Overview

Neverland's Shining Force Neo retold the story of the original Shining Force in conjunction with real-time action gameplay. Rune Factory's Tomoko Morita created the background music for the title, while animation composer Shiro Sagisu supplemented the score with various cinematic compositions. The Shining Force Neo Music Collection features Tomoko Morita's contribution, while Shining Theme Music Collection includes Shiro Sagisu's tracks. The former is reviewed here.

Body

Like the other Shining titles on the PlayStation 2, Shining Force Neo features a traditional organic sound. This is first exhibited on "Holy Capital Greensleeves", a typical town theme featuring a wistful woodwind melody and soothing guitar arpeggios. The parts are competently written and implemented with high quality samples. But against a wealth of similarly styled themes, this track fails to stand out — lacking the memorable melodies and creative stylings to be something special. Exploring the game's world further, gamers are presented with youthful pastoral orchestrations in "Cantol Village", humorous tropical improvisations in "Sant Bance Harbor", and a formidable march in "Holy Capital Hyatt". But of all of these themes, the lyrical "Ice Capital Queen Chine" is the only one that is sufficiently charming enough to revisit.

Morita created field and battle themes for each area, which seamlessly switch depending on whether enemies are present. The field tracks are extremely subdued and ambient for the most part, meaning they're difficult to appreciate out of context. Distinct forces individualise each track — trilling flutes in "Lost Woods", guitar arpeggios in "Grasslands", or eerie electronics on "Ruins of Oblivion" — but they're used in a minimalistic and stereotypical manner. The battle themes integrate similar elements into a faster, heavier setting — they're similar enough to sound continuous, but distinct enough to make an impact. But even these tracks tend to be too repetitive and restrained to be particularly appealing — relying principally on piano and percussion parts than heavy orchestration like the series' previous action themes. Even the Dark Castle themes don't make the most of their epic organ passages.

Much of the rest of the soundtrack features short stock compositions to portray specific emotions or circumstances. From the bouncy classical phrases of "Happiness", to the sentimental music box of "Sadness" and the dark warped soundscapes of "Anxiety", every one of these tracks has their desired effect in context. But they are so formulaic that they still sound rather contrived in the game and hold almost no appeal on a stand-alone level. Classically-oriented listeners may nevertheless enjoy the sweeping piano arpeggios of "Tension" and intimate cello work of "Love" — these tracks penetrate somewhat deeper than the rest. But it's likely that many won't have the patience to get here — after so many basic field, battle, and event tracks — and the goods certainly aren't big enough to be worth the wait.

Summary

The Shining Force Neo Music Collection is one of the dullest albums ever released for a video game. The album features forgettable melodies, derivative stylings, apathetic affect, underdeveloped pieces, and an understated feel throughout. Most of the tracks here just about work in their various contexts in the game, but they're absolutely not worth your time on a stand-alone basis.