Recommended Soundtracks: Devilish/Bad Omen

It’s been a little while since my last Recommended Soundtracks entry, specifically since *checks* May of 2021. The feature has taken another lengthy break (though not as long as the one before it), but it returned before because one particular soundtrack gave me reason to resuscitate it. Now, another has done the same.

I was entranced upon first hearing the soundtrack to Gauntlet IV for Genesis. I’d known that Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata had been around video game composition circles for a while, but I hadn’t heard many of their pre-Final Fantasy Tactics soundtracks. But the duo, Sakimoto in particular, were plenty busy before that game. Heck, Gauntlet IV wasn’t even the first Genesis/Mega Drive soundtrack I’d heard from him, though it was the one on my mind when I wrote the aforementioned post. That honor belongs to Devilish, known in Japan under (the much better name of) “Bad Omen.”

Devilish was a unique scrolling action game in which players (one or two simultaneously) used paddles to smack a ball to defeat enemies and proceed through obstacles, similar to a seemingly perpetual pinball stage. Each stage and the boss battles they end with get progressively difficult, like any other old game of this type. It’s, to put it simply, a more difficult (or perhaps more devilish) take on very classic Taito title Arkanoid. The game is accompanied by a short-though-great FM synthesized soundtrack by Sakimoto, in one of his earliest solo assignments from 1992. The fact that it’s another one of his pre-FFT soundtracks makes it especially notable, another one prior to the establishment of the style that continues to make heavy usage of the violins, trumpets, and flutes. So, I won’t waste any further time and get to the soundtrack.

There’s no better track to start with than the Intro theme. It’s a short track that begins somberly, but intensifies after a bit of time, hinting at the game’s difficulty. It’s the most recognizably Sakimoto track among them, despite not featuring his trademark instrument usage:

Guantlet IV showed how good Sakimoto (and Iwata) was at making good use of bass through the Genesis’ ostensibly limited sound system, the result of the pre-Basiscape operation putting in the work to make their own synthesizer known as the “Terpsichorean” driver. This is shown in the very first track for the “Graveyard” stage, one that’s easy to listen to multiple times despite it not being long:

The theme for the “Waterfalls” stage, the third one, is repetitive. But I don’t mean that negatively — not even close, in fact. The tempo noticeably increases and then decreases when it restarts, as if to match the intensity and breather sections in the stage itself:

The video game music road is positively plagued with mellow seaside and underwater themes, many of which are solid. The “Seaside” theme for Devilish’s fifth stage, fits this. Notable here is the solid keyboard synthesizer use, and how it’s yet another one with good use of bass:

I have talked a lot about bass among these tracks, but none among them make better use of this than the music accompanying the “Volcano” stage, the sixth among them. It’s rife with usage of obo and drum-like sounds through synthesizers to help make the stage an intense one throughout, just what anyone would expect from an old game stage that occurs within a volcano:

What’s most notable about the track for Stage 7 is how complex it is. It’s mostly frenetic, though with a few calmer and melodic parts throughout it. The “Prairie” is the last stage before the final boss in what’s a short game (though its difficulty makes the trek feel longer, like other older and throwback adventurous puzzle and shoot ‘em up-like games). It fittingly includes elements of several prior tracks:

I somewhat hinted at the existence of this game and few others in the previous post, from the time when Sakimoto and his partners (Iwata chief among them) created their special music synthesizer for use in the early-to-mid 1990s. They aren’t often spotlighted even by many other video game music aficionados, though I don’t blame them too heavily considering the sheer number of soundtracks worth highlighting and how this is another game that never received an official soundtrack release. Perhaps there’s at least one more that used this sound hardware worth highlighting, though I’d like to spotlight it in less time.

I would also still like for Sakimoto and Iwata to contribute newer FM synthesizer tunes, whether they do or don’t still have their old synthesizer around. Music for a title on an indie budget that would inherit an old Genesis or PC-88 game’s looks would suffice, which could make good use of such a soundtrack. If not that, supplying one or two tracks to a special collaborative soundtrack like the audibly delectable FM Sound Module Maniax, which featured talents like Motoi Sakuraba, Yoko Shimomura, Michiko Naruke, and Yuzo Koshiro, the last of whom particularly excels at this type of music. The chances of Sakimoto and Iwata doing so are lower than I’d like to admit, though, which is what makes it so good when you find an old soundtrack you’ve never heard before, like with Gauntlet IV, Devilish/Bad Omen, and more.