The Pokémon Soundtrack Odyssey

RBGY: Junichi Masuda
This where it all started, where the foundation that would define Pokémon scores was set. Listening back, it's striking in two ways: it's aged better than you probably remember, and it's also, in some ways, obviously aged. "Pewter City" is a trainwreck, the chromatic lines in the "Wild Pokemon Battle" track would stick around for GSC and then disappear for over a decade, and the town and route themes are in general a mixed bag. Much of the best music here is Masuda's creepier works – "Viridian Forest," "Lavender Town," "Silph Co." – an unexpected discovery considering the generally cheery tone of the series. The music in general is very busy – understandably so, considering the influence of Bach (as writing for the GB's chip certainly resembled the limitations of three-part counterpoint), and given that players would be listening to the music for long periods of time, having a bunch of different stuff that the ear could focus on is a virtue. It's only in retrospect, looking back, that we can say that, operating outside of the game, it's "too busy." The original soundtrack release's heavy reverb does the music no favors. Still – this is where it all began.

GS: Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose (Junichi Masuda)
Where Masuda was the sole composer for the first set of games, for these sequels the soundtrack was split up between Masuda and Go Ichinose. Masuda writing some of the city and route themes, and all of the battle themes, while Ichinose took care of the remaining city and route themes, along with many of the RBGY arrangements for GSC's post-game. (Morikazu Aoki handled some of the RBGY arrangements and apparently may have written some jingles but is absent from the credits.) It's several steps above the RBGY soundtrack – Masuda's tendency to be way too busy has been toned down or else refined; while Ichinose's voice is going to become a star of the next three generations. (He's still composing for the Pokémon games, but we'll get into what happens after BW and B2W2.)

It's a fantastic soundtrack. If RGBY was inconsistent, then this generation's music, and the soundtracks of the next three generations, form a golden age for Pokémon's music: a skilled sound team working with just the right amount of limitations to create some of the finest tunes ever committed to MIDI (or in this case, chip), refining the foundations from which the music was born whilst continuously introducing new and exciting elements.

C: Morikazu Aoki, Junichi Masuda
For this third version, Masuda wrote new opening and title themes, plus a battle theme, and Morikazu Aoki wrote a handful of new tracks for it. These are all solid, but sound a lot like Sonic the Hedgehog music.

RS: Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki, Junichi Masuda (Junichi Masuda)
Morikazu Aoki moves up and becomes co-composer alongside Ichinose, while Masuda, excepting "Fallarbor Town" and a handful of other tracks, settles into the role he will play for the remaining games in the series, that of battle theme composer. The franchise jumps from the chiptune GB and GBC over to our good friend the GameBoy Advance, with its SNES-like sound capabilities (albeit with certain limitations – audio was processed by the CPU itself, which gave its samples a certain degree of fuzz and forced the composers to compose utilizing both their samples and the internal PSG, a duplicate of the GB/GBC sound chip), and for this the team took one of the Roland Sound Canvas ROMplers and downsampled, compressed, and looped the sounds on it to fit the GBA's memory. For the first time, the music is being played by instruments – or, at least, good approximations thereof. No, it will never fool anybody into thinking it's real versions of the instruments, but the Sound Canvas is still considered gold in the vgm world for a reason: it's stuffed with excellent, ear-friendly sounds. The Sound Canvas embodies the nostalgic, MIDI JRPG soundtrack.

And with these tools at their hand, the sound team went to bat and hit a home run. I don't think Pokémon soundtracks ever got better than they did with RSE. The battle themes are consistently excellent and even better than they were in GSC. The route themes are winner after winner (...with the exception of "Route 119," perhaps) and the city/town themes are equally excellent. One becomes sorrowful, listening, that this was the only game that Morikazu Aoki was co-composer on. "Route 110" and "Route 120" still stand as some of the finest in the series. "Oceanic Museum" is a gorgeous rearrangement of "S.S. Anne" from RBGY – hampered, yes, by the GBA's limits, but beautiful nonetheless. Ichinose, too, excels - town themes like "Dewford Town" and "Slateport City," fantastic area themes like "Mt. Chimney" and "Mt. Pyre ~Outer Wall~," and the stunning "Route 104."

FRLG: Go Ichinose (Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose)
The shift from GameBoy Color to GameBoy Advanced walled off everything in the first two generations, so Game Freak went back to RGBY and remade them. All arrangements were handled by Go Ichinose. Your mileage will vary on how successful he was – for my money, however, it's mostly a success. The battle themes are intense – the first sign that Masuda's battle themes, as arranged by Ichinose, will shine more than without that arrangement, and Ichinose does this even with "Deoxys Battle," a new Masuda theme for this game. The route themes sound great, and so do the town themes – even "Pewter City" gets redeemed! It's only the creepier tracks that tend to be downgraded – something of an irony considering that they were such a strength of the original.

As impressive as successfully arranging – and occasionally improving – upon the originals as Ichinose is, it's also worth noting that he manages, using the same sounds as RSE, create a unique sound that is distinctive to FRLG and could not be confused for the former.

E: Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki, Hitomi Sato
For the third version, Ichinose returned to write several area themes for the Battle Frontier. (Aoki also wrote one track, which was arranged by Hitomi Sato. We'll be hearing more of Sato shortly.) They're stylistically varied and interesting listens, but the highlight for most people is Ichinose's first battle theme, "Frontier Brain Battle." And to his credit, Ichinose pulls out all the stops to write an excellent theme and to make his totally distinct from Masuda: he abandons the chromatic opening of Masuda and proceeds forward with a lengthy, well-developed track of just over a minute and a half before loop.

DP: Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda (Junichi Masuda, Morikazu Aoki)
Hitomi Sato, as Morikazu Aoki did before her, takes a place alongside Ichinose as co-composer, and the result is the jazziest of all the Pokémon soundtracks; and as before the arrival of a new hardware generation leads to a new generation of Pokémon and so the soundfont gets resampled in its entirely – to somewhat more mixed results then in RSE – with the GBA, the sound processing was naturally fuzzy and the only way to avoid this was to exclusively use the PSG. Here, however, there are instruments that are fuzzy for reasons entirely beyond me (perhaps compression to fit memory was still a factor) and a couple even have audible clicks in their loops.

But the skills of our composers largely remain intact. Yes, Masuda's battle themes aren't quite as strong as in the previous generations, but, and while the Wild Pokémon and Trainer battle themes are considerably duller before, and the arrangements leaves many of the others feeling just a little bit anemic, these are by and large good compositions. And though one is sad to lose Morikazu Aoki, it's made up for by the addition of Hitomi Sato, and some of the best route and town themes in the game are hers: be it "Jubilife City (Day)" or "Route 205" and "Route 209," she marks herself out as a distinct voice. Ichinose doesn't slouch, either, providing us with the gorgeous "Canalave City" and the lovely "Mt. Coronet." The unique sense of jazz and melancholy in the DPPt soundtrack makes it many people's favorite.

Pt: Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda, Satoshi Nohara
Once again, some new tracks. This time Sato handles the majority of them, Masuda contributing a new battle theme and Satoshi Nohara writing a handful of fanfares. Most delightful here is "Frontier Brain Battle," co-composed by Ichinose and Sato. It's unclear whether or not this is Ichinose and Sato co-writing a new track, or if Sato did a dramatic recomposition of Ichinose's Emerald original. Either way, it's a delight. Also noteworthy is the Giratina battle track, the first time since Emerald that Ichinose has arranged one of Masuda's battle themes.

HGSS: Go Ichinose, Shota Kageyama, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda, Takuto Kitsuta (Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki, Satoshi Nohara)
It's here that one of the more controversial figures in the Pokémon sound team makes his debut: Shota Kageyama, grabbed in part to help out the sound team with their soundfonts. It's here in HGSS that the new soundfont, that – with expansions – will be used for the remaining DS games, makes its debut. The game's original compositions are here arranged primarily by Ichinose, Kageyama, and Sato, with Takuto Kitsuda handling a couple of the Kanto arrangements.

As with all remake soundtracks, it's a mixed bag. If Ichinose's FRLG soundtrack was, end-to-end, successful, then HGSS must be qualified as a partial success – some of the rearrangements are too busy, "Violet City," stuffing the original with a few too many countermelodies. The "Trainer Battle" arrangement isn't to my taste, either. Yet there is much that is good here. The "Gym Leader Battle" arrangement is exceptional; and Kageyama's recomposition of "Goldenrod City" is a delight. The tracks that utilize a distinctly Japanese aesthetic are especially worth listening to: Ecruteak and Cianwood shared a track in the original game, here, both get unique arrangements, "Ecruteak City" bringing in the traditional instruments. Ichinose stretches his wings once again with "Ho-Oh Battle," an intensely percussive track utilizing traditional Japanese instruments alongside organs and electric guitar; while "Lugia Battle" brings a touch of horror aesthetic to its opening before moving into something orchestral. The GameBoy Sounds arrangements are interesting, but you're better off listening to the GSC originals.

BW: Shota Kageyama, Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda, Minako Adachi (Junichi Masuda, Morikazu Aoki, Hitomi Sato, Satoshi Nohara)
With this game Kageyama takes the lead for the first time, and for many that was apparently enough to damn the soundtrack permanently in their eyes. The reasoning behind this is that Ichinose, Sato, and Masuda are iconoclasts that lack any music career outside of Game Freak, while Kageyama was mentored by Yasunori Mitsuda at Procyon Studio and so his style reflects more traditional (thus, less idiosyncratic) JRPG soundtrack aesthetics. In short, Kageyama's style is less distinctive and less interesting than the others. But it's not, I think, a pardonable excuse when the soundtrack is as good as this – the most qualitatively consistent Pokémon soundtrack since RSE.

For the first time Ichinose takes on arrangement duties for Masuda's battle themes and the result is the best set of battle tracks since, once again, RSE. If there are too many route themes that are marches, then it is balanced out by Kageyama's "Route 10," a strong contender for the best route theme in the franchise. The town themes are fantastic, be it Ichinose's "Nacrene City" or Kageyama's "Nimbasa City" or the highlight of them all, Sato's "Lacunosa Town." And after four generations of slow and emotional ending themes, Kageyama's "Ending ~To Their Respective Futures~" brings a sense of the epic and the adventurous, a piece that however conclusive is so energetic that it leaves me feeling as though there is much left to come.

I suspect that opinions on BW still aren't settled, and with Kageyama seemingly now the go-to arranger for remake soundtracks, the legion of Kageyama haters is probably alive and well. But it has been over a decade since BW, and I strongly suspect that BW, both as games and as a soundtrack, will be looked upon very kindly indeed.

BW2: Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato, Teruo Taniguchi (Junichi Masuda, Morikazu Aoki, Shota Kageyama)
And so the MIDI era bows out with one final masterpiece, lead by Go Ichinose – defined by his maximal arrangements and his willingness to push and expand the boundaries of what Pokémon music sounds like – and Hitomi Sato – a composer who, by her own admission struggling with melody, makes up for it with a deeply refined sense of arrangement and a jazzy sense of rhythm. For the first time, each Gym has a unique arrangement to match its Gym Leader, and in retrospect it seems so obvious that it's a wonder it hadn't happened before. New town (Ichinose's "Aspertia City" an especial gem) and route themes (Sato's rejuvenating "Route 19," as well as Ichinose's epic "Route 23") are consistently great, and rearrangements of BW tracks are familiar but with enough new that's new to feel fresh. (The Neo Plasma battle theme is very good.)

The real meat, though, is the Pokémon World Tournament tracks, giving us fresh arrangements of the Gym Leader and Champion battle themes from every single previous game in the series! And the impossible was managed: each one's a winner, each arrangement remaining true to its original despite the changes in soundfont, and with the addition of fresh, new lines that weren't in the original to surprise and delight. That Ichinose and Sato managed such a feat is genuinely impressive. Also impressive? Sato's "Champion Iris Battle," a masterpiece of glittering synths and guitars.

XY: Shota Kageyama, Minako Adachi, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda (Junichi Masuda, Hitomi Sato, Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki, Satoshi Nohara)
Here enter Minako Adachi: She debuted with a handful of arrangements in BW, but they were so minor as to not be worth remarking upon. Here, however, she takes a place alongside Kageyama as the two lead composers. Adachi joins the Game Freak sound team with the most significant backlog of credits of any composer in the series – over ten years, including two Legend of Zelda games and several games in the Summon Knight series. Sato, having effectively co-lead BW2, steps back and plays a significantly smaller role, and for the first time since joining, Ichinose scores nothing, being engaged in a different Game Freak project. The leap to the 3DS is matched by another significant leap, away from the MIDI with its stored soundfont data to music pre-recorded with sample libraries. For the first time, a piece for orchestra sounds something like an actual orchestra is performing. But something went terribly wrong. The mixing is both hollow and muddy. Attacks are soft. Dynamics are stratified and unchanging – and their sound suggests that the composers worked with one dynamic level for all their instruments simply compressed or raised the volume of it to make it fit. And there's no sense of space besides panning.

This is not all. Masuda's battle themes are significantly different this generation: the Wild Pokémon and Trainer battle themes are uninspired, with Kageyama either unwilling or unable to fiddle with them; the Champion theme would be one of the best in the series if it weren't so underdeveloped; and just about everything else gets a significant overhaul. It's all synths. Masuda's techno roots exposed. And it's... okay. It's a refreshing color change, and unlike many I actually like them, but they are, in general, longer than necessary for their thin material. The villain themes, be it encounter or battle, is now handled by Minako Adachi. When first I played XY, and for a long time afterward, I was disappointed. But the passage of time is restorative. Too many of the route themes are marches, but Adachi writes one last good march in "Route 8," and Kageyama's "Route 15" is excellent. Sato has stepped back, but many excellent tracks here are nonetheless hers ("Coumarine City," anyone?) Kageyama often sticks too close to the traditional JRPG sound, and so it's an unexpected surprise like "Kalos Power Plant" that sticks best. Adachi's Team Flare battle themes are not great, but her interest in textural diversity is a virtue and many of the best town and city themes are hers.

ORAS: Shota Kageyama, Minako Adachi, Hideaki Kuroda, Hitomi Sato (Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki, Junichi Masuda, Satoshi Nohara)
Unfortunately, the mixing problems carry over into the Hoenn remakes, which are once again handled by the Kageyama-Adachi team, this time with the addition of Hideaki Kuroda handling or co-handling arranging duties on a handful of tracks as well as contributing some live performances. The composers continue to exercise an unwillingness to fully exploit the possibilities of their sample libraries: the flute trills in "Professor Birch's Laboratory" sound robotic. And while RSE's soundtrack had to rely not just on its soundfont but, due to hardware limitations, the GBA's PSG, lending it a chiptune-esque flavor, here in ORAS, whether as a creative decision or as a horribly misguided attempt to capture the same effect, the orchestra is joined by a few too many synthesizers.

The result are a series of arrangements that range from solid to disappointing, hampered as much by that hollow mixing as much by the sound team's unwillingness, or inability, to fully utilize its resources. I've taken to saying that the team should've just rearranged the soundtrack and fed it through a Roland Sound Canvas – something Adachi already had experience thanks to the Riviera: The Promised Land remake that jumped from GBA to PSP and made that precise leap from downsampled SC soundfont to going straight through an SC. The synthesizers, alas, aren't the only bizarre choice: in "Wild Pokémon Battle" there are saxophones playing a line briefly; and instead of rearranging the timpani parts from the original, they keep them as is. Unfortunately, timpanis sound ridiculous outside of their playable range. So, solid to disappointing rearrangements. But there are a handful of exceptions: for "Fortree City," Hideaki Kuroda provides live accordion! And "Mt. Chimney" sounds totally new: instead of Ichinose's brassy original, Adachi gives it a funky, jazzy rearrangement.

There are a few originals, too. Kageyama arranges "Team Aqua & Magma Leader Battle" into a character theme; unfortunately, it's boring. (And the battle theme itself is disappointing – the trumpet in the original is imposing, but in the arrangement, it sounds almost goofy.) Even the good ideas end up poorly executed – Wally gets a theme! It's not even a minute long before it loops. Sometimes, five Grunts will storm you! It's a sub-30 second loop. No, the gems of the original tracks here are Kageyama's Delta Episode tracks - Zinnia's jazzy theme and Shimomura-esque battle theme are absolute highlights, the latter joining "Friends Battle" and the Super Training stuff from XY to reveal Kageyama's surprise talent at battle themes.

SM: Go Ichinose, Minako Adachi, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda, Tomoaki Oga, Jun Fukuda (Junichi Masuda, Morikazu Aoki)
And here, we come to the second-to-last official soundtrack release of the Pokémon series. Go Ichinose rejoins the sound team, joined by Minako Adachi, Hitomi Sato composing more here than in XY, Masuda contributing non-villain battle themes as usual, and Tomoaki Oga joining for some arrangements. New to the series is the sound of Hawaii – chants, percussion, ukulele all making appearances! There are a couple more recurring themes then usual: not just the villain material, but also a theme for the Alola region as a whole along with the gorgeous "Lillie's Theme" - all written by Adachi. All the same problems – inattention to space, compression, and the continuing, baffling refusal to use any sort of dynamics, remain in place.

The battle themes are a significantly mixed bag, far more so the regular Wild Pokémon battle theme is uninspired and Ichinose's messy arrangement doesn't help, while the similarly too-familiar Trainer battle theme gets a fantastic arrangement from Ichinose and Adachi. Masuda's Solgaleo and Elite Four battle themes continue the techno trend, and while these aren't to everybody's taste, I really like them. The villain battle themes are mostly okay, with the "Showdown! Lusamine" track excepted as excellent. Only four new route themes: "Route 1" is good, while the rest are marches. The town themes are the highlights here, whether it's Adachi's delightful "Hau'oli City" in either day or night version, Sato's "Paniola Town" bringing fun Western vibes while "Heahea City (Night)" stands out as one of the finest compositions in the whole game, or even Ichinose's "Konikoni City," which has shades of HGSS. Many of the area themes bring synth sounds quite unlike anything else in the series – it's a coin flip whether they fit or not, but they're cool compositions. Of those that leave out the synths, Sato's "Ancient Poni Path" is a highlight, one of the best tracks in the game. It's a wild and slightly incoherent mix of styles, but it means it's an interesting listen all the way through.

USUM: Minako Adachi, Go Ichinose, Junichi Masuda, Tomoaki Oga (Junichi Masuda, Minako Adachi)
Not sequels, but a little bit more than the typical "third version," USUM introduced new Pokémon and a bevy of improvements on the original games. And some new and remixed music, too. The Wild Pokémon battle theme gets a remix for the better, while the Trainer battle theme gets a techno remix – I'm not sure what to think of it, but it's fun. The Ultra Recon Squad battle music is good, too, I think my favorite of Adachi's villain battle themes. Masuda's "Ultra Necrozma Battle" is the best battle theme he's written in a long time, and the new area themes for the various Ultra [Place] are really good, too.

Just as BW2 introduced the Pokémon World Tournament, with new arrangements of all Gym Leader and Champion battle themes, so does USUM have a brand-new post-game, Episode RR, with which we get fresh arrangements of many of the villainous team leader battle themes! Tomoaki Oga's arrangements for the Aqua/Magma, Galactic, and Flare leader themes go all-in with the synths, radically rearranging them and giving them a completely different sound from their originals. The Ghetsis (representing Plasma, as N is absent) battle theme on the other hand goes wild with the timpani – I suspect Ichinose's hand here. Finally there is the battle theme for Giovanni himself, a great remix of the normal Rocket battle theme.

LGPE: Shota Kageyama (Junichi Masuda)
The final official soundtrack release of the Pokémon series is Kageyama's take on Masuda's RGBY soundtrack. We already saw Ichinose's mostly successful rearrangement with FRLG, and so it is with a heavy heart that I report that Kageyama's arrangements do not work a similar magic. These are competent, functional arrangements plagued with the same mixing and arrangement issues that have plagued Pokémon soundtracks since XY (albeit with a greater consistency of sound – what I've heard is that Kageyama used Spitfire libraries exclusively, rather than a mixture of libraries). Some tracks are hurt more than others: "Lavender Town" is torn between being creepy and mournful, and I think it would've been more successful had Kageyama felt freer to minimize the famous ostinato in favor of a strings and winds arrangement. "Pokémon Mansion" loses its original flavor completely, nary a synth in sight. Overall, the LGPE soundtrack is a disappointment. Stick to the chiptune originals and Ichinose's GBA arrangements.

SwSh: Go Ichinose, Minako Adachi, Keita Okamoto, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda, Toby Fox (Junichi Masuda, Morikazu Aoki)
There has been, for Sword and Shield, no soundtrack release. As such, where a composer for a specific track is referenced, I am using the guesses of the Video Game Music Resources Youtube channel's Sword/Shield soundtrack playlist. (Should there be an official release in the future, I'll update this if any tracks end up misattributed.) With this soundtrack, Go Ichinose and Minako Adachi seem to secure themselves as the voice of Pokémon music, with Toby Fox contributing one track, and Keita Okamoto (a new voice) contributing an unknown amount of music. (Junichi Masuda and Hitomi Sato both contribute to DLC.) One suspects that the team was rushed with this – some of the finest compositions since BW2 are here, but the mixing and arrangement still... well, let's say it leaves something to be desired. Sometimes, as in "Salon," those issues don't exist. Other times, it's actively painful, as in "Postwick," where the oboes really do squawk. Couple more notes: just as with Alola, Galar has an overall theme; in fact there are multiple leitmotifs across the entire game's soundtrack; and for the first time, the blend of orchestral-ish tracks and synth-driven tracks melds into a cohesive whole.

Onto the score itself. Opinions always vary on the quality of the battle themes, but here are mine: the regular Wild Pokémon and Trainer battle themes are sloppy, messy affairs, and I still don't like Adachi's villain material, and while the other battle themes are solid and inventive, it's a bad sign that the battle themes that are going to be heard the most are the weakest. The three Eternatus battle themes are an especial highlight, as is Toby Fox's "Battle! Battle Tower," which sounds exactly like a Toby Fox composition, so of course it's fantastic. I'm not sure whether I like the cheering crowds in the final battle themes for Hop, Marnie, or in the Champion battle theme, but they are at least used with a sensitivity to the musicality of the thing. The best tracks, though, still lay outside the realm of the battle theme: There is not one march among the route themes, a surprising but entirely welcome change. "Route 6," like "Wild Area (2)," brings in bagpipes for an utterly magical sound. The town themes, too, are fantastic, each very different from one another. Some are elegant and classical, while others bring rock or electronic vibes to the table. Ichinose's arrangements are a touch too busy, still, but they're tighter than in SM, while Adachi's textural diversity and chameleonic nature continues to pay dividends.

The Isle of Armor expansion brought some new tracks from Hitomi Sato, the character and battle themes for Klara, Avery, and Mustard, and they're excellent, of course, with the Mustard battle themes particular highlights. More Sato in The Crown Tundra, as well, providing the great Max Lair as well as the Peony character and battle themes, with the battle theme being a great jazz piece. Sato also arranges the Regi battle theme, and it sounds great. Junichi Masuda also returns, writing the Calyrex encounter theme and battle theme and Glastrier/Spectrier battle theme. The battle themes are Masuda's best in a long time. Kudos to Minako Adachi, also, for her lengthy theme for The Crown Tundra.

BDSP: Shota Kageyama, Junichi Masuda (Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda, Morikazu Aoki)
At some point in the course of becoming the go-to arranger for Pokémon remakes, Kageyama's loyalty to the original tracks was going to pay off. And so it is here that Kageyama loyally updates the original sounds, performing what amount to straight transfers from the original MIDI to newer samples without fiddling too much with either the instrument choices or with the original arrangements. Most interestingly of all, the mixing problems that have plagued the series since the end of the MIDI era are... not gone, but minimized.

That said, the arrangement issues remain. Dynamics are static. The orchestral snare is too heavy and too noisy. The bass is occasionally a little too quiet in the mix, and one gets the impression that a rather dated piano sample library has been used (especially where it's put front and center, as in "Jubilife City.") Some tracks just don't handle the transition well: "Oreburgh City" sounds limp. The timpani is weak. Any sense of space beyond that of panning is still missing. And, finally, the whole thing sounds very low-budget - though, as the originals were MIDI, this may actually be a virtue. But there are some positives – Kageyama's use of synths in the battle themes actually works, albeit better in some tracks than others. (Interestingly, while the Cynthia battle theme is a success, the Cyrus battle theme's opening doesn't sound quite right. There's something in the brass.) And, to my surprise, Kageyama demonstrates, in a handful of tracks, willingness to add new lines to the tracks he's arranging, and he does so with tastefulness: staccato stings in the Galactic Grunt and Admin battle themes; extending a strings line in "Mt. Coronet" to such gorgeous effect that I wish he'd kept going. (Listen to 0:31 onward - those high strings aren't there in the original! And they disappear far too soon, at 0:37.) 

Summary:
It's probably evident from my comments that I regard Generation II-V, the final chiptune soundtrack and all the Game Boy and DS soundtracks, as the golden age of Pokémon music. The move from MIDI to virtual instruments ought to have brought the series music to new heights, but instead it has prevented the scores from achieving them. Even MIDI instruments could be expressive; but the Pokémon composers refuse to use their virtual instruments to their fullest capabilities, marring otherwise fine compositions with soft attacks and static dynamics, and then compounding upon this problem by mixing them in ways that damage the music instead of bringing out their finest qualities. With Sword and Shield, a qualitative consistency not seen since BW has been achieved. But the continuing lack of good regular battle themes, and the continuing failure to arrange and mix in ways that heighten the mood and atmosphere of a track instead of dampening it, means that the series is not likely to achieve those heights again.