Soundtrack of the Month 03/2009: Atelier Iris Eternal Mana Original Soundtrack

Ready to celebrate some musical alchemy?

Many Japanese developers have their own niche in gaming; and, with that, their own niche in music. Falcom’s “Sound Team jdk” has its own well-defined style, as does Konami’s “Kukeiha Club.” Gust’s sound team, sometimes referred to as the “So-La Sound Team,” does some things that no one else in game music does.

The current roster of the team is Akira Tsuchiya (the leader and veteran), Ken Nakagawa, and Daisuke Achiwa. These three composers first worked together on the fifth game in Gust’s long-running Atelier series, Atelier Viorate (that’s the official romanization: “Atelier Violet” is probably a much better attempt at the name). Before that, Tsuchiya had worked on the other Atelier games with different groupings of composers, but it was clear that Gust had struck gold with this trio. It only makes sense, then, that the next three games in the Atelier series (the Atelier Iris trilogy) would come from this same crew.

The Atelier Viorate soundtrack is not an easy find, as it was released for purchase exclusively through Gust’s website in limited quantities. However, starting with Atelier Iris Eternal Mana, Gust began to rely on the Japanese company “TEAM Entertainment.” Thus, due to the soundtrack’s relatively high availability, as well as the fantastic music found on the discs, we are naming the Atelier Iris Eternal Mana Original Soundtrack our March 2009 “Soundtrack of the Month.”

Find our full review after the jump.

When you compose game music, it’s important that you assign your best compositions to the “staple” gameplay events. For an RPG, this includes your town and battle themes, your world map music (if you have a world map), and most certainly the opening theme. Let’s start at the beginning, then!

The opening song “Byakuya Gensoutan” (roughly translated, “White Night Illusion”) sets the tone for the entire album. Vocalist Haruka Shimotsuki (whose career seemed to have flourished after this release) recorded dozens of vocal tracks to create chant-like choral parts as background to the main melody. All of this is executed extremely well in an up-tempo, tight-knit 6/8 rhythm. Whenever I hear a new vocal theme from Gust (be it Atelier, Ar tonelico, Mana Khemia, whatever), I cannot help but compare it to the original. White Night Illusion is fantastic. Unfortunately, the “game size” version (2 minutes in length) is the only version of the song. An extended, 5 or 6 minute version would have been appreciated.

Now, a few key songs need to be addressed. “The Forest of Meeting” (disc 1, track 4) is the piece of music used for many of the outdoor field/exploration zones in the game, and it’s a very memorable piece. I hadn’t listened to it in years, but when I pulled out the album to write this review, the melody came back to me immediately. Structurally, it is simple, but the Gust Sound Team excels at putting a lot of ethnic “decoration” in their music. The additional percussion on this piece really helps to draw the listener in.

The next piece is a town theme, and it is my absolute favorite town theme among all the RPG town themes I’ve heard in my entire life. “Town Where the Bells Chime” is simply addictive. I remember first playing the game when NIS America released it in the summer of 2005. Since the game had a heavy focus on item synthesis, I would be regularly running from shop, to shop, to a dungeon to find more items, and back to a shop. The in-between area for most of this was the main town. Sometimes, I would just stop in town and not enter any shops, because I wanted to enjoy this song looping without end (the mere 2 minutes found on the OST version doesn’t do it justice). I love this song. It’s what sold me on the Gust Sound Team.

The “shopping” theme (of which there are several variations for the different shops, some of them in different towns) is also a very good song. Not as catchy as the town theme, but the fact that the composers went out of their way to make significant variations to the theme for the different shops really helped to keep the song fresh. After all, if you’re devoted to the item synth process in-game, you’ll be hearing this song more than any other in the game. So you have to be able to really enjoy it, and the added variations certainly help with that process.

The world map music, “Wind Over Time,” is another rhythmic 6/8 piece, and it too feels very “ethnic” due to the instrumentation. The Gust Sound Team intentionally combines completely artificial synth sounds with very raw, natural synths (such as the percussion, or the violin), to amalgamate fantasy and reality. This works surprisingly well on the world map theme.

The very next track on the OST (we’re now up to disc 1, track 12) is the standard battle theme “Alchemic Blast.” And, in case you didn’t know, it’s one of the best battle themes the Gust Sound Team has ever composed, or will ever compose. In fact, years after this soundtrack’s original 2004 release, doujin legend SSH released a guitar/rock arrange album of all the battle themes from Atelier Iris (“Deceitful Wings,” also published by Team Entertainment). And though there are plenty of great arrangements on that album, my favorite is still Alchemic Blast. It’s just far too catchy to be denied the top spot, even if the final battle theme is more “epic” in scope.

There’s a lot of “cute” music found throughout the OST, but one of my favorites is “The Forest Where the Witch Lives” (disc 1 track 24). The various bells and whistles mixed into the piece help to sell the cuteness (and I am being literal when I say “bells and whistles,” not using it merely as an expression). The “Animal Village” piece (disc 2 track 18) is also cute, but mostly by use of the strange artificial synths that carry the melody.

Disc two has a lot of darker, more moody field themes, and the majority of the dungeon/battle themes are found on this disc. After a light-hearted adventure, it’s time to get to the real nitty-gritty, and that’s what the second disc represents (for the most part). “Eternal Eyes” (disc 2 track 22) uses the chants from the opening theme, and mixes it with a darker, minor-key harmonic structure. Totally, totally awesome.

Both of the game’s ending themes are found on the OST (“The Path You Walk” and “silent rhyme” are the songs in question). In both cases, the ending vocals are performed by Mami Horie, who had sung many a song for the Atelier series in the past, and continues to do so on occasion to this day. Though I much prefer the opening theme, these ending vocal pieces are enjoyable as well. But in my mind, they represent an older part of the Atelier history, and not the newfound, fresh sounds of the current Gust Sound Team lineup.

So, what do you think? Is the Atelier Iris Eternal Mana OST “Soundtrack of the Month” material? And if not this one, what else from the Gust discography would you recommend? Also, is it true that the Gust Sound Team has carved a niche for themselves as I say, or do you find their compositions to be “generic?” Let us know what you think!

The album is available at both CD Japan and Play Asia.