Hitoshi Sawa - Moon (1995)

Composer: Hitoshi Sawa
Console: Late 90s Doujin PC Scene
Game Release Date: 1995-xx-xx
Bootleg Release Date: 2020-12-14
Ripper: SnowBlue
Runtime: 1:21:59, 59 Tracks

I mean to post about this weeks ago but in between the Ian Stocker post and Faces of Evil re-release it pushed this back. I intend to start the GOTY list starting next week so this almost got pushed until the new year. 

This is the soundtrack for the 1995 game Moon. Good luck finding any information about this. You can thank another Japanese exclusive late-90s game also called Moon obscuring all info regarding this game. The other Moon was also just localized and released for western audiences this year making finding info about the other Moon harder. In fact, aside from a few links I have found here and there plus my own copy of the game I can't verify this even exists. I can provide a little bit of info though. 

The game was developed by Overrise Inc. They are a Japanese studio not known for any games. Their site lists a few games they worked on: どこがちがうの？, Full Secret and Mistake. From what I understand they were an indie developer active in the late 90s. I will link their site below. It is still up although it appears that Overrise hasn't done anything since 2006.

The game is billed as RPG-like. Aside from the top-down perspective and grid-based movement a lot of JPGs have it really isn't an RPG. It is a point-and-click puzzle game inspired by JRPGs. The game follows the protagonist as he wakes up in a mysterious land void of anyone. From then on, he explores this unknown region and discovers the truth of who he is, where he is and what happened. All while meeting talking portraits along the way. 

I'll concede that I haven't personally played Moon although I have watched a LP of the game just recently. I still have my copy, but I have never played it. I have a lot of random games lying around on HDDs and until after the LP I wasn't even aware I somehow had a copy of it. 

According to the game credits the music was composed by Hitoshi Sawa. From my research I have concluded that she also did work on the PSX games Harmful Park and Kururin Pa!. I am guessing she's a freelance composer and that explains her work with various companies. Like Overrise Inc. she hasn't done anything in recent times or at least, anything I can find. 

Because I do not intend to re-watch the LP and tag accordingly I have instead organized the songs by alphabetical order. I have included the original WAV files as well as the 320kbps converted MP3s for listening.

The music is a lot of dark sounding sequencer/tracker music interspersed with a lot of sounds and effects and field recordings. The game relies heavily on atmosphere and a lot of tracks are just straight field recordings of wind, water and more. For more indoors music we have originally composed stuff. The field recordings are usually only about a minute long while the composed tracks are 2-3 minutes long. A lot of them offer little variation so I have not extended them. 

I have also split the record into 2 parts, the ambience and field recordings (tracks 1-37) and all the spoken word hints and dialogue (tracks 38-57). The last track is the games end song. Enjoy!

Download: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvVEJ3MlVCRFQjd1ByTUVPRzBKTXNEbmttRXBUdjhMVWszVFhSSTR6MDZxazlYdXlkczJIUQ==
Overrise Inc.: http://www.overrise.co.jp
p@ss: moonproject