So...anyone dig Digital Devil Saga's music?

I enjoyed the music in both Digital Devil Saga games immensely. However, I did think DDS2 had a much better score than DDS1 by a large margin.
I am also a pretty big Shoji Meguro fan, in general.  His work in Persona, Maken X, Soul Hackers, and especially SMT3, has all been absolutely wonderful.

Heh, I hate to start my presence on the new forum by disagreeing with someone, but I definetly disagree with you here, Conn.

I agree that the 4-disc-set is pretty good, but I've been listening to it on and off over the last 2 weeks, and I'm quite disappointed with it. There is no way the DDS soundtracks top SMT3: Nocturne (not to mention the pure awesomeness that are the Persona soundtracks). For several reasons: the battle rock tunes are much tighter and better in SMT3, the 4-disc DDS set is littered with useless and boring 10-30 second cutscene music, and Kenichi Tsuschiya and Toshiko Tasaki (that both played significant parts in SMT3's soundtrack) are nowhere to be found on the DDS soundtrack (apart from a few tracks from Tsuschiya on DDS1). The only thing that DDS has going for it over Nocturne is that is has loads of great dungeon themes, a department in which Nocturne was pretty poor.

Anyway, this is of course all personal opinion. But at least no one can say that I'm biased by playing experience: I haven't played a second of either SMT3, DDS1, or DDS2.

Lastly, can people PLEASE stop perpetuating the myth that Shoji Meguro is the composer of the Persona soundtracks...? PLEASE...? He did *nothing* on either Persona 2: Innocent Sin or Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (those soundtracks were done by Toshiko Tasaki, Masaki Kurokawa, and Kenichi Tsuschiya), and he was a junior composer on Persona: Be Your True Mind, composing only a handful of tracks on a soundtrack which had a total of 110 compositions (the vast majority of tracks were done by Hidehito Aoki and Kenichi Tsuschiya). Also, for Soul Hackers OST, the majority of the tracks were done by Toshiko Tasaki, and Maken X's main composer was Takahiro Ogata. You can check up all this in the liner notes of the various soundtrack releases: most of them list track-by-track who the composer of each piece is.

Sorry if it seems like I'm bashing Meguro here - I'm definetly not! He's an awesome composer. But it irks me quite a bit that people seem to think "Atlus music = Shoji Meguro". It's so damn simplistic. Being a huge fan of just about all Megami Tensei soundtracks out there (enough of a fan to hunt down a copy of most of them, even the obscure ones), I feel due credit should be given to the entirety of the awesome sound team over at Atlus - please don't forget Tsukasa Masuko, Hidehito Aoki, Misaki Okibe, Toshiko Tasaki, Kenichi Tsuschiya, Masaki Kurokawa, and Takahiro Ogata. At least Masuko, Aoki, Tasaki, and Tsuschiya have done *more* work on the MegaTen series than Meguro (in fact, the only soundtracks were the main composer was Meguro has been SMT3: Nocturne, DDS1, and DDS2 - by no means something to smirk about, but there's a whole awesome music legacy before those 3 soundtracks). Personally, I consider Hidehito Aoki (Majin Tensei 1 & 2, Persona 1), Toshiko Tasaki (Persona 2: IS, Persona 2: EP, SMT3: Nocturne), and Kenichi Tsuschiya (Persona 2: IS, Persona 2: EP, SMT3: Nocturne, DDS1) to be better composers than Meguro, but that is just my personal opinion, and no doubt dependent on the fact that I enjoy hard techno-ish/industrial electronic music more than guitar-driven music (albeit by just a hair). My favourite composer of all over at Atlus is probably Toshiko Tasaki, mostly for her work on both Persona 2 soundtracks - if this girl isn't already taken, I'm gonna marry her (Tsuschiya is awesome as well, but I prefer girls, hehe)!

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Last edited by McCall (Sep 10, 2012)

First off: tz: no, it's not directed to you. I understood you meant only the tracks Meguro worked on for Persona 1 and the other games.

Conn: Glad you didn't take offence from my post. Just as I posted it, I thought that I might have sounded too harsh or elitist or something. I really didn't mean to. We're not enemies here, nor even in much disagreement, I also think the DDS music is awesome (but just not as much so as the Persona soundtracks or SMT3: Nocture, nor for that matter SMT: Devil Summoner, which is an awesome soundtrack that has been overlooked even by MegaTen fans).

My main gripe was this part of your review: "He’s an accomplished musician, having written the excellent Persona and Soul Hackers soundtracks, as well as the more recent Nocturne."

C'mon, admit it - this clearly sounds like you saying that Meguro was the head (even sole) composer of the three Persona soundtracks and Soul Hackers, when in fact he had nothing to do with Persona 2: IS, Persona 2: EP, only wrote a few tracks for Persona 1, and wrote at least less tracks for Soul Hackers than Tasaki did. If you (and Ramza) are candid, you should edit that comment in the review. Give composers credit where credit is due.

Lastly, I do agree that DDS2's music is way better than DDS1's. When the 1-disc DDS1 soundtrack came out last year, I was very disappointed, expecting the same level as SMT: Nocturne. DDS2's music surprised me very much, especially since it has so much cool techno stuff, a style which was (almost) entirely missing in DDS1, and which I didn't expect Meguro to be so good at. Really, the rock battle themes are great, but the techno dungeon themes is the thing that really does it for me on this soundtrack. I still feel DD2's techno is somewhat inferior to that heard in the 3 Persona soundtracks, but it's no doubt awesome. And yes, Tsuschiya's tracks on DDS1 were hardly up to his old standard. My main gripe with this 4-disc DDS set is that Meguro stretched himself too thin. There's a lot of great stuff in there, sure, but I think there are also many boring tracks. I can't help thinking (and don't kill me now!) that if a few of the other composers over at Atlus were also involved, it would have turned out even better (even Meguro's tracks, since he could have had more time to focus on each piece).

BTW, anyone looking forward to the next musical excursion of this great series - "Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou", released in March...? No info on who the composer(s) is yet, but the music I heard in the trailers sound like Meguro's trademark rock. Whoever it is, I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Daniel K wrote:

Actually, neither Tsuschiya nor Kurokawa composed any of the music heard in SMT1 or SMT2. ALL the music in those games was composed by Tsukasa Masuko.

That's strange, but I believe you.  However, I certainly hear a lot of SMT1 in Tsuchiya's later pieces; perhaps he was influenced by Masuko, in that case.

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Last edited by McCall (Sep 10, 2012)

I wasn't any more impressed by the two disc version of the DDS2 soundtrack than the 1 disc version.  The DDS1 soundtrack never did it for me.  I'm playing through 2 right now and really can't wait to the point in the game where "The Sun" plays...that's probably my favorite track in an OST from the past year.  Don't know why.

I'm glad to see the MT soundtracks finally getting their due...I remember getting the Megaten World and old MT sets that nobody had ever heard of, and being in shock they had never gotten their due.  Nice to see that change.

<<Strohmie>>

Dais wrote:

The soundtracks for Megami Tensei and it's various spinoffs might just rank second in "most chronically overrated", right below Ys.

Don't you mean to say "Final Fantasy"? At least Ys/Megami Tensei fans have to do a little more digging before they can start proclaiming the music as the "best evar".

Soto/Strohmie's post is basically right...I can't recall any meaningful discussion about the series' music before he posted something about Megaten World and (I believe) the Megami Tensei 1 and 2 album (the one with the disc of Yonemitsu arrangements). Funny thing was, the SMT Sound Collection and SMT3 OST popped out of nowhere for release shortly after that.

Tuning in....I didn't care for the first one, and this, while better, just didn't do it for me. Not to say I find it bad, there are occasional sweet moments, like some of the techno-ish tracks ('The Sun' is great). But far too many tracks that start out good, but then just end up swerving into nothingness. And Meguro's rock is cool, but I can't take more than two tracks at a time. I might not fit in with the people that dig megaten. In fact, so far there hasn't been a single new megaten OST that I thought was really great. I remember Dais making a poll about favorite OST's, couldn't think of one, truelly unfortunately. Persona 2 EP is imo the most solid OST of all the megaten and spinoff series . But the old stuff (like Majin Tensei 2 SN an Megami Tensei 2) is where it's at people, despite the 1 minute-composition syndrome.

I'd be cool if they'd do another arrange album -a la Megaten World- that covers ALL of the recent MT stuff.

EDIT: I meant Majin Tensei 2, not 1.

Last edited by Yuvraj (Jan 22, 2006)

Dag wrote:

Also, Daniel K, could you elaborate about Maken X? I'd love to know a more specific per-track composer info, if you could check the liner notes. Several tracks in Maken X and specially Maken Shao sound like things Meguro would compose, with several hints of his style switching to a more SMT3/DDS sound (this is more apparent in Shao).

Hmmm, that's weird. It seems that Shoji Meguro did the majority of tracks on the Maken X OST. Very strange, since Takahiro Ogata is listed as "Sound Director & Music Composer" before Meguro. I guess I just drew the conclusion that he did a bigger part of the OST just because of that (since that's the way it usually goes). Anyway, according to the liner notes, Takahiro Ogata did tracks 1, 2, 10, 18, 19, 31, 32, 33, and 39, and Shoji Meguro did the rest. Please observe though that their names are written next to the *comments* of each track, which doesn't necessarily mean that person composed that track (although I find that most likely, or would they comment on each other's tracks...?).

I find it a little strange, I must admit. I can't agree that most of the stuff sounds like standard Meguro - the electronic music in Maken X sounds to me much rawer and more hardcore than his other stuff. And while there is certainly difference between for example his SMT3 work and DDS, it's not as pronounced.

While this would seem to make Maken X very much Meguro's work, I'd like to point out that despite his apparently weak presence on the OST, Ogata actually composed my 4 favourite pieces: "Mist", "Risky", "The Forbidden City", and the absolutely awesome "Boss".

Don't get me wrong, I love the music in the series.

But only about 40% of what is on the average Megaten OST actually IS music. Everything else is just.....filler.

GoldfishX wrote:

Soto/Strohmie's post is basically right...I can't recall any meaningful discussion about the series' music before he posted something about Megaten World and (I believe) the Megami Tensei 1 and 2 album (the one with the disc of Yonemitsu arrangements). Funny thing was, the SMT Sound Collection and SMT3 OST popped out of nowhere for release shortly after that.

Yea, that's the other big one I posted about.  Along with those two was the Devil Children arranged CD that had Sakuraba arrangements on it, which I got around the same time.

We're coming to the point in this community where not much is getting past us, and very little is being overlooked anymore.  Of course, the popularity of each series will wax and wane depending on recent releases...MegaTen is near a peak right now, which is probably what Dais is getting at.  Just wait until the FFXII soundtrack comes out...