Grand Kingdom takes many cues from Vanillaware’s Grand Knights History and shares much of the same team. This includes subcontracting the music to Basiscape, who brought back all but one of Grand Knights History’s composers, and then complemented the roster with two more. All of them — Mitsuhiro Kaneda, Azusa Chiba, Kazuki Higashihara, Yoshimi Kudo, and Masaharu Iwata — have been working together on the recent Vanillaware remakes of Muromasa Blade and Odin Sphere, and everyone except for Higashihara has a long pedigree within video game composition.
Bringing so much skill and experience together can increase the number of quality tracks simply because each composer can present a few great songs and leave weaker tracks out. But it also takes effective leadership and productivity within intense working relationships to make the results worth the effort. Most of the time, similar collaborations produce lackluster results or fail outright. However, Grand Kingdom’s soundtrack is the kind of outcome that most directors dream of, and whatever mix of experience, artistry, and serendipity brought it about, the results are a cut above. I think this is due to Basiscape’s model of bringing top composers, technicians, and musicians under one roof, and keeping them together in the company. The projects change, but the comradery remains.
Overall, the music features a blend of real and synthetic instruments. The high quality synth work and audio mixing make it at times difficult to distinguish which instruments are real and which are synthetic, but the instruments are always complementary and it never feels like corners were being cut. Even better is that the composers know their sounds well and blend them together perfectly while demonstrating an expert sense of timing and compositional structure throughout the album. Except for a handful of very short tracks, every song is packed with variety and liveliness, and features a generous run time to enjoy it in. In game, many of these songs are short lived, used for a sequence that may only happen once, or played in a menu that you may never spend more than a few seconds in. While this could be a hindrance in a lesser effort, the compositions start with strong, compelling openings so that the player can enjoy the song from the first second, or they can linger and get much more out of it. The PS Vita maintains the audio quality, though you may have to plug your system into an amplified mixer in order to appreciate it.
Normally at this part of the review, I pick out some exemplary tracks and give a description of them, but this time I was faced with a dilemma. While I certainly have favorites, the reality is that, out of 66 tracks, I can count the good and less than good ones on two hands. The rest are outstanding, both in composition and performance. It actually becomes difficult to review individual tracks when you think so highly of almost all of them. Songs are filled with subtle details and multilayered sounds that indicate a level of artistry rarely executed in a video game soundtrack. The album as a whole is a perfect complement to the game and its themes, along with being an impressive work in its own right.
The music styles are mostly a very RPGish take on pre-20th century European genres. There is a strong Celtic and French military bent, and a broad range of instrumentation. Also surprising is the team’s take on the battle music, which blends modern J-rock rhythms into the mix.
When listening to the soundtrack one would be hard pressed to pick a composer just by ear. Each artist’s contributions are high quality and thematically and technically similar. I suspect most of the album was highly collaborative, even if only by virtue of working in the same studio with the same musicians and engineers.
I would like to give special mention to Kazuki Higashihara. From what I can tell, he is largely new to video game music composition (though Basiscape says he has been in television sound production since 2010.) His compositions are stellar and form a major contribution to the album’s length. He has an intricate sense of timing and demonstrates superior skill in weaving subtle tones and dozens of voices into complex, hard-hitting melodies with gentle undertones. He also seems to have done the most work with electric guitars on the soundtrack. Holding his own and contributing greatly to the overall high quality work achieved in the album, I think Higashihara is an excellent addition to the Basiscape team and would suggest keeping a lookout for his future works. To get a sample of his work, be sure to check out “Fight Hard, Earn Glory!,” “Determination,” “In Trying Times…,” and “Animus Resurrected” in the samples to the left.
On that note, our samples do not do justice to the original album. Our down-sampling obliterates the intricate artistry here. If you have the game, even on Vita, plug it into an amplified system or an expensive set of headphones. In lower quality setups, the music sounds great, is well balanced, and you can still hear the essential complexities. On superior systems, every instrument gains greater depth, and you will hear more instruments and sounds, including special effects such as harmonics and natural reverberations. This is one of those albums that will reward you for having invested in your audio setup.
Basiscape, the company housing this talent, has released a number of outstanding works of late, and this could easily top the list. The Grand Kingdom OST starts strong, ends strong, and rarely flags in between. Musically, it is outstanding, creative, technically masterful, and so well worth adding to your collection. The composers and technicians put a lot of work into this and, with a few exceptions, managed to make something special out of every track.
If you intend to purchase the album, you will be pleased to know that Basiscape has done a good job on publication. You can grab the full digital release from Amazon, a nice surprise for a niche RPG. A greatest hits album subtitled Call to Arms comes with the limited edition of the game in all regions. For the full physical release, you must order from Basiscape. However you pursue it, I encourage you to get this album. The team clearly put a lot of love and talent into it, and I think you will love it in return.
