Recommended Soundtracks: Soukaigi

It’s a wonderful feeling whenever you find a great soundtrack for a game you’ve never played, and it’s even better when you feel you’re free to listen to it after discovering that it wasn’t any good either. Unfortunately, this happens a bit too often, and you could probably name plenty of games that you’ve had the unfortunate displeasure of experiencing yourself that had great soundtracks but not-so-great gameplay. Fortunately, you probably haven’t played the game I’m going to talk about today, unless you’re Japanese or you imported it out of pure curiosity.

Back in May 1998, Squaresoft released a Yuke’s-developed 3-disc Action RPG called Soukaigi in Japan. The game had an intriguing concept, detailing the fictional events of the aftermath of an explosion on Mount Fuji that killed 14 percent of the country’s population. The country is left in utter ruin, and stone pillars have erected all across the country; and worst of all, beastly demigods known as “Yorigami” have taken over the nation. A student named Mizuho Mikanagi and her friends decide to help and save Japan in its time of turmoil.

For as good as it sounds, Soukaigi was unfortunately received rather poorly because of its bizarre gameplay decisions. From the sound of its flaws, it sounds like the game was much too ambitious for its time, straining the PSOne in ways you don’t want to see. Too much data for voice samples led to some unfortunate compression, and the graphics were surprisingly poor. It’s a shame, but it sounds like something that would do well with a remake. Because of its problems, it was never released outside of Japan.

The greatest aspect of Soukaigi was its soundtrack, composed by the venerable (though now non-existent) Hiroki Kikuta, who was also responsible for the SNES Mana titles. Its music doesn’t sound like something you would expect to hear from a game with the aforementioned concept, and you won’t mind either when it sounds this good.

This first song here is Ancient Power, the first song on the soundtrack. I’ll admit that I’m not sure if it’s the first song heard in the game, but you won’t find too many people that will know that, honestly. This is a very soothing and melancholy song; perfect to do work to:

The second song here is Fire Wire, the fourth track. It’s pretty fast paced, and of all the instruments it uses, it’s the piano work that stands out the most – even though it’s not the most prevalent. It’s the placement that makes it sounds spectacular along with the violin:

And the last song I’ll feature here is Regret, which is a track that invokes the feeling of finality. It sounds like something that would go with a final dungeon, and it coincidentally happens to be one of the last few tracks on the soundtrack:

As a testament to how good the game’s soundtrack is, I’ll admit that I had a tough time choosing which tracks to use for this feature. Hiroki Kikuta is a great music composer, and it’s sad to see that he’s no longer working on soundtracks for the usual video game. Unfortunately, the man has been mainly relegated to Japanese “eroge” games, which are adult anime titles. His last major contribution to the main video game world was Koudelka, a game which itself was the progenitor to the largely underappreciated Shadow Hearts franchise. As much as I and other admirers of his music would like him to return to video games, especially RPGs, the chances of that are becoming worse as more time goes by.