For those of you who are Atlus fans, you may remember one of their PlayStation strategy RPGs entitled Kartia. Originally called Rebus in Japan, the game featured mediocre gameplay, but it did have excellent artwork by Yoshitaka Amano and a surprisingly good score. I didn’t really get too far into it, myself, but I’ve had the album for quite some time, and lately realized just how good it is. That coupled with pressure from Pat (our soundtracks editor) to review it, and I couldn’t say no.
Rebus’ soundtrack was composed by the trio of Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, and Masaki Kurokawa. Some may recognize those last two from some of the Shin Megami Tensei games, including Persona 2 and SMT 3. While the Rebus soundtrack is a far cry from MegaTen, I noticed a few similarities here and there.
One thing I have noticed about many Strategy-RPG soundtracks is their reliance on a particular melody upon which most of the other tracks are built. Rebus is no different, building upon the motif set up in the opening track, Landscape, which features drums, horns, and that fantasy strat-rpg staple, bells. It’s an epic battle theme that is solid enough to build around, yet flexible enough to encourage diversity. The melody reappears throughout the soundtrack, in places such as Revelation, the main battle theme Knight, Divine Protection, and Toxa Take Off.
Don’t worry, though; Rebus contains more than just variations of the same motif. There are some excellent battle themes that don’t build on the main theme, such as Phantom Beast I and Phantom Beast III, both fast-paced battle themes with solid bass drum beats. Then there’s the slightly slower Saldinart which manages to be dark, but which does rely on the main theme to some extent.
While most of the album is done in an orchestral style, there is some variation here, including the folksy Dance of Worlds and both Feel Uneasy and True Investigator, which invoke images of stealth and manage to capture a bit of the MegaTen feel.
While the soundtrack would stand well on its own, Atlus decided to bring in Shinichiro Mizobuchi (Submarine Super 99) to do a second disc featuring classical arrangements of some of the tracks. This second disc manages to shore up the one big shortfall of the OST, namely the short lengths of the original tracks. There are some interesting arrangements on this disc, including Symphony “Lacryma ~Holy Woman~,” which manages to incorporate the three Lacryma themes from the OST.
Another nice part of the second disc, is that some of the arrangements are performed on live instrumentation, such as the piano and strings Piano Quintet “Sad Situation ~Sorrow~” and Guitar Suite “Dance of Words ~Dance of the Soul of Language~.” I must admit that I’m a big fan of acoustic guitar, and Sad Situation is probably my favorite track on the whole album. Piano Variation “Silence ~Bloodstained Silence~” does a great job as a slow, sometimes sad, sometimes ominous piano solo, while String Quartet “Conversation ~Rapport~” with its sorrowful violins is absolutely beautiful, and manages to capture a feeling of despair and sadness.
I wholeheartedly recommend this album to any fans of classically-inspired game music, or those who enjoy an epic feel to their soundtracks. If you enjoyed the FFT soundtrack, I think you’ll find Rebus Original Soundtracks & Classical Arrange to be right up your ally.
