Kentaro Haneda worked solo on his first three Wizardry albums. On the next three (V, VI, and this one), he worked with Tamiya Terashima for the arranging of these excellent songs. This would be Haneda’s last entry in the Wizardry universe. The late Kentaro Haneda chose not to participate in future Wizardry albums (such as the BUSIN ZERO albums) and died in 2007. Let us remember his final work in the Wizardry series by looking at what this album has to offer.
Honestly, it’s not Haneda’s best. As you can see, the album is 50 minutes divided by about 20 tracks. On other Wizardry albums, the track-to-time ratio was very different, with most songs running 3 to 6 minutes. Now we have an album that has short little melodies: 90 second themes and whatnot. It’s a little disconcerting, and it doesn’t fit the Haneda/Terashima mold well at all.
Perhaps it was the track length that made me think this way, but I don’t find myself memorizing the memories, nor do I find myself longing to hear them again. Well, most of them anyway. “Town of Atrophy” was a really beautiful song. But the early tracks, which usually stand out on a Wizardry album (opening themes, title themes, early town themes), did not show much in the way of grandeur this time around. I wonder if this project was rushed…even though it had been three years between this album and Wizardry VI…
This album’s just as obscure as the other classic Wizardry albums; but in my opinion, a collector would be better off with the earlier albums. If you appreciate Terashima’s arrangements, Wizardry V and VI both have excellent music. I would only recommend this one to a completionist-collector of the Wizardry albums. Nonetheless, among all VGM out there, you can’t go wrong with Haneda.
