Don’t be confused by this soundtrack’s name: It’s not a drama CD. The Strategy RPG “Quo Vadis,” with its strong cast of characters, was actually privy to a long series of drama CDs (six, to be exact). This album contains all of the music put into the six-part drama series. Some of it is arranged music from the OSTs, some of it is original compositions, and then there are also character vocal themes.
The album kicks off with the character vocal tracks. And of course, the vocal performances aren’t all the great, as these people are trained to do talking, not singing. For each song, almost as a rule, the chorus is the best part, and the verses are boring. The big problem is that the melodies during the verses have no direction, so there’s little the listener can “catch.” Surprisingly, my favorite track among the vocals was from a male (normally, I prefer female vocalists). “Cross my heart” is the song in question, and I really took to the chorus. It’s a catchy song, no doubt about it.
Starting at track 9, “Birth of Eve Core,” the rest of the album is instrumental. Now, since there were no limitations to the audio format, it would’ve been nice to hear some really decent arrangements, if not with live instruments, then at least with the best synth available. Even for 1996, they could have made better-sounding music than this, in my opinion. It doesn’t help any that the compositions themselves are generally drab; they exist to set the mood during a dialogue, so there are many tracks that just don’t do well on their own. However, a few did stand out.
One such song was “Warp Out.” The music starts out slow, soft, and ambient. But after awhile, the track turns into a veritable disco-party song with swelling strings and the works! I really was surprised by it, especially after going through track after track of mediocre composition.
The ending track was also good, though it was not performed by a live orchestra, but also synthesized. If every song on this album had been given the treatment this last track had, I would have thought better of the album overall.
In summary, the vocal tracks, while being cheesy and not featuring the greatest of talent, are still probably the number one reason for purchasing the album. The rest of the instrumentals come as a bonus, but they are not all I had hoped they would be.
