The “Summon Night Soundtrack” is a generic title, and for a reason. It’s not a full OST, and it actually contains songs from Summon Nights 1 through 3. Particularly, all of the opening and ending themes appear on this soundtrack: six of the 16 total tracks are vocal performances from the first three games.
Then, the rest is instrumental stuff, and while Fujita is by and large the main composer of the Summon Night series, over half of the instrumental pieces are written by Adachi. Perhaps this soundtrack was a way to get Adachi’s music released separately, as it wasn’t much later that the “Summon Night Series Soundtrack Collection” was released, with four discs all from Fujita.
This album is one of Frontier Works’ earliest prints, and it was a great place to start. Summon Night’s developer, Flight-Plan, is on the same level as other small-scale Japanese studios such as Gust, NIS, and Idea Factory. Relying on high-resolution 2D visuals instead of working on 3D models, and incorporating classic anime character designs, their games appeal to a more nostalgic breed of RPG Fan. That’s how I got interested in the music, which also upholds synth sounds and other things that remind us of older games (but updated).
The vocal tracks are a big draw for this album. As I made the earlier comparison, I will again say that Flight-Plan and Gust are similar, in that their vocal tracks have a very familiar, folk feel to them. However, despite the very interesting folk instruments (performed live), the composers didn’t shy away from experimental synth, nor do the vocalists avoid very…unique…performance styles. My two favorites are “Lovelite” and “We Were Born.” Both are sampled, check them out.
Adachi’s contributions are beautiful in and of themselves. If you liked his work in Riviera or Yggdra Union, you may like this stuff even more. “Banossa’s Theme” is the most impressive of the lot, and if you listen to the sample, I think you’ll see why.
Fans of Summon Night may have shied away from this album in favor of bigger and better things (like the 4 disc box set), but unless you go around individually collecting the singles for the first three games, this album is an excellent purchase. It comes with high recommendations.
