DESIRE: Haitoku no Rasen
Game developed by C's Ware
vndb | wikipedia(ja) | mobygames
Soundtrack published by EGG MUSIC RECORDS
VGMdb |
Official Release Website
(archive, not available to purchase)
Albert Prologue (OPENING.M) / Spiral (Track 1-01)
Nice to meet you. I'm Ryu Umemoto. Since this is my first time here, I'm sharing a selection of the best songs I composed using the driver "PMD".
This is my first indie work in a long time, so this time I won't be able to submit the “divine” arrangements you all like so much, but if you're interested in my compositions, please take a listen and send me your requests and opinions on the questionnaire.
No. 79 - Common BGM (DES_79.M) / Ham-and-eggs (Track 1-03)
Sorry, before I wrote down the song, I messed with the test version a little more than I should (haha, I'm just like Koichi Sugiyama), so I grew awfully attached to it. As the few of you who played the game must know, the plot's pace is constantly shifting wildly, so ultimately needed to throw in some extra emotional tunes to go into the story scenes.
No. 1 - Ishtal “Desire” (DES_01.M) / Ishtal (Track 1-04)
My favorite track in Desire. I composed it thinking of a scenario where the protagonist is exploring an unknown land. This track was eventually chosen to become the main theme, so I wanted to add some essence that would make the melody work as a main theme. For that, I embedded an arrangement using the little I knew of Morse Code. I took the "ISHT" part from Ishtal and played its completely unedited sine wave.
I seem to have really imprinted that idea that "Desire = sine waves" on the people around me.
No. 32 - Tina (DES_32.M)/ Tina (Track 1-05)
This track is the BGM for talking with the then child-like girl, the "most important character" (lol) in the game. I composed thinking about how important the conversation this was timed to was to the story. By that I mean, the scene wasn't all that major, so just this was fine. It was based on the "OPLL" sound (FM-PAC cartridge for MSX).
No. 03 - Room ’n’ BGM for Makoto (DES_03.M) / Consideration (Track 1-06)
A track for rooms and talking to Makoto. One of my very few multi-purpose tracks. Not much to comment on it, it’s the textbook “calm track”. The closest I had to a concern when writing this one was to make it on the longer side. It's a rare modern piece of mine that doesn't use channel 3’s special mode (?). It's honestly kinda difficult to explain this function for those of you who don't know (laughs). But it's basically separating the 3rd channel's oscillator frequencies along with the right algorithm.
No. 04 - The Ishtal’s Brain (DES_04.M) / Brain (Track 1-10)
The first track I did after gaining access to Desire's (development center's) host CPU. This one was arranged to include the word "Desire" in Morse code.
By the way, this game has post-game bonus modes, including two quizzes. Sending the correct answers to these quizzes to C's Ware nets you a prize, so read the story carefully because it’ll contain all the answers. I didn't come up with the questions, so send all of your complaints to C's HAKASE.¹
*¹ Hiroyuki Kanno's alias
No. 07 - The Darkside Ishtal (DES_07.M) / Night (Track 1-08)
An arrangement of the main theme, used for the Desire Island at night. Composed for the protagonist's sneaky night escapades (laughs). Can you feel the mood? I was actually trying to make house music, but it seems like I failed hard.
No. 08 - Awake (DES_08.M) / Awakening (Track 1-11)
The Morse code in this track says "Awake". The first that might come to your mind is the normal, wholesome meaning of the word "awakening"... but here we're using the other meaning of "awakening". Hahahaha... I'm sorry, I really am.
No. 34 - Pinch! (DES_34.M) / Indignation (Track 1-18)
The track for when you are in a pinch. I made it when I was feeling nostalgic for some good old Rock (laughs). The second half is an arrangement of the main theme.
No. 16 - Psychedelic Sunset (DES_16.M) / Memory 2 (Track 2-04)
I present to you the bed scene (laughs). It's the track I submitted to an arts festival supervised by Sharp when I was 15.6 years old (updated, of course...). Check that month's edition of the Mycom BASIC Magazine¹ for more details (laughs). I won a prize, so there has to be an article there about it (laughs).
¹ You can check the magazine he's talking about here (japanese)! He won a lamp as a prize for this song haha.
No. 13 - Dream (DES_13.M) / Dream (Track 1-12)
The scene where the protagonist is dreaming. It's a moment that brings a lot of the foreshadowing in the opening back in full force, so I made this one a bit on the heavy side.
I used a melodic jingle similar to the prologue scene where Tina washes up ashore, so I guess you could say that track was one more piece of foreshadowing.
No. 19 - Distress to Spiral (DES_19.M) / Pursuit (Track 1-14)
This track didn't have a name, so I just made one up (laughs). It means... "If you can't lick them, join them" (kidding). I added some relative weight to the bass.
No. 17 - Feel Easy (DES_17.M) / Feel (Track 2-05)
The track for when you find Tina, the girl who disappeared in a previous scene. It makes you feel relieved. You feel easy, as the name says.
No. 36 - Final Suspect (DES_36.M) / Plot (Track 1-20)
A scene where you’re approaching the truth of the game’s Part 1. The sequence here is just a variation of the opening. Yup, that’s about it. Simple (laughs). I believe it did its job well, so I’m perfectly okay with it not being anything more than just that. Nope, no problems at all (slowly crumbling).
No. 77 - Malchina (DES_77.M) / Sunset (Track 1-16)
The evening scene where you’re discussing philosophies with Professor Martina¹ at the beach. The 4 vibraslap sounds on the track were made with 2-OP FM synthesis. It’s a tune I came up with back when I was working on MSX, played exactly as it was conceived.
¹ the title is a wrong romanization of Martina, I’m keeping it for consistency
No. 21 - Anxious I (DES_21.M) / Beat (Track 1-17)
The jingle for a scene where you’re following a trail of blood splatters. The Morse code on the track reads “Dead”.
No. 22 - Anxious II (DES_22.M) / Regret (Track 1-19)
The general BGM for grim days (what does that even mean, hahaha). I won’t elaborate because some readers haven’t played the game yet (it’s actually because I’m tired, hahaha). You can probably tell just from hearing, but I used Sus4 e 9th a lot on this track.
There’s one thing I noticed now that Kujiwara started teaching me about chords every once in a while: I composed this track without knowing which sounds composed its chords (laughs) (don’t be like me, study).
No. 24 - A Fact (Dream II) (DES_24.M) / Fact (Track 1-21)
The climax (part 1). A remix of Dream. This goes on a major tone shifter for Part 1 so I was trying to go for shock value on this one.
No. 26 - Dimensional Desire (DES_26.M) / Reflector (Track 2-01)
The climax (part 2). The PSG didn’t help much with the rhythm, but I did the best I could out of its unique qualities on this track. It was surprisingly well received, much to my relief. The 2608 version is at the rear end of this pack. Don’t forget to listen to that version, too.
Ending in Fact (ENDING.M) / Beginning (Track 2-07)
The true ending. When I saw this scene while play testing, the ending made me think I haven’t played a game with a story this well-written since Snatcher (and from an 18+ game, no less). Don’t mention the fact that I’m not talking about the track, haha…
And that was Desire - Haitoku no Rasen. A must-buy for visual novel fans. It not being a professional production is no excuse to pirate it (laughs).