Soyo Oka and noisycroak: Zombie Daisuki Soundtrack (Review)

It’s about time we saw Soyo Oka’s name in the composition department again. While she’s most known for her work on the legendary soundtrack for Super Mario Kart, she’s been working mostly as an arranger in recent years, contributing to the DARIUSBURST arrange albums and the Akumajou Dracula Tribute Albums.

As it turns out, she’s teamed up with noisycroak’s Keisuke Itoh to provide a small number of tracks for the Zombie Daisuki soundtrack. The retro-style soundtrack has been released on noisycroak Records, so find out if it’s worth checking out in our review after the jump.

Even though Oka handles only 25% of the music on the album, I know people are excited to hear about her contributions. Unfortunately with 48 tracks on the album total, they do tend to be on the short side (30 seconds to 1:30 minutes), but what’s here is pretty cool. There’s a pervasive retro soundscape utilizing 8-bit sounds, but they are augmented them with other instruments as well.

From the playful “Opening” jingle, you know that this is a lighthearted soundtrack despite it being about zombies. I love her catchy “Our Ranch,” techno-style “The News!” and angelic “Marty McWeapon’s Death” with some lovely organ work. Many of her tracks sound like they could have been featured in a handheld Castlevania title, too, including the foreboding “Poison Gas Spray” and ridiculously funky jazz piece, “Investigation Report.”

It’s then on to Itoh’s portion, which makes up the lion’s share of music on the album. There’s a chemistry between Itoh and Oka’s work, allowing them to mesh together without sounding like the work of two separate composers. Itoh’s zombie themes are some of the highlights of the album, including the swingin’ “Happy Zombie,” the laid back “Goodnight Zombie,” the bubbly “Clingy Zombie,” the decisive “Swift Zombie” and the cute waltz found in “Faint Zombie” that incorporates an accordion. “Lost Zombie” takes on an adventurous RPG-esque sound that caught my attention as well as the strongly Asian-flavored “Plain Zombie.”

Later, “Space Zombie” reminds me a bit of Hiroki Kikuta’s work with its crazy belltone progression that’s so characteristic of his music. I also love the variation on a theme found in “Admirable Zombie” and “Disappointed Zombie,” which take the same theme and tweak it slightly to be either congratulatory or, well… disappointed depending on the performance of the player.

Each of the zombie themes has a corresponding ‘scene’ theme that incorporates that particular zombie theme, but the arrangements are not drastically different from the zombie themes aside from an increased tempo. “Evil Hero!,” on the other hand, ditches the 8-bit sound for a more PlayStation era vibe, starting with some funky slap bass and a strong brass melody that would easily fit into a Castlevania title. Unfortunately it’s only 44 seconds long. In what I can only imagine is the final part of the game, “A Zombie Values Swiftness!” takes the “Swift Zombie” theme and transforms it into an epic, memorable, and tense closing piece.

The final track on the album is “Love Zombie? (Full Version),” a vocal theme performed by Yu Inoue. It’s a nice folksy theme with hand-beaten percussion, a lone guitar, some woodwinds, and Inoue’s voice singing a playful and what I can imagine is probably a silly theme about zombies. It’s a nice way to close out the album.

The album packaging is bright and playful with lots of pink. The booklet contains composer credits, lyrics for “Love Zombie?,” commentary from the artists, and album credits. It’s a nice little package from noisycroak Records.

Is the music of Zombie Daisuki for everyone? Probably not. The tracks are generally pretty short, and I know the upbeat and bubbly nature of nearly all of the music here can be grating on the nerves. However, if you’re looking for something fun to listen to without having to invest much time into lengthy listening experiences, want to know what Soyo Oka has been up to, want to support noisycroak and noisycroak Records, or perhaps have some experience with the game, you may want to check it out. It’s published by noisycroak Records and distributed by SuperSweep.

Are you interested in Keisuke Itoh and Soyo Oka’s collaboration? Do you perhaps have some experience with the game that you’d like to share so people can enjoy this soundtrack even more?