Recommended Soundtracks: Tsugunai: Atonement

When you have a favorite music artist or composer, they’ll always inevitably reach the point of stagnation in some point in their life. What’s worse is that eventually fans will begin to notice it, and the criticism will begin to affect the person the works originated from in some way. Sometimes, they’ll branch out from their usual routine, mostly with mixed results. In this case, it happens to almost all popular music composers in video games. Like Yasunori Mitsuda.

The point of stagnation doesn’t mean their particular tracks have become bad, just samey. Anyone who hasn’t heard every work, and every kind of work that composer has done, will find themselves enjoying what they hear. Early in the last decade, Mitsuda kind of hit a brick wall, and soon after that he took a small hiatus from working solo on video games after Xenosaga (which also meant he only composed a few tracks for a lot of games here and there). One of the last soundtracks he composed solo was that for Tsugunai: Atonement.

And that’s a game you probably haven’t heard of, and the game whose soundtrack I’m featuring here today. Tsugunai: Atonement is an RPG for Playstation 2 developed by Cattle Call (who also later made Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits and End of Darkness), and was published by Sony in Japan. Nine months after its original release in February 2001, Atlus released the game in North America. Unfortunately, it wasn’t received well at all, though if it was good, it might have joined Jade Cocoon 2 and Shadow Hearts in being great RPGs unfortunately overshadowed by the then-looming behemoth: Final Fantasy X.

But hopefully no one forgot about the soundtrack, which goes b the name An Cinniuint. It might have been considered generic back then, but it’s been so long since Mitsuda’s done a soundtrack by himself that it stands out as a piece of greatness nowadays. These days, you might say that it reminds you of the good old days. You know, if you remember them.

This first one is the first battle theme, fittingly called “Battle – Level 1.” This is one of the first tracks where you can feel the Celtic vibe Mitsuda is known for. It may not be one of the most memorable battle themes he’s composed, but it’s worth a few listens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVZ0M41le4I

This is definitely a town theme, and it definitely sounds like one; it’s known as “Early Afternoon in the Village.” When people said this soundtrack was rudimentary and predictable, they weren’t kidding! But hey, that doesn’t mean it’s bad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSLNXi3DlEc

The last one here is called “The Devil,” and it’s as haunting as you could imagine. It’s ability to send a chill down your spine is what makes it one of the more captivating tracks on the soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vVN8Y1fnco

Listening to these makes me wish that Mitsuda was still composing the entirety of most soundtracks he’s contributed to. He did the entire soundtrack to DS RPG Soma Bringer, though Nintendo of America didn’t feel it was worth bringing over despite the praise it received in Japan. He also did the soundtrack for Sands of Destruction, which, wouldn’t you believe it, is being released tomorrow in America by Sega. He also contributed to the upcoming Wii RPG Arc Rise Fantasia, coming from Ignition Entertainment later this year. So yeah, he’s still around, but in a more subdued position.

P.S. Originally, it wasn’t my intention to use “The Devil” as a sample of the soundtrack. I actually wanted to use a more emotionally-driven track known as “Grief.” The problem? Well, most of the second disc isn’t even on Youtube, which shocked me. It’s, I think, proof of how underrated this soundtrack is.