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Old May 24, 2018, 11:44 AM
GDPR_delete_03 GDPR_delete_03 is offline
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Infrequent member, but here's my thoughts...

LUFIA II: RISE OF THE SINISTRALS:
One of the SNES era's most underrated JRPG soundtracks and one of a very few genuine classics that approach the level of quality that SE managed to turn out on a regular basis. This score in someways is simpler, more transparent than other JRPG scores, but it is no less rich. (The first game should be avoided; it is inconsistent and more often simple-minded than simple. Its best tracks came back already in Lufia II, devoting an album to FoD would be a waste of time.)

Tracks which are particularly ripe for orchestral arrangement...
  • "Rumbling"
  • "The Earth" - one of the series' best-loved tracks. The overworld theme, returning from the first game.
  • "Battle 1" - the first strings melody has always seemed to me perfectly suited for the clarinet. However, in my attempt to arrange it, I found the wide-ranging pizzicato difficult to adapt (only a cello or a harp have sufficeint range, I believe) while the slap bassline is, obviously, less than ideally suited to the orchestra. I am therefore increasingly convinced that this would perhaps do best as a chamber arrangement: clarinet (strings melody), oboe & flute (for the 2nd melody), piano (slap bass), harp (pizzicato), acoustic guitar or lute (electric guitar), and drumkit.
  • "The Prophet" - I will note that a marvelous orchestration by Daniel Ran already exists.
  • "Labyrinth" - this really could do with a nice, large, powerful orchestration to really bring the ominous feeling.
  • "Casino" - okay, I include this one for fun. It doesn't even need an orchestration. Just detune a harpsichord, drag in a tambourine and a lutist, and you've got it done...
  • "The Island in the Void"
  • "The Last Duel" - this track has a variety of names, unfortunately: "The Final Duel," "The Final Battle," "The Last Decisive Battle," "The Final Decisive Battle," and on, and on, and on... for pity's sake, let's just call it "The Last Duel," yes? It's the most unique name and therefore the most distinctive and memorable.

    I'm afraid I've never quite heard an arrangement of this that one hundred percent pleased me. This one has appeared in every single Lufia game except for Ruins of Lore, which doesn't count. However, the two best versions of these are in Lufia II and Lufia: The Legend Returns, and out of them the natural starting point for them is the latter. TLR was a GameBoy game and therefore pared the piece back down to its very essentials: the scalar ostinato on a pedal A, the bass, the melody, and the percussion. The percussion can be discarded. However, the ostinato is vital, and retaining the syncopated notes during both the saw-wave portion of the melody and the high-range square-wave portion is an absolute must - they're original to TLR but add a great deal of richness to it. From the Lufia II arrangement can be drawn the a separate strings ostinato (which obscures the scalar ostinato so present in TLR, so for orchestra it ought to be scaled down), the harp ostinato that runs through it, the slower tempo, and the percussion. I also find that the chord progression/sub-melody from 1:46 adds a great deal. Finally, I would advise that it play for two loops, with the trumpet melody taken up by strings the first go-around before being played by brass.

    Should bits drawn from Lufia II conflict with TLR, discard or modify the parts from Lufia II. TLR remains the best version of "The Last Duel."
  • "Theme of Daos" - a nice, dark arrangement would suit this well.
  • "The Savior of Those on Earth" - if you don't include this, Lufia music fans will burn your house down.
  • "Priphea Flowers" - if you don't include this, Lufia music fans, having successfully burnt your house down, will proceed to burn your family down. You've been warned!

VANDAL HEARTS & VANDAL HEARTS 2
Jormungand could make a fantastic case for these, I expect. But in case he hasn't, I shall make my meagre attempt:

The two Vandal Hearts games, not content with being just underrated for Tactics RPG games or PSX games, are some of the most underrated and unknown game scores of note of all time. The former is largely, though not exclusively composed by Hiroshi Tamawari - a very rough half-dozen tracks (eight or nine, I think) were contributed by Miki Higashino and Kosuke Soeda - Soeda's piece is one of the most bizarrely chromatic things I've ever seen; Higashino's work is probably the most mediocre she's ever written. Tamawari's work, however, is a goldmine of rhythmic interested and harmonic and textural depth. I feel that his battle themes for this first Vandal Hearts are somewhat weak: "Street Fighting" is repetitive (though it has a nice timpani solo), and though "Crisis" is justly famous for its distinctive minor-key ostinato, I've never quite fully bought it. "Tension" and "Warlock" are fantastic, though, as is "Mountains." "Enemy Turn" was difficult even with the game, a jarring mish-mash of far too many contrapuntal lines most of which were barely audible.

The whole score is, speaking truthfully, ensemble ready, however, it will be small ensembles as Tamawari - either by choice or by PSX limitation - either chooses not to or is unable to use full sections oftentimes. This does not stop his music from being rather on the dense end, though where transparency is superior, he is transparent - he is a talented orchestrator and bandestrator already. His non-battle work is particularly strong: "The Town on the Edge of the World" is delightfully mysterious, and I also love "Trade City Kerachi" and "Cultivation Village School." "Theme" is a must, "Haunted Railroad" a magnificent precursor to a similar track in VH2, and if "Peerless" is missing, you may've committed a crime: Tamawari brings back his own work, scores for a full orchestra, and works in Soeda's piece and Higashino's own "Vicissitudes of Fortune," which in his hands is far better and more emotive than in Higashino's own original pieces.

As for VH2, why, you could fill an entire disc or two of arrangements just from that game alone! I wouldn't know where to being with recommendations - "Overture," "The History," "Warfare on a Plain," "Will," many of the "Metamorphosis based on Theme" tracks are ripe, especially "The Two Trains Travel Side by Side," I personally love "The Capital," "Warfare on a Town," and I would be remiss if I didn't mentioned "The Hero's Theme."

The orchestrations are all basically orchestra-ready and I for one would love to here the tambourines and castanets brought to life.

TREASURE OF THE RUDRAS
One of the lesser-known SE masterpieces of the SNES era, this score by Ryuji Sasai is perhaps his finest work and easily stands up with the rest of the SE's scores. There's just so much I could recommend. "The Quest for Rudra's Mines," "Beginning for the End," the four character themes as well as their battle themes plus "Winners Take All," how about "The Tower of God," "Underwater City," "The Inhuman Condition," all four parts of the final battle theme, and both parts of "Beyond the Rising Moon", and still that leaves out many other fantastic tracks?

BREATH OF FIRE
If we speak of the two SNES BoF games, than only the first is really worth an album: it's one of the most unique-sounding scores, focusing as it does on virtuosic piano with an undercurrent of jazz, Mega Man, and Star Wars all in a largely orchestral setting. "The Dragon Warrior," "Starting the Journey," "Distant View," "A Powerful Emperor," and "Black Dragon" all present themselves as the immediately obvious candidates for arrangement.

BoFII can be ignored: underdeveloped, oft boring, and its samples give me a headache.

BOUNTY SWORD
One of Kohei Tanaka's finest efforts. It screams for orchestration.

INFINITY
Eric E. Hache's score for unreleased GBC game Infinity. The best unreleased GBC JRPG score I've ever heard, and that's more impressive than it sounds when you consider that Mythri is its competition! Eric E. Hache has orchestrated two of the tracks from the game, so they might serve useful as guideline for arrangement of the other tracks.
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