Lunatic Festa: Vol. 3, as the name implies, is the third CD out of a set of four soundtracks, which contain half drama tracks, and half music and vocal songs.
This particular Festa CD starts off with one out of the two vocal tracks on the CD. Jessica’s theme, “Pretty Girl”, which can also be found on Lunar Songs 2, is a wonderful slower catchy beat with a hint of jazz at times. The other vocal track, entitled “Les Misérables”, can be found as the last track on the CD (this format of the first and the last tracks being vocal themes is used on all but the final soundtrack). This theme is Nall’s theme, and can be found on Lunar Songs 1. It’s far more upbeat than Jessica’s vocal song. The lyrics have Nall pressuring Alex (at least the general consensus is that it’s directed towards Alex) to step up to the plate in regards to Luna. I would have to say that this is one of the better vocal tracks in the Festa collection.
As mentioned before, the Festa CDs are half drama-tracks, half music. The drama tracks here can be listened to by both those fluent in Japanese, and those not fluent. While it’s obviously impossible to know exactly what’s being said for those of us with little knowledge of Japanese, if you know the Lunar story, you can definitely tell what’s generally going on in each track. Whereas Festa Vol. 2 ended at the Red Dragon Cave, the four drama tracks here go up until the point where you face the Magic Emperor in the Grindery, and the Fortress of Althena is raised, all while going through scenes such as that of the trial of the Blue Dragon.
The rest of Festa Vol. 3 is made up of four instrumental songs. The first is Burg’s theme. Personally, I always preferred the amazing touch of the original Burg theme in The Silver Star, as it fit the town of Burg so perfectly. But it’s hard to say the Burg theme for Silver Star Story is at all bad. In fact, it too, is a very good piece for the town. As far as town themes go, it’s a cut above most. It’s very peaceful, as the town should be. The game opens in Burg, before anything is said of a Magic Emperor, a Vile Tribe or a dark Frontier. Instead, the beginning of the game is set around a boy who dreams of becoming like his hero, Dragonmaster Dyne. The theme represents this sleepy mountain village perfectly and it’s aspiring hero Alex.
The second song is another town theme, this time for the bustling Meribia. Again, it’s hard to beat the original Meribia theme (though I felt out of all five of The Silver Star’s town themes, Meribia’s was the least favorite, and that’s not saying much, considering all five were awesome town themes). However, like the Silver Star Story version of Burg’s theme, this theme fits the town well. Silver Star Story’s Meribia town theme fits the hustle and bustle of Meribia’s sprawling alleys, mansions, stores and size. It has a grand sound that tells the player that they are currently experiencing the largest town on Lunar, Meribia.
The third song, “Determination Towards Battle” is one of my favorite Silver Star Story tracks. The song has an upbeat sound to it, but more importantly, it fits the mood for which it’s used in the game, as the song has a heavy sense of urgency to it. And finally, we come to “Goddess of Darkness”. I love this theme. It starts off slow, and almost sad, then throws in some old school The Silver Star chimes, but then turns darker sounding, building up to the Song of the Dark Sorceress. I always loved the simple dark song by Luna’s counterpart, the Dark Goddess Althena. This particular part of the track is during the time when the Fortress of Althena is raised, and fits well between the two drama tracks it’s nestled in.
Like the other Festa CDs, if you can find this soundtrack at a reasonable price, definitely do so, as I feel it’s only second to volume 1 for the title of best Lunatic Festa CD, narrowly beating out volume 2.
