Jackie💿

Game info: Wikipedia

Listening: soundtrack album (w/music info), iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon

Info

I am listening to a Like a Dragon (formerly localized as Yakuza) soundtrack album in full for the first time! I wonder what could have possibly tempted me into putting this one o—

well, we may never know for sure,,

So anyway, Like a Dragon soundtracks! These tend to have a bunch of composers, both from inside SEGA as well as outsourcers, and I see a lot of the usual suspects from both categories here, as well as some new folks to the series. Like Hideaki Kobayashi and Rintaro Soma, both of whom I like! In my post on Sonic Superstars I mentioned the appearance of an interesting name there, Ryo Fukuda, who also appears in this game too; because the digital release has kanji for their name, we can confirm that they are in fact a different person from the composer of Sonic Shuffle. Just a coincidence we've now had two people with the same name working on Sonic games!

My impression of the series's music based on the handful of tracks I've heard from past games is that it's largely aggressive action music with loud drums, angry synth noises, electric guitar, and strings, and you will for sure get your money's worth of that here. It's not a style that's super appealing to myself personally, but I did enjoy the electronic sound production of a lot of the tracks. There is of course music in other styles, some closely adjacent like more straightforward rock and some farther away like chamber-y string compositions. In a thoroughly unsurprising turn of events, my favorites of those other tracks were mainly the more ambient electronic pieces.

SEGA has a grand and terrible tradition of releasing incomplete soundtracks for Like a Dragon games, and it appears they've continued it here. I don't know exactly how much music is missing, but the game's staff roll credits both Takenobu Mitsuyoshi and Kenichi Tokoi with music production and neither of them have any tracks credited to them on the album.

Recommended tracks:

• "Katabira" (Yuri Fukuda) was the prettiest track on the album to me

• "Psycho's Anthem" (Ryo Fukuda) is one of the more EDM-y and less guitar-y action tracks, I like the interaction between the synths in the beginning

• "Her Melancholy" (Hiro) is a soothing track with some nice stutter effects

• "Cold Fire" (Rintaro Soma) has a cool crunched section in 7 at 1:21

• "Rumbling at the Fort" (Yasuyuki Nagata) is the closest we get to metal on the soundtrack

• "Heaven's Gate" (Mitsuharu Fukuyama) flits back and forth between various styles, my favorite part probably being the section at 1:19 on account of the chords

If you're a streamer, gaming Youtuber, or you like writing written reviews of indie games, and you'd like a Steam key for Rhythm Doctor and/or A Dance of Fire and Ice, email me!

My email's in my bio.

Rhythm Doctor is a colorful, character-centric rhythm game about saving patients by tapping along to their heartbeats. Unlike many rhythm games, you only need one button to play: your spacebar. We just recently added a new chapter to Story Mode in our Act 5 Update.

Rhythm Doctor is on Steam

A Dance of Fire and Ice is a rhythm game about keeping two circles in perfect equilibrium along a path. Music is represented by angles in the twisting and turning of the path. Again, it only needs one input, so most players either use the spacebar, or alternate 2 fingers on their keyboard.

A Dance of Fire and Ice is on Steam, iOS, and Android

You don't need to be a rhythm gaming god to enjoy either of them.

Would love to support indie streamers here on Cohost, especially those keeping the "indie variety" dream alive. Or tbh if you watch anyone who streams that kind of stuff, let me know who they are!

plz no resellers or bots or weird scams thank you

lost girl

i really like this one ~ her bow came out especially cute, even if she's having a bad day... it was only five colors, but adding black for the bamboo worked well, i think