previous two Alpha Secret Base tracks just works here immediately in a way that the cuter music of the other folks’ wouldn’t necessarily. The intense prog guy’s music just works without modification in a shmup, how unexpected!
So anyway, this is easily my favorite Alpha Secret Base soundtrack so far, and I expect that to hold true to the end (though maybe I’ll be surprised!). The title theme, which is actually the longest piece in the game for some reason, is more orchestral and quite nice, while the stage music is more synthy EDM with slap bass and odd time signatures. Some of the weird melodies in the stage themes remind me a little bit of Norio Hanzawa, which is a very very good place to be. It’s too bad it seems like this is the only solo Matsuoka soundtrack, since it definitely makes me want to know what he’d do if he was given the reins of a larger project. A game that takes more than five minutes to beat, you know?
Recommended tracks:
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“Title” builds up figures a couple of different times; my favorite of the two is of course the second half when one of the layers is some mallet percussion
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“Stage 1” has a minute of MIDI guitar shredding
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“Win” plays after you beat a level and into the level select screen, and it definitely has tense level select vibes
(track titles are taken from the filenames)
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