Game info: Wikipedia
Listening/music info: soundtrack CD
Info
Here’s a mech fightin’ game that to my understanding is similar to the Armored Core series except simpler and much more anime. I listened to just a handful of tracks from this by a couple of artists I was interested in back when it was released, but I never bothered to listen to the entire theme. Now that a sequel was just released earlier this month, I figured I should come back to this and finish the job.
There are a few different styles present in the soundtrack, but the vast majority of it mixes and matches various amounts of orchestra, electronic music, and rock/metal—so a pretty typical “epic cinematic action” sound. It gave me a little bit of an Ace Combat feel at times, particularly the more purely orchestral and electronic orchestral tracks, though I didn’t really feel it ever got quite as good or interesting as Ace Combat music can be. On the rock side, a lot of that influence is rhythm guitar chugs and drumkit in orchestral or electronic tracks, but there are some more straightforward rock pieces with soloing too; there are also a few thrashier electronic metal pieces, mostly by Rio Hamamoto, whom I don’t know particularly well but even in my limited experience I know loves nu metal. I didn’t care too much for most of the soundtrack, though I did enjoy the pieces that broke away from the standard style into more acoustic and ambient territory a little more.
In standard Bandai Namco fashion, a ton of their composers worked on this game; six external arrangers did as well, though none of them are credited with specific tracks so it’s not especially clear how much of the soundtrack they were actually responsible for. Of the composers, the one who had the most range was easily Toaki Usami, and a number of his pieces also had some good chords in them, so he was my favorite contributor who did more than a couple tracks. Mitsuhiro Kitadani’s pieces were generally pretty solid too, he was one of the composers whose track I originally skimmed through years ago because I tend to find him decent, and he was decent here!
Recommended tracks:
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“Ice Cream” (Mitsuhiro Kitadani) is the only really cute song in the game
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“Battle Dance” (Yusuke Yamauchi) is one of a couple more electronic pieces by this composer; the polymetric part at 0:56 is nice
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"Vow (Kitadani) has a little math rock-ish guitar riff in it
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“Terrors” (Rio Hamamoto) was the most distorted of the metal tracks so I liked it the most (note the title on the upload is accidentally swapped with another track)
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“Shell (Vocals)” (LindaAI-CUE) is pretty typical of this composer’s chaotic style
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“Innocence” (Katsuro Tajima) has some strange phrasing that makes it easy to lose track of the beat (hint: it’s just in 3/4), also a bunch of nice acoustic guitar noodling
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“The First Day” (Toaki Usami) was the most ambient track in the game by far
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“Credits” (Usami) was my favorite of the orchestral pieces I think
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