By Joseph Walter
I adore the first Dragon Warrior, and the thrill of wondering if each battle during a lengthy grind will be my last, wasting much of what I had hoped to achieve in the process. I also love the directly menacing Dark Spire on the DS, a game that seems like it was designed to be as oppressive and personally threatening as possible.
With that in mind, you would think that the notorious Ultima Exodus for Old Nintendo (my personal name for the NES) would be ranked rather highly on my list...
It is not.
Needlessly difficult and tedious with little reward, Exodus is the definition of a slog. While it's certainly impressive a relatively accurate NES port of a PC game exists, that doesn't make it worth playing.
It's not all doom and gloom, though: the game's soundtrack is delightfully dream-like and catchy, and I really, really need to tell you about its outstanding and jaw-droppingly dynamic "Main Menu" theme!
Getting over the relative disappointment, I set about creating my party of characters... but as time (and the song) went on... I lost it.
To explain what happened best, here's a play-by-play of the emotional roller coaster I experienced during this initial listen:
:00 - "Okay, I didn't expect this to be so jaunty."
:14 - "Huh, this is kind of cute."
:35 - "... why am I starting to feel something?"
:55 - "I... what..?"
1:00 - "...how long have I been crying?"
1:15 - *hhnggghhhh* (my non-verbal reaction to the unnecessarily epic harmonies.)
1:29 - "Oh God. What's happening."
By the time the song looped, I was emotionally flabbergasted. It was like a walked through an ancient doorway into another world, one that was constructed of nothing but dreamlike nostalgia.
This reaction was only bolstered when I actually started the game and listened to the full Castle theme, which was another piece that had far more emotion, impact and scope than one might think.
While the superior qualities of the above compositions are impressive in their own right, the unexpected complexity is equally exciting. It's just not that common of a trait with the majority of Old Nintendo soundtracks.... though Exodus' score isn't the most impressive on the system, not by a long shot (and don't worry, I WILL be covering what is the most impressive soundtrack on the system soon enough.)
Anyway, I'm apparently not the only one who thinks that "Main Menu" is surprisingly excellent, because there's actually a poppy, Japanese vocal version of the theme.
You're welcome.