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Fire Emblem Thracia 776 Original Soundtrack :: Review by Charles
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Album Title: | Fire Emblem Thracia 776 Original Soundtrack |
| Record Label: | Tokuma Japan Communications | |
| Catalog No.: | TKCA-70929 | |
| Release Date: | October 21, 1999 | |
| Purchase: | Buy at eBay |
Overview
The Fire Emblem Thracia 776 Original Soundtrack is the third and final installment of the Super Nintendo Fire Emblem titles. The game was released at the very end of the Super Nintendo's life and also was extremely shadowed by the Nintendo 64. The game is even less known as it was only released in Japan. Unpopular or not, the soundtrack was still composed by Fire Emblem veteran, Yuka Tsujiyoko. There are two arranged tracks on the album, but the rest consists of original work. There's a significantly lower amount of tracks than on the previous soundtracks. Could this mean less filler and sustenance?
Body
Let's get these oddball tracks out of the way first, the first and final tracks. It was hard to tell whether these tracks were based of tracks from the original score, but after a few listens it made sense that these were bonus arrangements by Ko Otani. I call them oddballs because, to put it bluntly, they are. They are the complete opposites of every entries on the original album or any Fire Emblem composition in general. But besides not fitting in, they aren't half bad. "Blowin' in the Wind" is an arrangement of one of the ending tracks called "Ballad", which I suppose was a bit of an oddball also. Vocals really do this track justice and the new piano line also adds a lot to the composition. The last track, "Wind", fits in even less than "Blowin' in the Wind"; it has kind of a tropical island feel to it, which I didn't really like. While both songs are sung in Japanese, they randomly have English phrases thrown in and it distracts from the flow of the song. Neither one is bad, but these tracks didn't feel very necessary either.
Given it is the final Super Nintendo game, one might expect the original score should top all of the others musically. However, sound quality is the only thing it has going and even that isn't outstanding for its time. On the original score, one of the first themes that catched my ear was track nine, "Base". It features some of the best brass lines in the series in good sound quality. I noticed that this and a lot of other melodies or recycled throughout this album as different variations. While I do like variations on a theme, I felt that this album just made the melody stale. A lot of the map tracks sound the same and it's not good at all.
I am happy that there are not too many filler tunes even with the variations problem. Most pieces last over a minute making them all equally important with a couple acceptable exceptions. I like the ideas behind "Arena" with the clapping and all; it works since the melody is also interesting meaning it's not just a silly little thirty second track. "Score" is also another small highlight bringing back that classic Fire Emblem feel. As mentioned before, "Ballad" is kind of an oddball track. It used a lot of instruments that were never used in other parts of the album and was written in the ballad genre, which doesn't fit the rest of the album much. The other ending themes were alright, but nothing else on this album really shines brightly enough for me.
Summary
The Fire Emblem Thracia 776 Original Soundtrack is nowhere near the quality of Fire Emblem Genealogy of Holy War's. The bonus tracks, though interesting, certainly don't bring it to the top like they did for Fire Emblem Mystery of the Emblem Sound Memorium. It's not horrible music or anything close to that, but I'd still only recommend it to hardcore fans of the series.
