Style: Video game music
Primary Emotions/Themes: An unknown gem in retro video game music, it feels like the best of the genre while still extremely fresh due to the novelty
Thoughts: I had no idea this game existed. I had no idea this soundtrack existed. Leave it to the likes of Very Ok Vinyl to dig up the hidden gems of yesteryear for the masses to enjoy.
Cyberblock Metal Orange is a arcanoid type game where the female characters clothes come off progressively as the levels are cleared. Who would think that an old hentai game would have such a great soundtrack? Not I for one.
The music here calls to mind the very best in the VGM genre. I could easily see this soundtrack working for a 16 bit Mega Man game. Some of these tracks could be mistaken for Casltevania b-sides. All of the music in this album reeks of quality, and after looking at the composers it's no surprise why.
Hitoshi Sakimoto is the primary composer for the album. If that name doesn't ring a bell then his soundtracks certainly will: Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, Radiant Silvergun, Odin Sphere, Tactics Ogre... just to name a few. Masaharu Iwata backs him up... and this guy is just as an accomplished composer as Sakimoto: Ogre Battle, Bloody Roar, Shadow Hearts, DoDonPachi DaiOuJou, Grim Grimoire... just to name a few. Of course none of this would be possible without Yoshio Furukawa, who while not as well known is still an integral part to the arrangement and overall excellence of the music.
Is the quality of those soundtracks carried over to Cyberblock? You bet your ass it is. This is album is a clinic in how you make video game music. This fully utilizes the sound chip of the PC98 and the way that it's captured on vinyl here does the album complete justice.
This is the kind of VGM that I want in my collection. An obscure album that I had never heard of before that unabashedly sounds like video game music. I've gone back and fourth on this a lot lately, and while I do enjoy video game music I feel like ultimately a lot of the newer soundtracks lose the "video game" feel that the earlier soundtracks did. Other genres cover their respective music better than what VGM tries to emulate. It's because of this that I've started to embrace the time when VGM sounded like VGM and nothing else. Cyberblock Metal Orange has been a key factor in that transition for me.
Written July 29th 2024
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