The holy trinity of Neverland/Taito projects: Estpolis (Lufia), Chaos Seed, and Energy Breaker. Lufia was primarily Shiono, Chaos Seed had a nice balance of Shiono and Nakajima. But Energy Breaker is almost entirely Yukio Nakajima’s baby. Strangely, though, it’s a soundscape that almost entirely fits my memories of the Lufia games.
Before Scitron/Happinet published the Game Sound Legend Series albums, the only way to get the soundtracks to each of the three aforementioned titles was by paying crazy amounts of money for rare, incomplete sound collections. That all changed in 2006.
This three disc set of music opens with an exclusive arranged track from Yukio Nakajima (which, by the way, is totally brilliant). And then there are two more arranged tracks, and guess what? They’re brilliant too! “To the Blue Horizon” has a fantastic guitar solo part; it sounds eerily like Capcom, maybe a Street Fighter arranged album. This is a strong, upbeat track that’s worth including in any VGM playlist. “The Guiding Fortuneteller ~ Ruins of Rain” is the longest of the arrange tracks (6 minutes, 30 seconds), and it’s this awesome blend of Falcom-style “Super Arrange Version” synth arrange, plus all these crazy ethnic Asian instruments and a traditional flute. This track is rhythmic and awesome. By many collector’s standards, these three tracks alone make the three disc package a worthwhile purchase. So we’re off to a great start.
The remainder of the first is a “Remake Version” of the soundtrack: in other words, more arrangements. But these are simple synth upgrades for a selection of tracks from the Super Famicom (SNES) OST. After hearing those awesome fully-arranged tracks, these pale in comparison. I want to tell the creators, “hey, let’s just get to the original music then, okay?” But I’m giving you, dear reader, that sentiment in place of the creators. Deal with it.
Discs two and three are the proper original soundtrack for Energy Breaker, and I have to say, it’s about time we received it in a proper, each song looped once, format.
Here we find that the Super Famicom FM synth is used extremely well. I think it’s some of the best SFC music out there. Hiroki Kikuta’s Seiken Densetsu scores win awards for originality, and Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI also had impressive uses of the Super Famicom’s sound capabilities. But Energy Breaker, alongside Lufia II, have some wildly impressive sounds on them. I love this era of music, and Energy Breaker exemplifies what I love. Seriously, this OST is like a cross between Chrono Trigger and Terranigma, both in style and quality.
I would recommend anyone who enjoys this era of music, and would think they like Yukio Nakajima’s work, pick up this album before it too goes obsolete. At the time of this review’s being written, there are some online stores that still stock it.
