[Jormungand]

I've come to revisit this breakdown and integrate Lunar's suggestions.

Originally Posted by Blitz Lunar

We disagree on:
02) HAL Logo
Shmeh, it's a logo, what can you do.

Indeed, jingles are tricky. The Halken logo appears in several of their early games including Arcana, Alcahest, and Hole in One Golf, exactly the same arrangement but with instrument samples changed to the corresponding instrument set. I think Arcana is a mostly Ishikawa score, and the other two are solo Ishikawa works. But there is further evidence when we look at Hole in One Golf, which was released in early 1991, a year or so before Ando joined the company. So, I think it has to be Ishikawa.

03) Our Story's Name
Could quite easily be Ishikawa, really. I guess the chord writing seemed suitably intricate for Ando.

I'm on the fence. There's got to be someone we can harass on twitter or facebook or something! It's a really beautiful piece of music. I personally am reminded mostly of Ishikawa, both in terms of the chord progression and the string ostinato which Ishikawa is fond of.

05) A New Chapter
Yeah, I dunno, I'm not certain about this one. I just went on the classical style being more likely to be Ando.

What gets me every time is the dotted quarter or eighth notes, which Ishikawa uses in a lot of his melody writing, even if the rest of it might sound like Ando.

06) Rooks ~ The Card Master
Again, could easily be Ishikawa, he loves his transpose stuffs.

I'm undecided. Aside from the transposition, there's no clear indicator either way.

10) Magician's Tent (JI)

We actually both agreed about this being JI, but upon many relistens I now question that.

13) Reinoll ~ Generous Hermit
This to me is the one that sounds most like Ando on the score. Just those complex kinds of progressions aren't heard often in Ishikawa's music.

I've thought about this, and you're absolutely right: this is totally Ando.

15) Cristal Sword
Transposing and suspension usage makes me think of Ishikawa.

I'm going to defer to you on this one.

16) Got Item
Hngh. Jingle. idno

It's a bit similar to the Fanfare, so I think Ishikawa is a safe bet.

17) Trusted Circle
Hngh. Jingle. idno #2

Same here. The little grace note on the trumpet lead-in makes me think Ishikawa, but that's all I can come up with.

19) Trickery
Again I hear some sort of transposey suspension stuff going on. And I guess I've heard songs with a similar mood to this in Kirby Super Star and suchlike.

I agree with you here.

32) Birth of a Hero
I don't think Ando would use 7th arpeggios as blatantly. lol. seems too OBVIOUS for him.

Again, I agree with you.

34) Two Beautiful Princesses
Nothing particularly evocative. Could easily be either of them.

Something about the way this is arranged just makes me think of Ishikawa. I think it's the trumpets.

35) The Symphony of Elemen
You might be right with this one after all. Again I know Ando is a dab hand with orchestration but something about those arpeggiated string parts reminds me of Ishikawa.

Yes, a lot of this feels very much like Ishikawa, arpeggiations, melody writing (dotted quarters and eights, pitch-bends), background ostinatos (particular the flutes), the overall chord progression, etc. Then there's the reprise of Balnia Temple's theme at 2:46 where it suddenly becomes everything that typically represents Ishikawa.

_______________________

So, with Lunar's help, I went diving into some Ishikawa+Ando Kirby music and came back to study their non-Kirby work. I just can't get enough of Arcana, it's such an excellent soundtrack. It's clear that Ishikawa was the lead composer here, with Ando taking a small role similar to (but much less than) Kirby 64. That said, Ando's contributions (at least what we know of them) are beautiful and nuanced. Altogether I can happily admit it to my top SNES soundtracks, ranked alongside Secret of Mana, SD3, FF6, and whatever other masterpieces I'm forgetting.

Arcana is actually one of the first video game soundtracks I ever heard, having played it looooong ago, somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12ish maybe. It left an impression. I remembered the game's music clearly up until discovering that other people actually listened to VGM and I could do the same via internet. So Arcana was an early, formative experience that probably shaped my personal and professional pursuit of music in a major way. It's amazing to re-examine it decades later and find that I still hold it in the highest esteem.

Not to get too off-topic, and I've lamented about this before, but I wish Ishikawa and Ando weren't slaves to Kirby. I like Kirby music, and after really studying it carefully, I find the things I love about both composers in abundance. However, these games are of a very different genre than games like Arcana and Alcahest, which were distinctly darker in tone, and I think this is the kind of tone I want to hear more from this particular pair. Both have spent the majority of their career writing music about a diminutive pink marshmallow that swallows his foes whole and flies via inflation; I just think composers of this caliber should be allowed to branch out more.

Of course, that depends on HAL, which has narrowed its focus to mostly Kirby with the odd casual game for Nintendo. It's not that I'm arguing HAL should make RPGs, as I don't know that that would be a strength for them (Arcana certainly wasn't amazing as a game), but somehow, someway, I want to see Ishikawa and Ando (collaboratively or separately) score more "serious" (I really can't think of a better word, please assist!) genres, preferably RPGs.