Ogre Battle Image Album -The Entrance-

	Album Title: Ogre Battle Image Album -The Entrance-
	Record Label: Datam (1st Edition); Datam Polystar (2nd Edition)
	Catalog No.: DPCX-5019; DPCX-5220
	Release Date: November 26, 1993; January 13, 2000
	Purchase: Buy Used Copy

Overview

Produced by Hayato Matsuo, Ogre Battle Image Album -The Entrance- has actually relatively little to do with the original game score. Instead it is an original album featuring a couple of game-related pieces. Regardless of the source material, the content of the material is generally unimpressive.

Body

Ogre Battle Image Album -The Entrance- does have two saving graces — two great tracks. “Innocence” is a beautiful song; though it has nothing to do with Ogre Battle and contains awkwardly written English lyrics, it is redeemed by the excellent vocal performance of Lisa Ooki. Another track worth listening to is “Megalo Syntaxis tes Astronomias”. This 21:44 minute track contains eight of the game’s best melodies upgraded with a cool funk-rock style, while remaining true to the original composition.

So what is wrong with The Entrance? For starters, it is, well, a complete mess. The album just basically consists of dissonant cacophonies, along with two intolerable songs featuring poor English writing and a male vocalist (Moto Hara) with a weak English accent. Although it begins with a promising introduction, a spectacular upgraded version of the Overture over Paul Fitzgerald’s fluid narration, “Constellatus,” it immediately dissolves into more intolerable cacophonies.

These cacophonies continue throughout the whole album, and they never seem to come to an ending result. For example, on the last track, the music doesn’t “end” — it just stops and we suddenly hear a loud explosion. Boom! That’s the end of the album. A treatment such as this is enough to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, especially since the game itself had such incredible music.

Summary

The result of all this is an uneven image album that is only average. The two highlights of the album are the jewels, but whether they’re worth the treasure hunt is up to you.

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