OTAD#2 - Ace Combat 3

Yesterday I touched upon how the video game developer Namco released two titles which made history through their overall art direction: Ridge Racer 4 and Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere. The latter is in my opinion an even bolder game, with radical design choices, from the menu design to the narration. For an air combat arcade game, it is perhaps surprisingly story-driven, and to outline the struggle and despair of the protagonists, the Namco Sound Team outdid themselves to offer an outstanding original piece.

It was hard to pick a single track from the 43 (!) original creations this OST has to offer. I went for Transparent Blue by Tetsukazu Nakanishi, with Montage and Miles Above as close seconds. The track is a masterfully crafted ambient piece, which inevitably throws me back into the cockpit of the Blackbird, roaring at mac 4 through the cloudless stratospheric skies. Comes a heavy bassline, like a danger call, a missile alert in disguise. As you fly away from the danger, your eye can see where earth and sky meet, the deep dark blue.