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Rating: I feel like a dwarf crushed between gorillas writing this review: among the greatest masterpieces of jazz, rock, and music in all its forms, I find myself reviewing the soundtrack of a video game. Given the nature of the subject in question, please remember that, no matter how beautiful, it must be treated for what it is.
I'm not a great connoisseur of the video game world: partly because of my far-from-stellar talent, partly due to a lack of time and money, I've limited myself to playing only very few games, mostly on PC. I came into contact with this game thanks to a friend who, after lending me his console and card, practically "forced" me to play; upon completing the game, I am immensely grateful to my friend for introducing me to this gem.
The game is excellently made: never boring or repetitive, with a simple yet fun gameplay style. In short, enjoyable. But, although impeccably made, it's not the game itself that I want to talk about, but rather one of its features: the soundtrack. Created almost (that "almost" will be revisited later) entirely electronically, the sound is so clean and perfect that the first impression is of an orchestra that is anything but digital: a quality I would never have suspected was achievable. Thus, the player is accompanied by this "orchestral" music through forests, castles, mountains, shrines, dark dimensions, and anything that can be placed in a fantasy game. But the music does far more than accompany: it draws you in, enchants you, makes you linger in places longer than necessary, just to better hear that theme that won't leave your head for a week, or perhaps months, or maybe never. The orchestral timbres are used with astonishing correctness for a video game, creating now a situation of mystery, then danger, then dreaminess; the themes are original and not at all obvious; it also happens that the same theme reappears with different timbres and harmonizations, as happens in many dungeons. In short, a true spectacle for the ears.
But what about that "almost" mentioned a few lines above? Are there also analog instruments in the soundtrack? For most of the game, no, and perhaps, for the less attentive players, they are never there. But in the game, there's a little gem that I really appreciated, because it shows the care put into the game's sound department: in a village bar, you can pay "musicians" with a flute and a guitar to play all the main themes of the game with real instruments, and even a few more. And perhaps, in these very simple arrangements (which almost always contain some variation on the theme heard during the game), the freshness and genuineness of the themes manage to shine even more.
In short, those who do not have the fortune to play this game should at least give a chance to the soundtrack: I am sure they will not regret it.
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