OST reviews original soundtracks, arranged albums, remixes, and game-related music.
Everyone hates Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and despite my nostalgia-warped fondness for the game, I admit it's a pretty lame addition to the series. The 1992 "beginner's RPG" — known insultingly in Japan as Final Fantasy USA — has a parodically generic storyline, preschool gameplay and bland-as-hell graphics. But there's one thing to love about it: the soundtrack. Even Mystic Quest's most fiery detractors tip their hats to Ryuji Sasai's ass-whooping hard-rock score, which pushes the SNES's sound chip to its limits of its metalosity.
Sasai must've pissed off one of his bosses, because the few games he scored — including Mystic Quest, Final Fantasy Legend III, and our subject for today, Treasure of the Rudras — were all kind of stinkers, by general public consensus. Maybe that contributed to his early exit from the game industry; he's currently playing bass in a Queen tribute band. Treasure of the Rudras never made it over to the U.S., so its soundtrack is even more obscure than Mystic Quest's. But if you've got a yen for some choice, melodic hard rock, it's a real buried, uh, treasure.
I've never played through Rudras — a translation patch is available here, if you're curious — but the game follows four main characters, each with his or her own musical theme. Sasai weaves these four themes through the score. "Sword of the Valiant," "Between Two Worlds," "Crime of the Heart," and "Take the Gold and Run" all have "day" and "night" versions; they also get rock arrangements (battle music, presumably), as "Strange Encounter," "The Spirit Chaser," "The Flame and the Arrow" and "Blazing Impact" respectively. They also get reused again in the ending music, "Beyond the Rising Moon." All are rich with Sasai's usual catchy, melodic sensibility, and are probably the tracks that'll score highest with Mystic Quest fans.
But the soundtrack has other, quieter pleasures, which are more satisfying than the mellow tracks from Mystic Quest. "The Mysterious Stone" hums with sinister premonition; "Whistle Down the Wind" evokes wanderlust beautifully in a short melody; "Dance with the Zombie" is an eerie, jaunty waltz with what sounds like the SNES equivalent of a jaw harp in the background. Like Nobuo Uematsu in his prime, Sasai hops across a wide range of genres and styles, always building off a strong melodic idea. On the whole, it's a choice group of tracks, made all the more pleasurable to explore by its "lost" status. Point your browser to the indispensable SNESmusic.org and check it out.