Alterna Citizen Program M-00: Init (System Noise)

Game info: original version (direct download), remake
Listening: Nicovideo (remake, single video), extracted audio

Credits

[Original] BGM: QMA (Koichi Kyuma), HIDE
[Remake] Sound Composer: QMA (Koichi Kyuma), Ao, HIDE

For the original version, a list of MIDI filenames can be found in the game’s EXE and the MIDIs themselves are in sqres2.dat, but extracting both is left as an exercise to the reader; the remake has an actual folder of MIDIs so it’s way easier to just listen to that. The soundtracks of both versions are mostly identical, with two exceptions: the tower theme by HIDE was replaced by a slightly rearranged version by Ao, and another field theme (ms_field_2.mid) was added. The new field theme doesn’t list a composer in the metadata, but the copyright notice is very similar to the one in the track that does explicitly credit Ao.

Here’s the list of the MIDIs from the remake, along with the composer and track title when available from readme files, metadata, and Kyuma’s website:

Info

I first researched what the hell this OMEGA thing was and who the hell the people behind it were years ago, but I don’t remember anything that happened more than 36 seconds ago, so for these relistens I had to refresh my memory by digging through the Wayback Machine archives of the websites of the project and composers. While I was on Koichi Kyuma’s old site, I saw he had MIDI sections for OMEGA and something called Mackle Story, which from context I assumed was also just original compositions for a fake game. I opened up that page in a background tab, expecting it to just be a list of unarchived MIDIs like most old pages end up being, and went on browsing other stuff.

Eventually I came back to that tab, and at the top it said that Mackle Story was a shareware RPG released in 2000 by developer Yamu (Takamasa Yamano). And folks, lemme tell you: when I saw that Kyuma had a pre-Nintendo soundtrack work, I instantly went feral and started howling at my computer.

So Mackle Story is a heavily Dragon Quest-inspired RPG where you control a bunch of spherical slime fellas (it seems like the development name was Slime Quest). It was originally released in 2000, but in 2004 the developer decided to remake it for some reason or another; he last year also released iOS and Android versions with English translations, though the Japanese-only Windows 95 version of the remake is still available to download for free from the website. The music is almost the same between the original and remake, but each version technically has a piece of music that the other doesn’t, so we’ll just mash both soundtracks together into one post and call it a day.

Even though Mackle Story is mechanically and visually inspired by Dragon Quest, the soundtrack mostly sounds much more like Nobuo Uematsu’s SNES Final Fantasy scores in terms of melodies and arrangements than anything Koichi Sugiyama wrote for DQ, with the occasional exception. It’s almost all orchestra plus optional piano, with a couple of tracks bringing in drumkit or music box or something as appropriate to hit your standard RPG moods. Compositionally I don’t think it does an awful lot to separate itself from the material that inspired it, but the orchestration is probably a little better than Uematsu’s as a whole, with a few tracks here and there having some very pretty writing, and couple of other pieces get a bit weird in a way that I appreciate.

About 2/3 of the soundtrack was done by Koichi Kyuma, with the other 1/3 of the original being done by someone named HIDE whom I couldn’t find any information about (it seems like they’re probably not the same person as the Mits-hide who contributed to OMEGA Vol.2). The remake additionally credits a third person whom I couldn’t find any information about, Ao.

Recommended tracks:

• “In the Middle of the Journey” (Kyuma) was the only track with keyboard and fretless bass in it; it’s mostly kind of a cheery whatever track but it Activates at 1:09

• “Into the Dark” (Kyuma) has real ugly tuning at 0:22, and I really like the dissonance at 0:46

• “Map Theme 2” (HIDE) had what I thought was the prettiest orchestration of the HIDE tracks

• “A Whirlpool of Grief and Sorrow” (HIDE) is the one track that was replaced in the remake, but the original version rapidly pans the harp riff so it’s clearly superior

• “Ending Theme” (Kyuma) had what I thought was the prettiest orchestration of the Kyuma tracks

• “Evil Incarnate” (Kyuma) is, as you might be able to tell from the progginess, the final boss theme

(some track titles are unofficial translations by me; “Map Theme 2” is an unofficial title based on the noted usage in the original version’s readme)