Takashi Okamoto was on a roll with Flight-Plan for a bit there. His score for Dragon Shadow Spell was fantastic, and his contributions to Poison Pink only made him seem like that much better of a composer. With Flight-Plan’s latest Strategy RPG, Sacred Blaze, we find that perhaps Okamoto is running out of steam. But fear not! It seems a new challenger has stepped in to prove his skills.
In fact, Okamoto composed less than half of the tracks on this OST (he did exactly 18 of the 47 tracks). The rest of the work fell upon a complete newcomer, Tomohiro Sumikama. What little I could find about this composer suggests that he’s new to game music, and he’s definitely a young guy. What’s surprising is that, for the most part, Sumikama outshines Okamoto on this soundtrack. The tracks that Okamoto contributed seem like the weak “filler” music that I’d occasionally find on his other works. Thus, Sumikama doesn’t have much in the way of competition. And as his debut opus in VGM, he doesn’t do half bad!
I suspect Sumikama takes a lot of inspiration from Okamoto’s score for Dragon Shadow Spell. Though the music is ever-synthesized, there’s an impressive blending of orchestra and dance pop rhythm found throughout this OST. I first heard it, most clearly, on track 16 of the first disc. “Phantom ghost” sounds like something straight off of Dragon Shadow Spell. It’s catchy, it’s fun to listen to on repeat; it works great for a battle theme. This same trend follows clear through the end of the first disc. After hearing the first few tracks of disc one (all composed by Okamoto), I was worried I wouldn’t find what I wanted to find on this soundtrack. But Sumikama didn’t let me down.
As for good Okamoto tracks? Disc 2, tracks 11 and 15, both come from Okamoto-san. And they’re not half-bad. I get bored with them before the track is even over, but on a technical level, the compositions are strong.
The game’s opening and ending vocal tracks come from the same vocalist, and her delivery of the English lyrics are…well, they’re pretty bad. Her tone of voice is dark and deep, and I can appreciate the performance for the most part. But the annunciation is weak. Well, sometimes it’s weak, and sometimes it’s strong while yet being wrong in technical terms.
Overall, Sacred Blaze will probably remain a largely forgotten work, even among faithful fans of the small Japanese developer Flight-Plan. But I think what we see here is a new composer coming into the light and learning how to fit into a mold. Perhaps, down the road, we will see him come into his own.
