If Arai actually avoided repeating old material over and over again before introducing new material at random places, he'd create some excellent creations here. Slightly less inspired tracks, such as "Woods," become almost unbearable to listen to in full, particularly after featuring a whole minute's worth of generic techno beats being layered in its lengthy introduction. This significantly damages certain highly interesting tracks, especially "Jungle," overextended to 7:10 in total, when it would have quite sufficed with half the playing time in a more concise form. Indeed, there's no doubt that the biggest flaw in the score is that most of the early tracks on the album generally go on for far too long all of the first six tracks bar "Opening" exceed 5 minutes playing time and are largely based on copious amounts of repetition. I composed almost all of Front Mission Alternative without seeing the game and selected tracks for each scene myself." - Riow Arai They depended on me and there were no demands. It seems likely that many of the score's problems can be placed down to Square tolerating such a potentially impractical attitude, likely because of a lack of a musically authorative figure, and it seems baffling that there was clearly no proper specifications for Arai to work on. There is considerable evidence to support that Arai is not one to appreciate demands being put on him, is confident enough with his work to not seek criticism or feedback, and considered his own freedom to be the most fundamentally important aspect to ensuring the score's success. This is not the case here, and the unrelentless repetition that often negatively characterises the score is perhaps the biggest reason that a techno style often only deterred gamers. Regardless of whether the game was 'alternative' and a diversion from the ordinary series, it definitely had the 'Front Mission' feel and was, despite its flaws, relatively accessible to fans of the series' previous instalments. The producers were proposing a major move by employing a complete outsider to create such a score, as they risked alienating the modest league of fans built up from the scores to Front Mission, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, and Front Mission Second completely.
#FRONT MISSION 2 ARTIST SERIES#
This is unfortunate, but the inevitable consequences of adopting a style that is not always enjoyed by gamers to a series that, with the possible exception of most of Koji Hayama's contributions to Front Mission 3, has always been known principally for its militaristic tracks and largely acoustic instrumentation. The score is, quite simply, completely inaccessible to over 99% of the population, at least in terms of a stand-alone listening experience. Arai succeeded in creating an experiment, certainly, but is this score really capable of being appreciating for anything beyond its experimental qualities? Body Defining the overall success of musical experiments can be difficult, as an assessment of musical accessibility is rarely an accurate assessment of the inspiration, appropriateness, and musical refinement of the score, and indeed this simple fact cannot be more true here.
He had already made one published composition to Sega Touring Car Championship, but found this project too limiting, so used this opportunity not only to use his other two inspired yet rejected tracks from that score here, but to experiment to the full.
Riow Arai, was given a free-license to create a largely techno-based score by the game's producer, but also to experiment as much as he already liked. The artist employed to create this score was neither a Square Enix employee nor a game musician at any other company, rather someone who seems generally disinterested in game music, a self-taught electronica musician that now specialises in producing mainstream dance music solo albums. It's completely different to all other Front Mission scores, neither being militaristic or especially melodic, but rather something completely alternative. Front Mission Alternative :: Review by ChrisĭigiCube (1st Edition) Square Enix (Reprint)įront Mission Alternative is the biggest anomaly in Square Enix's wide discography to date.
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