Lunar Threads

Noriyuki Iwadare (composer for Lunar, Grandia, Ace Attorney) was on a recent episode of Honmaru Radio's "Creators' Cafe", along with Kei Shigema (the Lunar series' story/scenario writer):
http://honmaru-radio.com/geko0003/

It's a Japanese-language program. I'm posting this up here partly as a reminder to myself to listen to it later to hear what it's about {^^}. They did talk a bit about Lunar and Kei Shigema's direction in it. KF

(EDIT: Sorry corrected myself earlier... Michiko Naruke was not in this episode, she was just mentioned a bit by Mr. Iwadare.)

Ok I had a chance to listen to it. There was actually a fair bit of talk about Lunar -- from the Sega CD days through the PSP. Mr. Iwadare talked a bit about the process of composing music to really fit the storyline and feel of the world, and the heroes' journeys (along with several comments/discussions between him and Mr. Shigema). They touched a bit upon the technology improvements once things started being on CD, and having to rewrite the entire soundtrack in going from TSS to SSS (for those who don't know, TSS and SSS have completely different soundtracks; not a single song was reused in any form) -- though, uh, they didn't ever actually say why that happened. Oh, and they talked a bit about the fact that the live instrumentation (such as the ocarina) on Silver Star Harmony's soundtrack was played by Mr. Iwadare himself.

Not really anything new here per se (insofar as Lunar is concerned), but still nice. KF

Darn! I wish they'd just make a new Lunar game! I'd rather it not be a DS title again....But a modern day remake on more powerful consoles would be awesome, or a fresh new game in the same world!

Kizyr wrote: and having to rewrite the entire soundtrack in going from TSS to SSS (for those who don't know, TSS and SSS have completely different soundtracks; not a single song was reused in any form) -- though, uh, they didn't ever actually say why that happened.

I swear to Althena, every time I think of this, I'm more convinced that SSS's OST was meant to be Lunar 3, but they NEVER admitted it to avoid fan backlash as in "WHY DIDNT YOU MAKE LUNAR 3" etc etc.
To be absolutely fair though? The graphic change from TSS to SSS kinda does call for a different OST... I can't see SSS working with TSS music.

But why would they still not say why? If my theory was true they could have still lied and make an excuse about there being more space for new music and stuff since it was done differently.

Oh and Btw, recently while demaking the Dragon's Lair theme from SSS, I said "Wait a minute, this song is from Eternal Blue, Sega CD!"
So SSS uses nothing from TSS, but it uses some stuff from EB. Including the titlescreen music of EB which is what Luna sings. How strange!
SSS fits these songs so well though :O

jay_are wrote:But why would they still not say why? If my theory was true they could have still lied and make an excuse about there being more space for new music and stuff since it was done differently.

Eh... it's a mystery, but it didn't seem like they were dodging the question. Just that it didn't come up. I'm mildly curious, but these sorts of things are usually down to something really mundane, like a slippage in copyright or something, audio incompatibility, loss of source files, etc., so I'd rather not speculate much. KF

I remember someone mentioning in a previous topic on this site that Noriyuki Iwadare didn't compose the LUNAR The Silver Star soundtrack by himself. Maybe it had something to do with that. If anyone's really curious, we could always just ask him directly.