LogFAQs > #963308891

53th
Game: Unlimited SaGa
Title: Battle Theme 3
Composer: Masashi Hamauzu
Nominator: @Haste_2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBy6Lg69Vk

Hamauzu

Ah yes. Another song for me to say "ah yes, composer" at. I've liked hamauzu ever since I discovered him from Musashi (Masashi )samurai legend which in itself i discovered because of the Junya Nakano connection it has with threads of fate. and threads of fate was a thing I discovered because of a board 8 user streaming it on stickam in 2009. I could have been a normal person and discovered both from ffx but that is not what happened! Oops!

i suppose this is sorta in the same "the haunter12o noms that were the higher ranked ones" category of like "music with jrpg tropes but also dense sorta prog harmony at the same time", hamauzu certainly appeals to the same set of traits (and even wrote for a front mission game!), so i guess it's not too surprising i ranked it around the same place as like the front mission song and stuff

this track is pretty beautiful while still feeling like clearly a battle theme, and i really appreciate that: again a balance that has to be very carefully touched. The chill jazz fuse-y harmonies (and AMAZING trumpet solo) that feel like a "lounge space" can not actually feel like a lounge space, and the battle theme energy can't overwrite the dense piano chord clusters and the open skies they paint. This balance between "intricate dreamlike beauty" and "simple raw energy" was ATTAINED by the GENIUS known as "Hamauzu". that seamless merging reminds me quite a bit of watson, who i gushed about and will definitely gush about again sometime soon (never thought about how similar of composers watson and hamauzu are until just now)

the rhythms in this one are pretty funny, almost everything is on the off-beats, it's kinda like a sped up version of lasa's spyro nom, except with the mexican touhou trumpet, and not as easy to get turned around. this is pretty astoundingly well orchestrated. Combinations of instruments come together to make "new instruments", that don't feel like the separate components that make them up. the synth bells and dark analog-like drone in the back are very welcome textures that just barely feel there. They don't feel like they tether this track to a particular era, nor does the old stuff drag this tune into a realm of only being acoustic, everything organically melds perfect!

the brass solo in this reminds me of the trumpet solo in Border Down - Bye Bye Mars Take II (which is one of my absolute favorite "jazz solos" in any piece of vgm)
https://youtu.be/WcSmBMQMK2g?t=109

they have a very similar nature, just, very subtle things like the timing of the grace notes and stuff like that, and i guess the fact that they both have an echo effect applied! that's quite a distinct thing honestly, delay echoes applied to a brass solo is not something i can point to many examples off the top of my head of

this song has even more quartals in it than the hayato matsuo nom that just went out! that's rare for hamauzu to beat matsuo on the "quartal count"

oh yeah i love the reversed/rapid volume sweep going into :19, stuff like that's always a hit with me! one of my absolute favorite production techniques. gives a cool pristine clarity between sections and it's really nice when it contrasts with looser realistic stuff this has elsewhere too