Game info: Sega Retro
Listening: physical soundtrack (tracks 32-34, incomplete), digital soundtrack (tracks 44-45, incomplete), emulated + extracted audio
Credits
Sound Creator: Hiroyuki Hamada, CHAMY.Ishi, Tomomitsu Matsushita, Yuhki Mori
The physical soundtrack release includes an overall list of composers for the entire music selection; the only member of this game’s sound team listed is Hiroyuki Hamada, suggesting that he was the composer of the two original compositions that were included. CHAMY.Ishi likely composed as well, while Matsushita and Mori pretty much always do sound effects or sound direction.
Info
Unfortunately we have to skip a Sakatsuku game; I really would like to listen to J.LEAGUE Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! 3 since certified cool guy CHAMY.Ishi is one of the credited sound folks, but they changed things up a bit for that installment and there’s no longer a top-level options menu with a sound test in it, and the music’s in a sequenced format that I can’t do anything with (if you know how to make .srb files playable in something, hit me up 👀). So instead we’ll move on to the 2004 game… which Ishi also worked on and which also has sequenced music, though it’s been converted into the PSF2 emulated format so it’s actually listenable. And if there’s one thing I love soundtracks to be, it’s listenable!
T’s MUSIC came back to do more outsourced audio for Sakatsuku 3 and ’04 after Takayuki Aihara slipped in to do Sakatsuku 2002, though Shinichiro Sato didn’t return after Tokudaigou. In his place, the very likely composers of the ambiguously-credited T’s staff are Hiroyuki Hamada and CHAMY.Ishi; Hamada is the only person from the game credited en masse with other composers on the physical soundtrack that includes two original compositions from this game, though the game has a lot more music than that and Ishi rarely doesn’t write music (especially this early in his career). Hamada I really don’t know anything about as a composer, though assuming he wrote all the original tracks from Sakatsuku 3 and ’04 that are on the soundtrack release besides the one known to be by Hideki Naganuma, he dropped some jazz and rock and orchestral so I guess he’s versatile enough.
This is the most diverse Sakatsuku soundtrack so far, even moreso than 2002, to which it’s probably the most similar. There’s orchestral, though less of it and with zero bagpipes, and there’s rock, and there’s a little bit of some miscellaneous stuff, but most of the soundtrack is a return to jazz music. But more of a variety of jazz music! There some jazz fusion like we saw in the first games by Junko Shiratsu, some funkier tracks, some chiller tracks, a little more Latin jazz for the fans, and what I guess I’d just call generic sports jazz. It’s definitely got more of a ‘90s sports library music or Japanese sports game vibe to it that the previous games, which isn’t to say that the previous games’ soundtracks didn’t feel like sports music, but there’s sports music and then there’s sports music, if you catch my meaning.
I liked this one the most out of all the non-SEGA Sakatsuku soundtracks so far. I mentioned in my posts for the last two games that they had some good chords in them, and that’s true; neither of them is super consistently mindblowing in that regard, but they’re both definitely a little better on average than a random soundtrack I’d pull off the shelf. Sakatsuku ’04’s soundtrack has both of them beat by a little bit, though, particularly in terms of just randomly dropping some jarring chord vamp out of nowhere. Honestly, a big part of that is probably just the return to a more fusion leaning in this soundtrack? But it’s nice. Some of the compositions also get a little bit goofier with the rhythms or otherwise have a little bit of fuckiness to them, not particularly often but as an occasional nice treat.
In addition to the PSF2 tracks, the game also has a streamed opening theme (Arnold Steck’s “Drum Majorette,” which is the opening theme for a BBC soccer program), and another big pack of orchestral country anthems.
Recommended tracks:
This game reuses some amount of music from J.LEAGUE Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! 3, so some of these selections may originally be from that game.
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bgm_camp2_0000 is one of the more uplifting tracks, though the chord progression at 0:58 is a little weird for that purpose
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bgm_clubedit_0001 has an intro that catches me off guard sometimes because it feels like that first percussion hit is a pickup beat but it’s not
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bgm_event2_0000 has a really fun syncopated part at 0:43
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bgm_fansite_0000 is pleasantly swirly in its synth usage
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bgm_office0_0009 is a bit bossa nova-y, as a treat
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bgm_office0_000B has a weird-sounding sparse bit at 0:33 with just the guitar and drums grooving a little
(tracks are referred to by their filenames)
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