Overview

Gradius ReBirth was a game released on the Virtual Console's WiiWare application for the Nintendo Wii and served as a revival of the Gradius series. For such a momentous event, Manabu Namiki was asked by external developer M2 to arrange a variety of themes from the Gradius series to serve as the background music for this space epic. Unlike most arrange albums, the arrangements here had to fit in the context of the game, which was a retro and modest one. However, are they any good?

Body

The album itself consists of three sections. There are the Namiki arrangements of the original themes, the original themes themselves, and four medley themes by Manabu Namiki. The upgraded synth of the new arrangements does help to create new atmospheres for the soundtrack while maintaining an old-school sound. However, I found for the most part, that the originals were better. Namiki does a great job of translating the themes, but for the most part, they are merely upgraded versions of the originals. I really wish he would have diversified them a bit to make them more of his own. While I wish I could mention more about the arrangements, I think I'd be beating a dead horse if I continued.

That being said, I do appreciate the compilation he chose for the arrangements. Rather than select the much-arranged classics from the Arcade titles, he mainly selected tracks from MSX, Game Boy, and NES games. There are a variety of action themes, such as "Last Evil" and "Aircraft Carrier," from Nemesis II and Gradius II, respectively, as well as some more suitable stage themes, such as "Something Ghostly" and "Heavy Blow," both from Gradius II. Another interesting choice was a track that was never released before from the original Gradius.

That brings us to the medleys. The medleys feature a variety of themes in a classic sound. Each theme offers some more action based themes and some slower stage themes and each has its own variety. They also feature a lot of strong melodies thanks to the expertise of the Konami Kukeiha Club. They can sound disjointed at times and feature quite a lot of noise, but Overall, they make for a nice listening experience, but the arrangement is not as spectacular as one might expect from Namiki.

Summary

While the music on the album is inherently good, I find that this album doesn't really do much for me on the whole. While the arrangements are suitable to fit the context of the game, I was expecting Namiki to tweak them to make them his own, but instead, he opted to go for a more upgraded sound approach. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as he does a good job, but I wanted more out of the album. The originals are fantastic and the medleys offer a nice variety to the soundtrack. In the end, I'd personally pass on this one and opt for the Gradius House ReMix album if you are looking for a truly arranged album.