[Album] Seiken Densetsu 4 Original Soundtrack (SQEX-10083~6)

I did not like this one...at all. Soken gets a couple of bonus points for the arranges that pop up on disc 4, but it's both sad and pathetic that these are literally the only portions of the score worth looking at. Two decent arranges of "Meridian Dance" are hardly enough to salvage 3 and a half discs of futility.

The problem(s): Kenji Ito has absolutely no inspiration for this album and does nothing to differentiate the sound of his less-inspired Romancing Saga work from what he presents here. I don't hate the guy, but he can't expect to get by primarily with a bunch of terribly cliched peaceful orchestral-styled tracks either. Ito normally writes fine "quirky" music, a style that is most suited for a Seiken game...Unfortunately, this style of music is largely absent from both this and Children of Mana, leaving a bunch of half-hearted orchestral slop in the path. I think I found a total of three tracks from Ito worth listening to a second time and all were ones that mercifully deviated from his mellow muzak that plagues this OST.

And Sekito...I really don't know what happened here. His non-rock contributions are pretty much awful and his rock tracks are just plain boring, often going on for far too long to be effective.

Meh...I have too much respect for the previous Mana albums (primarily SD3 and Legend of Mana) to even give this half-hearted attempt at a game score any credit. Soken was largely fine, Sakamoto's lone track was decent (not my ideal style of music, but I can't deny there was a lot to it), but that was about it. A little more effort would have gone a long way, but this was one for the recycle bin.

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How ya doing, buddy?