Excluding the PSP port (read: butchering) of the early titles in the series, this PlayStation 2 RPG is the latest (and last?) title in the Popolocrois series. The game’s subtitle translates roughly to “Adventure of the Law of the Moon.” Its soundtrack is composed by the same team that worked on the other games in the series. Does the jump from 32-bit to 128-bit offer an improvement to sound quality? You betcha! And did the sound team take advantage of those prospective improvements?
For the most part, yes. Unfortunately, despite the boost in synth quality, the composition doesn’t match the uniqueness of its predecessors.
This album, nearly 50 tracks long, is a hodge-podge mixture of all sorts of niche genres/styles of music: lots of silly polka-esque stuff included. The few tracks I found myself enjoying most were the calm pieces of music. There wasn’t a single battle theme I could force myself to get into.
But of the good stuff I found, I really really liked what it was I had found. Tracks like “Law of the Sprites” or “Mother and Child” are in a league of their own.
Having now listened to all the Popo-soundtracks out there, I have to say, this whole series is a great candidate for one “best of” disc, maybe including some arranged tracks. No one OST is excellent, but there is some great music on all of them (this particular OST less than the others in terms of quantity). Collecting all the music in this series would be the task of only a die-hard collector, and frankly, if you’re interested in this franchise, I’d start by collecting Manga and artbooks before the music.
