Style: Video game music
Primary Emotions/Themes:
Thoughts: Kenji Kawai. A legendary name in Japanese composers. The guy who did Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Ranma 1/2... and an obscure Sega Saturn game named Deep Fear...?
Deep Fear is a game I've never played. I've heard it likened to a "Resident Evil Killer," in that it has a similar atmosphere and controls. Where it differs rather substantially though is in the music. Whereas RE has a largely dark ambient driven soundtrack, Deep Fear's soundtrack is filled with memorable melodies and tracks.
Before anything else: this is undoubtedly a horror game soundtrack. The music is creepy, it's atmospheric, and it's got that old school charm that games from the 90's have. There is something about this era, PS1, Saturn, Dreamcast, Jaguar etc... the sound chips were great but they still had that video game feel that the earlier systems had. Once we got out of this era the music began to converge with conventional music... and I would argue that VGM lost some of its uniqueness because of that.
Deep Fear fully utilizes the Saturn chip so that the music evokes all sorts of emotions. Nostalgia (maybe not intended, but it's there for reasons discussed above), tension, mystery, and in some cases even beauty.
Kenji has always been a master at creating memorable soundtracks and Deep Fear is no different. All of the tracks in this album share a strangeness to them that is uniquely Japanese. The music will zig when you expect it to zag, it will pull in full orchestra hits right after a near ambient section. It will bestow calm during a boss fight or a confrontation with enemies. It will evoke tension while exploring. It's great.
Deep Fear is a game that I should probably try and play at some point. It's getting harder to justify buying older games though with the prices going up and up. In the mean time however, I do have the soundtrack to the game, and while it's not perfect - it certainly is good enough to stand on its own in album form.
Written July 28th 2024
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