A Witch’s Tale is a turn-based DS RPG from Hitmaker and NIS. This charming, if flawed, RPG looks and sounds like a Halloween episode of any given cartoon. The music certainly complements the game’s vibe, but listening to this soundtrack outside the context of the game feels like having eaten too much candy corn after a long night of trick-or-treating. Not so good.
The layered compositions were not at all subtle about being over-the-top cartoony Halloween songs full of whimsy. Some songs even had funny named like “Cookie Waltz.” However, despite the cute efforts, the compositions sounded predictable with nothing overly complex to be heard and no new discoveries hidden in subsequent listens. In addition, the pieces generally tended to be slow in tempo, and though I enjoy downtempo music, such as Massive Attack and Mazzy Star, I ultimately found the soundtrack rather boring. Even the vocalist in the vocal themes sounded like she was completely bored. The most exciting song on the soundtrack was “Get Serious” with its distorted guitar and driving beat. That was the one piece that actually gave me a jolt during this rather one-dimensional soundtrack.
I wish I could say more about the soundtrack, but it’s like describing the flavor of candy corn. It’s kinda sweet, but that’s about it. Candy corn has no complexity and eating more than a handful of it feels and tastes kinda icky. It’s no surprise that it’s often named the least desirable Halloween candy. The music to A Witch’s Tale is akin to a trick-or-treat bag containing only candy corn, and part of the fun of Halloween is the variety of candy to obtain. The soundtrack lacked this. The songs on this soundtrack all started sounding the same to me after a while, using the same kinds of cartoony instrumentation and the same keys and note progressions in the compositions. If, out of 36 tracks, I could only find one track worthy of listening to for a second time, that is not a good sign.
