Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: emulated audio, soundtrack album (FM), soundtrack album (MIDI, tracks 35-66)
Info
Just remembered that I never properly listened to this soundtrack after I played the game! Illusion City is a near-future sci-fi RPG for the MSX turboR that was recently fan-translated, it’s a pretty alright RPG. Beautiful looking game, though fairly standard RPG gameplay without any particularly unique systems aside from enemy encounters being visible/avoidable on the overworld, which is unusual for a game this early. The funniest part of the game is just how many cursed items there are in it; if you pick up something and it’s not listed in the manual, it probably Sucks Ass. Like the orb that you find in a dungeon that you can’t equip or use, so it just sits in your inventory taking up space and you think it’s completely pointless… until the next time you get into a battle and you find out that all of your characters have 15 HP left because it drains HP every time you take a step on the overworld. That thing rules, more games should just say “lmao get owned.”
As I mentioned, this was made for the turboR, which was the final and most powerful revision of the MSX hardware spec. Like a lot of older PC platforms, the MSX had different kinds of audio hardware across subsequent hardware revisions, both in what was guaranteed to be in every computer and what could either be optionally included by the specific manufacturer or purchased separately. Illusion City had two different versions of its soundtrack: an FM version for the MSX-MUSIC module, which was optional on the MSX2 and MSX2+ but was built into every turboR, and a MIDI version for the MSX-MIDI module, which was an optional module that could only be used with the turboR. The MIDI programming is a bit half-baked compared to the FM soundtrack, so I don’t really recommend listening to that version of the music when the FM version is widely available, but Japanese digital service EGG MUSIC did release both versions of the soundtrack (albeit on different albums), so the MIDI music is out there if you want to check it out.
The music’s alright. As you’d expect from a futuristic game on an old Japanese PC system, the soundtrack is generally a bit chill, funky, and introspective, tending to evoke bad things more with dark tension rather than chaotic action tracks. It is an RPG, though, so of course there are some chaotic action tracks, as well as tender emotional themes, Asian-sounding music to evoke the setting of Neo Hong Kong, and so on. There are some decent compositions here and there, but I largely liked the FM sound programming more than the writing; it’s not like every single track deploys some insane noise you’ve never heard come out of an MSX before, but the instrumental variety across the game is pretty nice, and there is an occasional insane noise you’ve never heard come out of an MSX before.
The soundtrack was jointly composed by all three of the developer MICROCABIN’s then-composers: Tadahiro Nitta, Yasufumi Fukuda, and Yukiharu Urita. Of the three, Nitta’s tracks tended to be the weirdest or have the best instrumental programming, so I liked his contributions the most. This is the first of Nitta’s old soundtracks that I’ve actually gone back and listened to after falling in love with his modern chiptune works; it’s not as mind-expanding as that stuff, but it’s pretty cool to hear that he was getting up to some shenanigans even way back when.
Recommended tracks:
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“Lao Shi’s House” (Nitta) is a quirky theme for the “old perv” character archetype
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“Crisis Area” (Nitta) has a satisfyingly deep sound to it, definitely improves the groove
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“METAL Area” (Nitta) is some techno, I like the weird slapping drum sounds in this
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“Network Image” (Fukuda) has a four-note background loop that’s slower than the rest of the song for some reason
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“Crisis” (Urita) is an odd time tension loop
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“Nightmare” (Nitta) is the most ambient track in the game, the twinkling sound at 0:05 is cool (and not present in emulated recordings of this soundtrack on YouTube)
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“Illusion Theme A (MT-32 Version)” (Nitta) was the most successful MIDI conversion I felt, the countermelodic material is a lot less buried in this version
(track titles are unofficial translations from VGMdb, with an adjustment by me on the first one based on the fan translation)
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