Feb 172016
This early Super NES RPG didn’t stand the test of time, but its soundtrack sure did! Listen along as we rattle off some of the game’s incredible Ys-like tunes.
SHOW NOTES
00:00 – Premonition (Lagoon)
07:34 – Master of Water (Lagoon)
09:26 – Prince of Darkness (Lagoon)
14:05 – Armed and Ready (Lagoon)
20:04 – Tales from the Peaceful World (Lagoon)
22:54 – Valley (Lagoon)
25:31 – Atland (Lagoon)
31:50 – Moonchild (Lagoon)
Thank you for this. I got Lagoon for Christmas a long time back and i somehow finished it as a 10 year old. The soundtrack has always stuck with me and I follow the few twitch streamers who speedrun this difficult game. Good pick as always.
I found it interesting when Chris mentioned he couldn’t place Lagoon’s genre through the music alone; to me the choice of instruments and the overall style reminds me a lot of Street Fighter 2, even though Lagoon predates it slightly.
If you’re ever looking for another one-off SNES RPG for a VGM Mini, I absolutely love the 7th Saga soundtrack. I sunk tons of hours into as a kid because of the music and the atmosphere, even though the game itself was a bit of a frustrating grind-fest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiobJiY1sCU&index=17&list=PL2B81AB2F2FB6453A
It would be really cool to get an episode on the Shadowrun series some day as well, since the modern games echo themes from the classic 16 bit games in interesting ways.
This really should be called VGMaynotbeaslongasusual, since mini doesn’t really seem to fit the length.
I played Lagoon early in the Super Nintendo days, and you start with a strange looking rounded sword, that we always called a butter knife. There were a lot of this type of action RPG around this time, late NES and for a while on Super Nintendo, that seem to be sort of bookended by Zelda and Link to the Past, stuff like Hydlide, Willow, Crystalis, Soul Blazer, and I always liked them. They were decent for a weekend rental, not as long as a regular RPG, usually, but you keep moving along, making progress through dungeons and story, when a lot of games still had you replay the same levels over and over.
A lot of the music sounds like Mega Man music, not much really sounds like early Super Nintendo music to me, though.
Love the podcast, excellent work.
Listening to the Lagoon episode reminded me of the soundtrack to Jets’n’Guns. That soundtrack was made from my favorite band, Machinae Supremacy. Might be worth a minisode, as it’s an actual video game inspired metal band that made the soundtrack and that’s a pretty interesting topic in itself.
I love the Lagoon OST, Both the SNES & X68K have that awesome power rock sound.
Never did beat this game as a kid, but played it again as an adult ….and still didn’t beat it. But man that metal opening song. I used to just leave my TV on and let the intro loop all day. Glad to see this game get covered!
I would really love to hear more up-tempo rock like this in modern games. I need these relentless drums and guitar riffs to get my blood flowing when I hack up goblins or whatever.
Wow, another gem I’ve never heard of. I’m so glad you guys brought this awesome soundtrack out into the light. I swear this podcast has caused my self space and wallet to shrink with all the games and soundtracks you’ve inspired me to check out. Can’t wait to try Lagoon and listen to some jams.
I don’t think I’ve ever played Lagoon but I love Kemco’s SNES era. The soundfount here is much like Drakkhen’s, with that really distinct sharp bass guitar sound, and I dig it.
I used to take fan requests for music covers for VGdrum and one of those entries was “Prince of Darkness” from this game. Awesome track, I love the double bass work in it, even if the speed of the 16th-note hi-hats is a little too insane for me.
According to VGMdb, the last thing Hideki Suzuki did gaming-wise was for a game called GENOCIDE for Sharp X68000 and Shin-Oh-Ken for Neo Geo/Arcade. Speaking of which I’m super curious about the Sharp X68000 version of Lagoon’s music, now.
Pretty decent, actually!
I had a friend who was obsessed with this game when we were kids, and then I thoroughly forgot it existed until it came up for this podcast.
My memories of us playing it are way fonder than the actual game deserves in hindsight I think though, I hate to say.
‘Atland’ has the same chorus melody to The Lighthouse Family. Or I doesn’t but it’s all I hear listening to that track.
http://youtu.be/taOL5HJdx1A