Even small companies tend to have their own “flagship” series. For developer Flight-Plan, that series is Summon Night. The first two released on PlayStation, and the third on PlayStation 2, the series is relatively young, but it has performed well in Japan. Surprisingly, however, individual soundtracks weren’t being released alongside each game. Only opening/ending singles and drama albums were released.
But that all changed in 2004, when Frontier Works released this four disc set. The breakdown is as follows: Summon Night 1’s OST is all of disc 1, up to disc 2 track 6. Starting at track 7, we switch to Summon Night 2. This carries us through to disc 3 track 12. From 3-13 to the end, it’s Summon Night 3. That’s the breakdown. It’s clear that the publisher cared enough to give us the full audio, rather than just do one disc of music per game. Kudos to Frontier Works and Chiaki Fujita for setting it up properly to give us all the music they possibly could.
It took me awhile to get into Chiaki Fujita and his “style” of music. It was similar to another favorite of mine, the Gust Sound Team (Achiya/Tsuchiya/Nakagawa), but the melodies were slower, and the songs just felt more boring. At least, that’s what I picked up from a casual “first listen.” A more intense study of the music led me to two conclusions. First, that Fujita is a master of “layering” the audio, always choosing good synths and bringing the volume of different instruments up or down in such a way as to present a dynamic harmony of sorts. Second, Fujita’s composing abilities grew considerably with each subsequent title. Summon Night 3’s music is on par with some of the better JRPG soundtracks out there.
What kind of music is on here? Well, it’s all synth, and none of the vocal tracks are on this collection. Battle themes will remind you of Sakuraba and Tamura’s “Tales” themes, and town/environment/event music is more akin to the “Atelier” series, but with less ethnic and less eccentric instrumentation. Again, I thought the Summon Night 1 soundtrack was bland, but the music only gets better as it progresses.
The most memorable melodies, I found, were instrumental arrangements of vocal themes. For example, “Lured by the Sun” is beautiful, but it was originally written as a vocal performance piece. But being “memorable” isn’t the only virtue of the music on this collection. Some songs are just fun, silly little tunes that put you in a cheerful mood. Perhaps, that is what Fujita does best. His more serious event/emotional pieces fall short; and the battle themes, while passing, do not excel. It’s the fun stuff that he really does well at. And honestly, a lot of composers fall short at this point, so perhaps Fujita is really on to something!
It may not be Final Fantasy, or Shin Megami Tensei, or even Atelier Iris, but the Summon Night series has something special going for it. In my opinion, the soundtrack proves itself even outside the context of the games. Serious collectors should consider picking up this mammoth set of music from one very talented composer.
