Taito

Game Music, Japanese

3,000 Zuntata tracks now streaming on Apple Music

August 25, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | 1 Comment Share this

Zuntata, Taito’s legendary house band, has quietly built a huge presence on iTunes over the last 8 years culminating in a current catalog of 114 albums. It isn’t just their modern mobile games either, although Groove Coaster and Space Invaders Infinity Gene are well represented. Albums go all the way back into the 80’s with The Ninja Warriors, Rastan Saga and Bubble Bobble. The rarely exported Densha de Go! series has several albums up for sale and naturally, there’s a ton of music from the Darius games and the Ray trilogy (RayStorm, RayCrisis, RayForce).

To hear all of that music would cost over $1,000 but Taito has just announced that “more than 3,000 songs” from their catalog are now available to stream through Apple Music. Similar to Spotify and Google Music Unlimited, Apple Music costs $10 a month and allows you to search and stream millions of songs from the iTunes catalog across your Apple devices. It’s worth noting that new users can try Apple Music free for three months which should give you enough time to explore all of the service’s game music offerings.

If you suddenly feel overwhelmed with choices we have plenty of reviews to guide you through Zuntata’s discography and there’s more coverage at VGMOnline. Do you have a favorite Zuntata album or are you planning to dive into their catalog now that it’s available on Apple Music? Let us know in the comments.
Doujin, Game Music, Japanese

Darius and Zuntata Have Returned for Chronicle Saviours

December 8, 2015 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on Darius and Zuntata Have Returned for Chronicle Saviours Share this

DariusBurst: Chronicle Saviours — the greatly expanded home version of 2011’s DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX — was released last week on Steam, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. Along with a new story mode with hundreds of stages, 4-player co-op and support for dual monitors, fans will be getting a new soundtrack from legendary Taito sound team, Zuntata.

The game is on sale now for $60 on PlayStation 4 and $40 on Vita and Steam (regularly $50) but if you’re really just after the music you may want to hold off just a little longer. Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours Original Sound Track is slated for release on January 13th in Japan featuring twelve new songs from Chronicle Saviours as well as tracks from previous entries, Another Chronicle, Another Chronicle EX, and Second Prologue. The new vocal theme, “Freedom”, is also included and can be heard in the trailer above. Check the rest of this post for the full tracklist, read up on Chronicle Saviours at the official English site or catch up on the series’ music with some of our previous coverage.

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Game Music, Reviews

Infinity Gene: Evolution Through Minimalism (Review)

April 29, 2011 | Carl Larson | 2 Comments Share this

When people talk about getting back to basics in gameplay, Space Invaders is one of those basics that immediately comes to mind. Infinity Gene, the latest title in the Space Invader series, succeeds in breaking things down to reach a new conclusion. Evolution through minimalism.

Taito’s music composer COSIO notes that “the sound ended up being considerably more minimalist than that of any other shooting game out there” as a result of taking a diverging path away from other shooters. Graphic designer Reisuke Ishida also states that “the sound is an inseparable part of the whole Infinity Gene concept. Without COSIO’s music, the game’s world falls apart, incomplete.”

While the iPhone version of Infinity Gene received a soundtrack release (ZTTL-9020) in August 2009, Taito is now releasing an updated soundtrack called -Evolutionary Theory- to include the new songs made for the Xbox 360/PS3 versions of the game. This would be the most complete album to buy if you happened to skip the previous release.

Let’s take it for a spin, shall we? (more…)
Featured, Game Music

Soundtrack of the Month 07/2010: Raystorm

July 2, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 5 Comments Share this

It’s been quite a long while since I wrote a soundtrack of the month article, but this one has been high on my list for quite some time. Connary’s recent review of the Rayforce –PCB Version- album on iTunes again brought Raystorm to the front of my mind, and what better time to feature it as our soundtrack of the month with the recent release of Raystorm HD on the Xbox Live Arcade?

While I always was and still am terrible at shooters (including Raystorm), it’s always been my favorite game in the genre, and the music is a big part of that. In fact, I recall spending countless hours scouring the Internet for music from the game before I knew soundtrack albums existed. Once I did learn that the soundtrack existed, however, it wasn’t long before I hunted it down and added it to my collection.

Hit the jump to find out why you may want to do the same if you haven’t already. (more…)
Game Music, Reviews

Zuntata RayForces Its Way Into My Ears (Review)

June 23, 2010 | CF | 3 Comments Share this

RayForce, known as Layer Section to some of us, Gunlock to others, and Galactic Attack to yet more, is an arcade title released in 1994. What made it special was a two-layered approach, requiring one to keep track of the ground and the air.

I suppose you’re here to read about the music, though. Hit the jump to check it out.
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Game Music, Reviews

A Huge Battleship is Approaching Fast: SAGAIA (Review)

March 17, 2010 | Michael Cox | 5 Comments Share this

Taito’s Darius series (of which Sagaia is a part) has always been regarded by the wider gaming public as somehow lagging behind the other big-name horizontal shooting series. As a steadfast supporter of the games, I’ve long thought of this as a disheartening and near-criminal injustice, but to be perfectly honest, the popular view is all too understandable. The first two Darius titles relied on their innovative triple-screen displays and their GIGANTIC SPACE FISH to impress arcade-goers in the late 80s, and upon revisiting them today, most players find them to be rather staid and sedate affairs with unadventurous whack-a-mole level design. It took 1994’s Darius Gaiden and 1997’s G-Darius to really prove the worth of the series to most shoot-em-up aficionados, but they certainly didn’t lay to rest the ghosts of its reputation. The truly disheartening thing about the relative unpopularity of the original games, though, is that it’s meant that scant few people have been exposed to the wonders of their music.

It seems Taito understand this well enough, as they’ve been busy releasing a slew of the Darius soundtrack and remix CDs on the iTunes service, with the soundtrack to the Game Boy version of Sagaia being among the most recent. But is this release likely to win the series any new fans?

Click the jump to find out! (more…)
Game Music, Reviews

From the Depths of the Sea: Darius II OST (Review)

February 24, 2010 | CF | 4 Comments Share this

Darius II, released to an unsuspecting world in 1989, followed the footsteps of original Darius – a strange, atmospheric arcade shooter with an equally unique soundtrack. While the OST was originally released in the late 80s, and is therefore very much out of print, it was recently added to Taito’s expanding iTunes catalog for digital distribution, making it cheaply and readily available once again.

Though the series has been mostly dormant since 1997’s G-Darius, it recently came back to life with the release of the brilliant Darius Burst. Taking a look back at the series and its accomplishments, it’s easy to see that the three-screen-wide Darius II was a landmark worth revisiting.

Hit the jump for an in-depth look at this strange and historically significant soundtrack. (more…)