Very few games have such sweeping soundtracks that offering all of the alternate, prototype, and otherwise unused music seems a sensible option. Think Final Fantasy XIII OST PLUS albums. Now imagine it’s even more thorough, and it’s from Indivisible by Hiroki Kikuta! Indivisible Original Soundtrack PLUS is the inevitable, surprisingly enjoyable follow-up to the full Indivisible OST.
As I’m listening to this album a full five years after its release, I can’t help but think: “Y’know who fell off in 2020? Me.” How did I pass this up until now? I suppose I can blame COVID and life circumstances. But I regret my failure to take time to listen to this clever, curious two-hour set of music. So, at long last, let’s dive in!
The album opens with “Secret of Indivisible,” a sort of proof-of-concept demo version that Kikuta wrote early in development. In the liner notes, Kikuta notes he wrote this piece before he had a sense of who Ajna was as a character, so this attempt at a title theme is a little darker and more moody than he had anticipated. Given the use of some familiar synths in this track, I do like to think there is a sort of merge between his Seiken Densetsu work and his soundscape for Indivisible.
(As an aside: this digital album includes a 21-page digital liner notes booklet with track-by-track commentary from Hiroki Kikuta. I’ll be referencing it throughout the review. I think this is part of what makes the album so worthwhile!)
The older demo version of “Ajna” found here lacks the vocals recorded by rionos, instead utilizing synthetic vocals. It still sounds really cool paired with all of the pitched percussion and plucked strings, but it is noticeably stilted and approaching the “uncanny valley” compared to what rionos did with the track. Something similar can be said about the variant of “Walk a Labyrinth” found here (track 14). Kikuta writes in the liner notes that, in this version, he didn’t worry about the instrumentation and impressive melodic lines, instead keeping focus on developing an appropriate atmosphere. While the final version is definitely superior, it is interesting to hear what this work-in-progress (WIP) version of “Walk a Labyrinth” had been. It’s actually a great listen, though I think it would’ve worn out its welcome more easily in-game than what the final version became.
Some of my favorite tracks to study on this album are the four-minute tracks “Ortho,” “Para,” and “Meta.” On the OST, these tracks are a combined five-minute piece “Ortho – Meta – Para.” On this OST PLUS, Kikuta reveals the three separate parts as three separate forms, or variants, of this intense piece of music. It’s ingenious how one can substitute for another, as is the nomenclature of these track titles, which are a reference to organic chemistry. I find the jump-scare creepiness of “Meta” to be the most fun of these three tracks, but they all offer something worth checking out!
In tracks 20 through 24, Kikuta presents multiple versions of “Endless Unity” and “Esoterica.” Kikuta explains in the liner notes that “Endless Unity” was originally written as a short piece (track 20), but the developer needed a significantly longer version for Indivisible‘s actual ending sequence, so that is what we get in track 21. It’s impressive to see how Kikuta manages to stretch out the already solid ending music without relying on repetition—instead layering, building, and then cutting away to just one or two layers. The three versions of “Esoterica,” the end credits music, go through so many iterations specifically because the developer kept changing directions and asking for small changes. Listening to these many versions, one gets a unique perspective on game development: the artist who makes something perfectly acceptable and worthwhile, just to be told, “Do it over!” A similar, though much shorter, example exists in the jingle collection “LABZERO BRIDGES”—the dev team asked for variants on a musical sting to transition to battle themes, so Hiroki Kikuta crafted them. And then they changed their minds, so the music was never used until published here.
I really think fans of Indivisible will enjoy stepping through these song variants in OST PLUS with Hiroki Kikuta’s commentary as guidance. If you appreciated this game and its OST, I would encourage you to step slightly back in time as I have and bask in the glory that is Indivisible Original Soundtrack PLUS. Be sure to check out RPGFan’s recent interview with Kikuta as well.
