Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight is one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time, so I met MIDI Power Pro 6 with much enthusiasm. The album is what seems to be most of the game’s tracks arranged using different MIDI instrumentation. However, the end result turned out to be a lackluster soundtrack. MIDI Power Pro 6 basically takes the original pieces and poorly arranges them to create ten inferior versions of songs that were originally outstanding in instrumentation.
What initially bothered me was the fact that individual tracks contain more than one piece; some can contain three completely different songs. There are ten tracks on the CD, but the entire Symphony of the Night soundtrack seems to be here. I didn’t bother comparing and counting every track out, please forgive me.
The major problem with the album itself is the MIDI instrumentation. The song compositions are perfect. The pieces were originally amazing, so the actual songs need no critiquing; they’re wonderful, diverse, and catchy. However, the poor instrumentation on this album does these pieces no justice. Songs such as “Marble Corridor,” which in its original form was an amazing piece with a pounding bass line and crisp synthesizer blaring out a continuous catchy riff has been degraded into a heap of MIDI nonsense. Bass lines are nowhere nearly as defined, sounds not nearly as crisp, and overall the MIDI is just worse than the original.
Commenting on tracks singularly is useless, all ten tracks suffer the same syndrome. For the most part every track is initially recognizable to fans of the original soundtrack. There are a few exceptions here and there, but it soon becomes apparent. Usually that’s due to a new intro as composed by the arranger, but in this case it’s just poor MIDI instrumentation and programming. Do yourself a favor and buy the original Nocturne in the Moonlight soundtrack, it’s a classic. This soundtrack does it no justice.
