The piece is a great fit, with the best synth performance on the album this side of “Glowing Cloud”. The first is “Survival from the Force”, the tune that graces the game’s final dungeon. The prog rock side of the soundtrack is rounded off by a couple of dungeon themes. With the exception of “Dark Conviction”, that comes off as a very weak orchestral tension piece, each of the other battle tracks on the album is great listening. The other seven are generally high quality pieces, ranging from the organ heavy “Glowing Cloud” to the orchestral “Supreme Ruler of the Nine Heavens” to the almost metallic “Vitriolic a Stroke” and to the distinctive pop colour of “Chaotic Dance”.
One is a simple but effective re-performance of “The True Mirror” with electric guitar taking the melody from the violin, and being given the solo duty instead of the organ. There’s a lot of variety in the game’s boss battle themes, with eight tracks dedicated to that purpose.
Baten kaitos ost full#
From the opening diminished 7th chords to the beautiful yet somehow urgent violin melody to the energetic organ solo full of Sakuraba ripping all over the keyboard producing a wonderfully dirty sound, “The True Mirror” balances a tense battle atmosphere with light-hearted fun that matches the suits the games more menial battles so well. “The True Mirror” is the game’s standard battle track, and fits the bill perfectly. Thanks to solid composition and live performance, all of the game’s battle themes have quickly become some of my favourite video game rock tracks, and really some of my favourite rock tracks in general. There’s no doubt that Sakuraba is still at work here, and there’s no place it’s more evident than in the game’s battle themes, all in Sakuraba’s trademarked prog rock manner. In case all this talk of breakthrough has any longtime fans of Sakuraba worried that the core of his distinctive sound might have gone missing, cast that worry aside. And Sakuraba could not have chosen a better game to breakthrough on, the game itself is a real snoozer (although it’s worth playing simply for the environmental graphics, absolutely gorgeous). He found his orchestral sound, and his progressive rock pieces were as strong as ever. Going further through the game, his music did not disappoint. From the opening movie, I knew this was the soundtrack that was going to break Sakuraba into my personal elite. Occasional stand-out tracks graced his albums, and all were of generally high quality, but a lack of a solid orchestral sound combined with often writing in a manner that seemed just a little bit off for his material made me unable to give him the elite composer status in my mind that I thought he deserved. For a great deal of his career, veteran composer Motoi Sakuraba teased me in such a way.
Some composers love to play with their listeners, playing hide and go seek with their musical brilliance as they pop in and out of a soundtrack that, for whatever reason, fails to offer that complete experience.
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