It was very difficult choosing between this and Shadow Hearts II, but I decided to go with my heart and pick this one. I think its probably because this does some interesting stuff with horror elements in an RPG and its a genuinely cohesive and thoughtful collaboration between multiple composers including Yoshitaka Hirota (see below) and veteran Yasunori Mitsuda (in fact, it hasnt been since Chrono Crosss Lost Child of Time that weve heard him tackle something even remotely like this and that was just a cover of an Uematsu theme from Chrono Trigger). But I remember being especially enamoured with this soundtrack as a teenager, even to the point of keeping saves before certain pieces so I could listen to them before I even entertained the notion of importing the soundtrack. I realize that Im being pretty personal with this one, but one of the primary reasons Im picking it is
because its so personal to me, and because it was much different from a lot of what Id heard before (like, think of me being 12-13 without a lot of income and the only soundtracks Id ever imported up to that point were Squaresoft soundtracks and most of the games Id played were rented or borrowed, so it was only natural that Id feel that this was different).
Its not often we get a lot of horror RPGs around here. I genuinely appreciated the darker tone of the soundtrack overall and its unabashed lack of reluctance to sound even remotely like a survival horror game. In fact, those pieces are the ones that stand out the most to me on the entire soundtrack and I genuinely love those pieces even though they can be one-note. The cutscene theme,
Continental Express ~ Wind Which Blows From the Dark I, has some great bass and ambience earlier on before breaking down with guitars. Meanwhile its counterpart, the dungeon theme
Continental Express ~ Wind Which Blows From the Dark II is more focused on blending percussion and ambience in a train full of dead people, while climaxing with strings and cymbals.
Almost everyone I know whos listened to the Shadow Hearts soundtrack seems to enjoy
Plains ~ Sphere qu-. Its more atmospheric than anything else and its a nice, relaxing blend of different synths with Chinese instrumentation. Its very representative of the game to me, or at least the first half of the game to me. It isnt completely overt, but its a very subtle theme, and a lot of the better themes on the soundtrack itself are very subtle. Even some event themes like
Daily Life I ~ Coffee with Bullet have a great bassline, dual guitar interludes, and electric piano to sound soothing enough.
Anger ~ Much Hatred Still Rankles may not be one of the better motivational themes on the soundtrack, but the bass, percussion, and that great bell that appears halfway through can keep the player going (especially the portion where the beat drops and the bass is the only thing there).
Alices Theme is used throughout the series, but it got its start here with orgel and strings. Its a fair composition and it even fits decently in a dungeon later on in the game.
Birth ~ Steal Soul Tanjou is essentially Yuris theme, and its a main fixture in the series to some extent (in fact, this theme gets arranged in the next game). I like the piano introduction, but I think the SH2 version of it is much better.
The dungeon themes are very creative.
Zhaoyang Village ~ Destruction -Noiz of Fangs blends a lot of sounds that would be in survival horror (like a lot of the distortion and breathing distortion, and the percussion (including the harder percussion), with more rhythmic instruments like the piano and the erhu to make it sound like it came from an RPG.
Fear ~ Angel Heart is one of my favourite themes of the entire generation, too. It sounds more rhythmic than your average horror theme (in fact, in some ways, it sounds more traditional), but I love the string plucking after the introduction and the harsher strings themselves. Its one of the themes I think of when I think of the Shadow Hearts series in a nutshell, and while I like the entire series overall, its a small disappointment that it shed much of its horror roots so the only things close to this that we get in later entries are standard dungeon themes used for most dungeons in the games. The use of
Anxiety ~ Someones Table in the first Shadow Hearts is kind of what I mean. Its used for a few different optional dungeons, but its still frightening enough not because of its synth string use, but because of the piano portion halfway through and its slight distortion.
Temple Ruins ~ Death Zombie Party- opens with distorted synth voices and carries on with ambience to create tension, and my favourite part has to be the percussion on that track. It makes the whole thing very catchy.
Kuihai Tower ~ Misfortune Psycho Temple- is a wonderful cap to the entire China chapter in the game. It blends synth and different types of instrumentation for a climactic end.
The second half of the game has an adequate share of dungeon themes.
Bistritz ~ Dirty Nails is very atmospheric, and relies a lot more on sound effects and voices than anything else. I appreciate this theme a lot, actually. I like it a lot more than I should, mostly because its different.
Graveyard ~ Graveyard Moon isnt necessarily a dungeon theme (its actually an area theme with monsters to fight), but what I like the most about it is the piano, string pulling, and distortion portions. Its more engaging than the traditional Halloween sounds at the beginning of the track. Yasunori Mitsudas arguably best contribution to the soundtrack,
Blue Castle ~ Coffin Fetish is a string and piano-based dungeon melody, which isnt necessarily completely drenched in horror elements like Hirotas work is, but its still catchy enough to be very reflective of a horror RPG genre (hell, you can even hear his influence halfway through with the bass portion).
Murderers Mansion ~ Ripper Ripper is an extreme contrast to Coffin Fetish, incorporating a ton of distortion, a skipping record of all things, cymbals, synth, staccato, and strings. And the dungeon is a friggin
well-lit mansion. It works in out-of-context, and in-context after reading around the dungeon a bit, but I think the dissonance is just funny.
Main Theme Beat Arrange ~ ICARO Beated Ver is a funky penultimate dungeon theme, and interesting take on ICARO, the main theme of the entire series. It has some nice electric piano and bass, but it has an awesome percussion breakdown before it loops, which is my favourite bit.
Star Shape (a decent mellow piano and synth-based theme) and
Middle of Nowhere (aw yeah that organ sounds super-cool when its put together with some synth vocals at the beginning, and the percussion is dope as hell) are two of the three final dungeon themes, and theyre very fitting to round off the soundtrack.
Shadow Hearts also does a decent job with its town themes. Themes like
Fengtian ~ Heaven Kunyang Kungyang- and
Dalian ~ Sea Highnoon Fish- are adequate for the Asia portion of the game, and theyre catchy enough to listen to out-of-context.
Smugglers Boat has an extra bassline and some nice piano backing to carry it together.
Map of China ~ Blow up is the first version of the map theme, and I generally like this one better because its a better mix and includes more percussion and cohesive Asian instrumentation. It fits the mood of the game slightly better than the second map theme.
The second portion of the game opens up with
Map of Europe ~ Atmosphere Blow Up-, the second map theme. It starts with some Spanish guitar, and the main melody is filled with some distortion, some percussion, and is generally more toned-down than its Chinese counterpart. I dont think I latched onto this theme as much as a teenager, and as an adult, I dont think I do now. Its all right, but I like the former theme a lot better. The first European town you visit is
Prague ~ CITY. I like this theme just because of the funk guitar and organs, which sounds absolutely nothing like a European town before 1918 at all! Its catchy as hell, though.
Rouen ~ But-Dad-Dead-Bed is okay. Looking back on it, I think I was in love with it as a kid, but as an adult, I just think its an okay atmospheric theme.
London ~ Vitamin Metropolis sounds too funky and silly to even
I dont even know. Its supposed to be incredibly reflective of a lot of the street rats, though, since thats what the story revolved around in that area. So in that case, it works fairly well. Its one of the more uplifting tracks on the soundtrack, which is interesting in itself.
Mystery ~ Callback from Jesus is a theme that weve seen before, and itll appear again in the series, but its a nice thing that ties the entire series together. I personally like the SH2 version of it, but this is good enough compositionally, particularly after the introduction.
Battle in China ~ Brain Hopper is a fairly unique battle theme, and I dont like it that much in-context. Its paced pretty slowly, but instrumentally, its really neat. It has distortion, vocals, great Asian-style percussion, and a wonderful bassline. I used to hate it as a teenager, but now Ive come to really enjoy it. Its inverse,
Desperation in China ~ Ghosts Jogging, is super-frantic and I like it a ton when the backing drops and leaves the alarm sound ringing without it.
Midboss I ~ China Ogre encapsulates the instrumentation used in this part of the soundtrack, and its a better theme than the standard battle theme. If I remember correctly, Yasunori Mitsuda composed this theme, and it shows. You can definitely hear a lot of what hed do compositionally with a theme like this and it turned out pretty well! Its flipside,
Midboss Berserk ~ Meltdown, is
pretty crazy. It has great percussion, though.
The second portion of the game has a lot of battle themes I like a lot.
Battle in Europe ~ NDE / Near Death Experience is a super-catchy battle theme and I like it a lot for its percussion and vocal melodies. The best bit is when the theme breaks down halfway, and the most striking portion is the little breaks in between the melody. This probably isnt even the best version of the theme (
this version is, off of the Shadow Hearts Arranged album; even the prototype of the theme is pretty cool). This theme is good enough to have its prototype put on special album! I dont really like its flipside berserk theme
Desperation in Europe ~ SSC/Special Short Cuts that much, though. Its the one Ive heard the most, but its the one I like the least.
Grim Reaper Battle ~ The Thorn of Mind is a very good effort by Hirota in terms of trying to fit horror elements in an RPG battle theme with lower-range instrumentation and composition, a lot of percussion, and some distortion. It comes out pretty good.
Grim Reaper Berserk ~ Reckless is one of the better flipside berserk themes since its more rhythmic and the main synth is really catchy.
Midboss II ~ Demons Gig is the better boss theme on the soundtrack. It has a good intro that hooks you in, organ, great percussion, nice synth vocals, and distorted strings to round it up before the loop. Its very enjoyable and its a bit sad you dont get to hear it enough!
Midboss Desperation II ~ Sicking Fucking has a hilarious title, and to this day I dont know what to think of it other than I think its great that includes the intro to the Midboss II theme.
If theres one theme I hear a lot of people who didnt play Shadow Hearts talk about, its
Imbroglio. Its awesome. Its too bad that the final boss is a joke (well, I thought it was a joke) because you dont get to hear much of it in-game, but it completely shines after the hard bell intro. The organ, tambourine, and strings portion with some of the bells in the second portion of the theme really make it shine. I just think its amazing that out of everything that makes a final boss theme shine, instead of using electric guitars or vocals, they choose a friggin
bell of all things. Even the
Final Boss Desperation ~ Bate Me Bate Me theme uses a friggin bell. At least they know what brought us all to the table!
The game closes off with one of the better vocal themes of the generation,
Shadow Hearts. While it isnt as interesting as Shadow Hearts: From the New Worlds SPREAD MY WINGS, its soothing enough to accompany the imagery shown during the credits theme. I love the instrumentation, and the vocalists diction and the overall mixing make the theme an excellent end to the game.
I realize that this is a controversial decision to make it my number one, but Yoshitaka Hirotas work that generation made a tremendous impact on me. Looking back on it, its the soundtrack that I appreciate the most for opening my eyes to other forms of VGM and even other genres. It showed me what we could actually do with RPG music instead of relying on traditionalism. I genuinely miss Hirotas compositions and I hope that he returns in some capacity to composition instead of arrangement and performance. Otherwise, Ill keep waiting.
