Taking the time-travel trip into the obscure reaches of the Megami Tensei franchise has been a great experience, and I owe it to SuperSweep for publishing these albums. The Game Boy soundtracks for Last Bible I (localized on GBC as “Revelations: The Demon Slayer”) and II are some of my personal favorites. Now, we have Hiroyuki Yanada’s score for Last Bible III, another Japan-only RPG, but this time for Super Nintendo. And a solid two discs’ worth of music at that.
The change in sound font was something for me to adjust to after all that chiptune goodness. And, as an SNES RPG from 1995, I expected the sound quality to be pretty good. However, the sound font is a little on the weak/hackneyed side. These developers didn’t have the sound programmers that Square had, that’s for sure.
To make up for what I found to be a somewhat weak sound font, Yanada’s compositions mimic and refine many of the things I love about 16-bit game music. Consider “Bullton Tower” from the first disc. A nice bossa nova syncopated beat (with all the appropriate percussion), a simple stop-and-go melody, and then a fantastic build for the B section with a pounding bass… reminds me of Chrono Trigger or Tenchi Sozo. In other words, high quality.
Before anyone accuses me of cherry-picking, let me say that not all the tracks are fun to listen to on their own. In the context of the game, I’m sure a quirky track like “Yonatan” is perfect. But on its own, it’s something I’d rather skip… particularly because that saxophone synth drives me nuts. And the battle tracks? There are a lot of them, and they’re a mixed bag. I love some of them, others I happily skip.
Also, let me say that this is one of the first soundtracks I’ve heard that’s “middle-loaded.” Often a soundtrack will be frontloaded (best music up front), and some will be backloaded (wait til the end for the best). But I found the best stuff was right in the meat of the game, between the second half of disc one and the first half of disc two. That’s not to say the beginning and end is bad, but some of the best is in the middle. Assuming the soundtrack is laid out in the traditional “order of appearance in-game” structure (and it would seem that is the case), Yanada-san wrote a very balanced score, one that builds a great sense of adventure in a dark and mysterious world.
A note about the “bonus tracks.” I don’t know why they even exist. You have these early cut-off versions of the same tracks earlier on the soundtrack, and then we get the “full version” (looped, full tune) at the end of the second disc. Why not just give the full version? The short/cut versions are worthless… they just cut off after 45 seconds.
Those among us who associate SMT with Shoji Meguro, I have to say: while he is a great composer, the idea of doing dance/jazz music with a game that has this weird semi-modern demonic setting (LB3 is actually 19th century, but most are “present day”) goes back to Yanada, Masuko, and many others before Meguro was part of the Atlus team. And sure enough, soundtracks like this or Majin Tensei do more than serve as a mere history lesson. Amidst some RPG BGM fodder, you’ll find a couple of real gems. If you can find a way to order from SuperSweep Records, I’d recommend picking this up before it becomes too hard to find. SMT fans do themselves a dis-service if they ignore this fun little side-series.
