Actraiser was composed by Yuzo Koshiro, a man with many fans, and whom is also known for his compositions of the early Ys games, and Sorcerian. As par for him, Koshiro’s work on the Actraiser soundtrack is quite good. For coming as early into the SNES’s life as it did, the music did a lot with the system’s sound hardware. Many of the compositions were already of an orchestral nature, so the transference to a live symphonic performance went quite well.
Actraiser Symphonic Suite is a beautiful album; it has energy, beauty, power, and most of all, emotion. The only thing it lacks is length. Sadly, we are only given about thirty minutes of these heavenly sounds. But, I would imagine that thirty minutes of heaven is still better than sixty minutes of anything else.
The music on this CD is well composed, performed, and arranged. I can think of little more to say about it other than that it would behoove any lover of game music to buy it. This is one of those albums that you can play for those buddies who think that game music is unsophisticated and childish. Once they pick their jaws up off the floor, your non-gaming friends will probably agree that the music is of high quality.
And like many things of beauty, Actraiser Symphonic Suite is not easy to find. Moreover, if it is found it will often set the buyer back a rather larger sum of money. If you happen to find it, and can spare the change, I would highly recommend the purchase.
