Overview

Arc the Lad: End of Darkness (aka Arc the Lad: Generation) was the critically panned final title in the Arc the Lad series. Its music, composed by an ensemble team, comprises a mixture of original compositions and rehashes from Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. It is somehow the most elaborate yet most lazy soundtrack in the series at the same time...

Body

The album begins with two arrangements of Masahiro Andoh's main theme of the series by Takayuki Hattori. The first arrangement is a fully-fleshed overture complete with bombastic brass leads and dazzling modernist orchestration. "The Beginning of the Adventure" transforms the track into an intimate pastoral arrangement with beautiful woodwind leads. Both are excellent interpretations of the theme and emphasise the melodic material while offering richer timbres and emotions.

There are a range of other new compositions for the title, most of which are impressive. "Edda ~ Departure" is the crowning orchestration on the title, a beautiful five minute chamber orchestration that captures the bittersweet start of the adventure. "Town of Trials" is another impressive chamber orchestration, blending renaissance-style drones with classically-oriented strings and fanfare-like trumpet performances. In both cases, the tracks greatly benefit from recordings of talented instrumentalists at the Onkyo Haus Miracle Bus Studio.

There is plenty of drama elsewhere on the album. Yuko Fukushima's "Awakening Memories" takes listeners to surreal places with its combination of eerie synth vocals and augmented piano progressions. Towards the end of the game, "Katena Underground ~ Land Where the Light Cannot Reach" meanwhile provides an immersive piece of ambient soundscaping, with all sorts of weird and wonderful noise and percussion featured throughout. "Swirling Evil Desires" is the culmination of the soundtrack, a horrifying orchestra and chorus piece with a gigantic effect both in and out of context.

Apparently, the developers did not see the value of original music for most of the rest of the soundtrack, despite the wonderful compositions headlining the release. Everything else on the album is reprised from Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, perhaps out of laziness or desperation. These compositions are generally feature lower quality production values and are less intimately fitted to their context. The majority of the music is still exclusive to the album, but the lazy treatment is difficult to stomach.

Summary

Arc the Lad: End of Darkness features the most richly orchestrated and beautifully performed compositions of the entire series. However, these compositions are overwhelmed in number by various reprises taken from Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. It is unfortunate that Sony Computer Entertainment failed to commission a completely original score for the title and both the game and album suffer somewhat as a result.