Neverland 1996 | Soundtrack Review: Energy Breaker

Part Two of my series on two games released by the company Neverland in the year 1996.

My thanks to Sam the Samurai who contributed this to GameFAQs.
This is the second of two games that Neverland released, published by Taito, in Japan only in the year 1996. The game was scored almost solely by Yukio Nakajima, in his first genuine outing as part of the Neverland sound team - I am, naturally, leaving aside his single track in Chaos Seed and his "special thanks" credit from Lufia II. Five tracks out of the 40+ are written by other composers.

Contributed by Yasunori Shiono, "Flowers Have Bloomed", "Brilliance of the Sky", and "Priphea Flowers" - the latter a straight reprise of a Lufia tune. Composed by the entirely unknown Yuusei Yamamoto in one of his only game credits (he also apparently did music for some Hudson Soft puzzle games) - so unknown is this composer that on VGMdb his name is untranslated (it could also be Yu Yamamoto, Yusuke Yamamoto, I am simply using Google Translate's result) - "Scientist's Waltz" and "Cursed Daybreak".

(This section has been updated with information discovered by commenter @hummy123.)

Regular readers will of course be aware that I do a lot of research on the game's composers. It's information that is, firstly, of interest to me and, secondly, doing this research may uncover information that is little-known to anybody else. As I am not a speaker of Japanese, the results from Google Translate are often flawed, but nevertheless, I do what I can.

With that in mind, I have found very little on Yukio Nakajima. I have found nothing in the way of previous works - though, if the Visual Novel Database is to be believed, he started out as doujin composer, even running a circle creating PC-88 music disks - which must've been successful (should the information be accurate) as he composed a track for the game Little Chinese - Final Edition, later becoming an employee of Neverland.

In any case, upon joining Neverland, he remained active, composing for the two Shining games before, apparently, leaving - thus the Rune Factory series was solely the work of Tomoko Morita, another Neverland alumni who joined sometime before the development and release of Lufia: The Legend Returns. He has since written for a number of smartphone games, such as Sphere Knight and Summon Board, and even composed for 2012's Puzzle & Dragons, alongside none other than Kenji Ito. His Twitter account (as well as this Rocketbaby interview from the early 2000s mention other projects (including some apparently during his time at Neverland - perhaps he left and turned freelance), as well.

But enough of that. Let's turn out attention to Energy Breaker, which is quite good. It lacks the diversity of Chaos Seed, and the polish of Lufia II, but it would be fair to say that it falls about on par - occasionally worse, and occasionally better - than both. It's orchestral, often with the "flair" of rock music. The percussion is heavy and full - snares, hi-hats, toms, all over the place. Sometimes I'm of the opinion that it's rather messy.

During battle themes, the electric guitars often come in, and so too does Nakajima implement choirs. He's freer with the woodwinds than Shiono or Hayashi ever were, and it's lovely to hear some flutes for once, instead of the strings or brass so favored by composers. In fact, brass of any kind is generally lacking from the Neverland SNES soundfont, barring a lone trumpet that appeared in Lufia II, and trumpets in one of the tracks here.

So - let's dive right in.

Where to begin, where to begin... well, let's just say I'm going to leave the battle themes for last.

We open with a short :16 fanfare of suitable heroism. "Voice of Awakening" opens with a harp arpeggio which runs throughout the entire track and it's soon joined by high strings and flutes, granting it a mysterious, almost ethereal nature.

Let's listen to Shiono's contributions, then. "Flowers Have Bloomed" fits in well with Nakajima's originals - I'm tempted to think that Nakajima may have arranged it - but in the second half Shiono's trademark slow, octave-spanning arpeggios followed by a quicker run upwards reveal themselves.

There is also "The Sky's Brilliance", which has minimal percussion favor of an acoustic guitar, a solo violin, and a harmonica in its first half before ramping up the percussion a bit more. It's beautifully evocative of an open blue sky, with only a few clouds running through, stretching across the meadow's horizon.

Finally, "Priphea Flowers" is just a straightforward reprise of the Lufia track of the same name. It's the same beautiful melody and simple harmonies. The only difference is that the instruments are that of a music box.

What of the mysterious Y. Yamamoto? Well, "Scientist's Waltz" is lovely, but I'll confess that I love the waltz. It's a delightful track between the strings, pizzicato strings, piano, oboe, and bassoon (though it sounds more like a horn, but I don't think it's meant to be one). "Cursed Daybreak" opens very ominously, low strings and booming low timpani. The remainder track retains the ominous effect - the sitar adding some color - but unfortunately gives the whole track a poppy sound by using an orchestra hit, rendering an otherwise fantastically glum track tragically poppy.

Okay. We have the 'guest contributors' out of the way.

How about some more peaceful fare? And what better than the relaxing guitars of "Town of the Beginning"? And it is relaxing, calling to mind a sunny little village. Sticking to solo acoustic guitar was a wise choice, here. It's reprised later on in "Aroma of Stew".

"Blowing the Wilderness is a surprise favorite of mine. It's got a little bit of a Western tone in the beginning with its whistling-like tone, but listen on - the melody is reprised beautifully on piano, and the light percussion, guitar, bass, and subtle strings really make this an absolute winner.

Here's a pair of tracks that are absolutely lovely: "One-Sided Feelings (1)" is a gorgeous piece for music box, based around the most beautiful melody in the game. I, personally, do think it could stand to drop the tempo by ~10 bpm, but it's beautiful regardless. (The tracks are also known by the name "Thoughts Unarrived", which, though I prefer it, I have decided against using in favor of keeping with the translated English names on VGMdb.)

Even better in my opinion is "One-Sided Feelings (2)" which moves the melody to the choir and adds in a dollop of orchestra to it. The contrapuntal interplay between the choir and solo violin, accompanied by a menagerie of harp and strings, is especially beautiful. It's gorgeously pretty, melancholic in its tone, beautiful however you cast its emotion.

In a similar vein is "Those Left Behind", which features - amazingly - an arpeggiated figure rather similar to those that were heard in so many Lufia & the Fortress of Doom tracks. (It's an incredibly malleable but recognizable thing, this figure - and I've heard it now in the music of Shiono, Nakajima, Morita, Masaaki Uno [in Arcus II: Silent Symphony] and I think someone else, but I can't remember where or who.) It's another beautiful track, even if the syncopated piano isn't the most memorable. But combined with the light percussion, it's very good.

As for scene and dungeon themes, I think I'm going to group them together because I can't really tell which are which, having not played Energy Breaker.

"Death's Footfalls" is, naturally, dark in its tone with its recurring two-note choral motif. It's a simple track, not a long one, either.

"The Hero's Adventure" is, if I am not mistaken, the overworld theme, and if it is, it's one of the best I've ever heard, cheerfully and adventurously bright (without falling into 'march' territory) and its canonic tricks on the strings delight me, and, yes, there's brass! and it is glorious. One of my favorite tracks from the game, utterly joyful and bright. Simply fantastic.

"Tombstone in an Ice Cave" undoubtedly calls up images of something cold with its echoing flute and string arpeggios. The melody hovers somewhere in the middleground, almost, you might say, the expedition team hidden by icy winds. Better is when high strings and winds combine and the pitch of everything rises.

By far the score is dominated by battle and preparation-for-battle music.

Not quite a battle theme, but certainly a sort of 'preparation for battle'-type track to these ears, is "For Whom it's Burning Red", with its synths and sitar and reverse cymbal and occasional clapping in the percussion section bringing the mildest flavor of pop to it. (It's mainly the claps, though.) Definitely a unique track!

In line with that, "Summoned One" with its constantly running timpani and string ostinato. "Festival of Flames" does away with length in favor of 'crisis'-type intensity.

"Berserker" with its electric guitars and constantly raging toms. And of course, the dramatic choir! It's not very melodic, though, but it definitely fits the idea of a berserker - something rather crazy run rampant bringing destruction. The choir certainly adds an almost tragic element to it.

Another 'crisis'-type track is "Twilight to the Future Century", an intense string-heavy track which opens with the sound of a siren going off, a surefire way to create tension in one swell foop. Straddling the line between preparation and battle is "True Friend".

Another fantastic track is "Heartbroken Ones" with its sometimes stirring intensity formed between harmonic and melodic strings, quiet tubular bells ramping up the intensity. Succeeding it is perhaps the best example of messy percussion in the whole game - "Four Powers" with its thudding timpani (playing something surely unplayable in reality), snare, and crashes and hi-hats going from ear to ear, to say nothing of the kick drum. It's just way too much and it shows - besides percussion there is only a string line.

Better is another preparation-type track, the epic "The One Who Rules the Abyss" with its strings, low timpani and martial snare - to say nothing of the harp. It's properly epic, and the celesta tone later on adds a dose of melancholy - and even discordance.

"The Prayer Bells Do Not Toll". Many obscure games have a single track which people are familiar with - if you've heard of it post-release, you've heard it through this track. "Crisis" for Vandal Hearts, "The Last Duel" for the Lufia series, "The Spirit Chaser" for Treasure of the Rudras (which we will get to in time), and this track, for Energy Breaker.

It's easy to see why: the percussion isn't messy in the slightest and the electric guitar has a wonderful way of grabbing the ear. The choral textures in the second third, and the piano in the last third (combined with a more transparent texture) really bring home the intense, heroic, I daresay even epic nature of the track to fore. It will almost certainly be a favorite when you listen through - it's definitely a favorite of mine.

Finally, after a storm of intense battle themes, the occasional excesses of previous track are pared back and removed entirely in "Pontiff" (which reprises the melody of an earlier track "Memories" which I didn't go into) in favor of a simple timpani march and string melody. It's an epic melody, powerful in its nature, and the choice to let it ring out as a solo to start with was, in my opinion, an excellent choice, letting the reprise (with more strings and snare doubling timpani) come off all the more powerfully. Roughly half the way through woodwinds add power to a new melody at climax, and for a moment it seems to be ready to build into something closer to what came before, with intensity via magnitude, but, alas, it simply goes right back to the intro. (A problem with many final battle themes, in my opinion - not enough length.)

Whatever the power "One-Sided Feelings" and "Those Left Behind", the clear emotional climax is "The Story After". I shan't break it down for you; suffice to say that it reprises a familiar-sounding melody (though I do not think it appears anywhere else in the game, it resembles "Newly-Settled Town" and "Calming Days". Perhaps it's an example of leitmotif-by-similar-structure, rather than melodic reprise and variation. Treasure of the Rudras does something similar.) as well as "One Sided Feelings". It's one of the most polished tracks on orchestra; listening to it, I wish I could hear it performed by a genuine orchestra. It's everything an ending should be: melancholic, hopeful, triumphant - and, thankfully, never straying into outright march territory, never quite overtly triumphant, but ending on a hopeful, optimistic note.

How to sum up? It's epic and gloriously forthright. It's also a bit of a mess and lacks a clear thematic identity. Within the realm of the JRPG - really, within the realm of incidental music as a whole, I feel that a clear thematic identity is important: it unites the soundtrack, it creates coherence, it creates emotional resonance by means of repetition and variation. (Look at the other best SNES soundtracks: Terranigma, Final Fantasy VI, Mystic Ark. They all have a clear main theme, whatever other leitmotifs they may have.)

It's not as though Energy Breaker lacks candidates for a main theme: the opening melody of "The Story After", "Newly-Settled Town", the similar melodies of "Ride the Wind", "Blowing the Wilderness", "Young Prodigies", and "Calming Days" certainly makes a strong case, but they have too many differences, the beautiful melody of "One-Sided Feelings", even "Pontiff" has a strong enough melody. But none ever quite present themselves as the main theme.

Let us then try and leave aside the question of theme. The score is epic, but it's also a bit of a mess. The beautiful emotion of "One-Sided Feelings 2", the emotional climax "The Story After", the joyously heroic "The Hero's Adventure", the epic "Pontiff". The messy percussion of "Berserker" and "Four Powers", the strange sitar in "For Whom It's Burning Red" and the odd choice of orchestra hits in "Cursed Daybreak".

So we're left something which ultimately stands with the rest of Neverland's SNES scores as solidly B-tier fare - approaching excellence without ever quite reaching the highest heights. 7.4 out of 10 is a reasonably fair score, I'd say.

If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them! Please leave comments in the comments, and if you enjoyed this content, please leave an upvote.