31 Days of Game Music: Phantasy Star II

[indigozeal]

The structures and melodies of Phantasy Star II's compositions are subdued and cool - clean, smooth, and techy for the game's outwardly pleasant but heartless dystopia. That's not the image the following tracks project.

These two are linked in my mind. "Violation" plays when the party, after its extended misadventures and slogs through the guts of its tech-dystopia, happens upon a holy place, still and remote amidst hidden fields of open snow. It's the only bastion of...perhaps spirituality sounds like too strong a word, but you receive here a sacred charge in the name of a friend after a series of hopeless and self-defeating quests. "Violation"'s setpiece is where the party first receives real meaning in what they're doing.

"Violation" in one sense is one of PS2's coldest compositions, its main line struck out by lonely piano notes, the progression of the piece very slow and deliberate. There's a hush to "Violation," an effective aura of awe and respect, that isn't present in PS2's other compositions - those emotions are alien to its sterile society. "Violation" is the antipode of its modern society's vapid gloss, its own emptiness pregnant with reverence and contemplation.

"Power"'s main line, on the other hand, is warm and enveloping, like a blanket or prayer - in other words, like nothing else in this hollow world. The first occasion we hear the tune, it's funereal; the second time, in combination with "Violation," it's still solemn and carries a dour tinge but is ultimately reassuring, like the presence of the divine. "Power" works with PS2's synth style yet produces a sound completely different from the rest of the soundtrack.

I find it interesting here how two compositions from the opposite ends of the spectrum can combine to bring out a new note on the soundtrack's scale.
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