Before last week, I had no idea what Xak was, and with good reason. It was apparently an oldschool dungeon crawler released on a variety of platforms back in the late 1980s, and it was only available in Japan. I guess it makes sense that the music, presented in FM, PSG, X68000, and PC-8801 formats reminds me of some of the old Falcom stuff from those days.
The main reason the series came to my attention was because of Ryuji Sasai’s involvement. He’s one of my favorite composers, and he worked on this title along with Tadahiro Nitta. The All Sounds of Xak album was released all the way back in 1989, but recently, thanks to EGG MUSIC, classics like the Xak series have been given another chance, albeit it in a digital format only.
Read about this early foray into VG synth rock and Ryuji Sasai’s debut in game music after the jump. (more…)
