For those wondering, the ambience at the start is a loop that plays prior to you selecting "fight" in the menu when you enter the boss battle. Also that ending bit of the song always plays when a boss battle ends before changing screens, even if you lose.
I suspect that the music of Persona 1 is handled by the 24-channel sequenced audio chip, called the SPU (Sound Processing Unit). Multiple reasons led me to say that, but the biggest of those reasons is the segment from 0:00 to 1:04 If you’ve played the game, you’ll probably have noticed that this section loops indefinitely until a move is made in a boss battle. If it were streamed from the CD, there would be a delay in the music. However, the minute you press the fight button, it switches from the earlier section to the bulk of the song. To add, the section from 3:13 to 3:19 plays immediately after you exit the menu to collect gained experience and currency. This simply wouldn’t be possible on a CD with the technology at the time. The console would have to read the disk for the audio file and then play it. That process would likely take around 2 to 5 seconds to complete. By using the sequenced audio chip, that transition becomes almost instantaneous.
@@sebastianubeda8363 I’d have to check. And I noticed that the battle music doesn’t transition to the battle complete jingle _immediately_ per se, but the audio sequencer waits exactly one beat before it switches.
But how would the SPU be able to instantaneously switch between one song to another without the use of a CD? Like all PS1 games there is the 2-5 second wait time before transitioning things so why can Persona 1 do this? whats they secret behind this?😂😂
Meh, I prefer PSP OST probably cuz it sounds like the new persona trilogy osts (P3-P4-P5) But ye I get that the PSX ost fits more with the vibe of persona 1
@@hylianchampion7713 The PSP's OST is complete ass even if a few of its tracks are good, they're too short and loop too much to get any satisfying listening out of and are also lacking the atmosphere that the PSX ost has.
@@ils4844 couldn't have said it better dude, it was SO bad that I couldn't bring myself to buy the game when it was on store shelves. No way in hell was I subjecting my poor ears to torture porn.
This track opens up with icy chimes and vocals that sound straight out of a Snow Queen Quest song. It then suddenly transitions into a fast-paced motivating theme filled with influences from 80s progressive rock. This song would not sound out of place in SMTI, SMTII, or SMTIV. I adore the drum and organ work. The bass is nice too. I also really like the more metal-oriented remix from Eternal Punishment, but this one is my favorite. One really cool thing about this track is the pre-battle ambience portion(the icy chimes and vocals) doesn't actually play that long in-game. It'll continually loop until you hit "Fight!". And the sickest guitar riff is used to signal it. The song will also play itself out when the fight is over. This is without a doubt the best battle theme in Persona. P.S. According to the official liner notes for this game, the boss theme was meant to call back to the rock style present in SMTI/II.
I've got something better. Massacre Kandori. Take the US translation to Nyarlathotep and it also works well with him being controled by his persona. He wanted to massacre humanity so Narly gave him power that massacured himself by his own desire for power. A literal massacre that Kandori has become both in heart and mind.
I really liked that the only reason God Kandori even fought the team was because Nanjo couldn't help being an asshole lol. I suppose it's just kinda rare for a villain to show itself to be so thoroughly unfulfilled even after becoming a literal God.
Aoki wrote the opening, one of the shopping district themes, and the final boss theme for the SEBEC route, but he mainly worked on the dungeon themes as well as the sound effects. Misaki Okibe worked on a lot of the chill/ambient/surreal songs in the game. In my personal opinion, both her and Aoki created very detailed and complex soundscapes for this game, very atmospheric tracks. Devil’s Peak and 2nd Ward(Incident) are the quintessential songs, the most deep and dreamlike songs in the game. They also came up with the Satomi Tadashi Pharmacy Theme. Okibe was the lyricist and did the music while Aoki sang it. New to the company was Tsuchiya and Meguro. Tsuchiya joined the company in 1995 while Meguro joined the company the following year. To be exact, it was April 1996, which explains why he contributed very little to the score. Anyway, Tsuchiya worked on almost every battle theme, map theme, event theme, and most of the character themes. Finally, Meguro wrote the original Velvet Room theme which was actually the first song he ever did for the company. He did a few songs here and there including most of the ending themes, but he was mainly stuck on the filler music, the FMV BGM. Overall, he really didn’t do much. The bulk of the soundtrack was handled by other people. Anyway though R.I.P. Hidehito Aoki, a creative genius who was taken from us way too soon. I really would’ve liked to have seen him compose for an SMT game.
1:05 to 1:32 is the best. It shows the boss battle getting more intense and also the melancholy of 90s where 'epic struggle' is an everyday occurence for people.
CatSonicX If you ask me, I think that the PSP remake should've had both the new and original soundtracks at once to reduce the monotony of the PSP songs. That way, you won't go absolutely insane when listening to A Lone Prayer for the millionth time (it could switch between that or the original battle theme), AND you still have School Days, Deadline, PSP Pandora, and Dream of Butterfly in the same OST. For the final boss, the original could be for the first phase and the new song could be phase 2. It could also be randomly generated to change depending on entering and leaving an area/battle. But since Persona 1 and 2 get the cold shoulder daily, I have high doubts that it will happen.
Kenichi Tsuchiya absolutely nailed the perfect tense feeling for a boss battle with this one. It is SO good! The intro is calm but tense, then once "Fight" is selected? It's on! Kicking it into full gear and putting you in the mood to kick some serious ass. This has not been replicated since. The PSP version? What was Meguro-san thinking? That soundtrack is a rare black mark on his otherwise stellar career. Atlus should've just left the soundtrack alone or given us the option to select the original soundtrack. Because yeah, the PSP soundtrack killed the atmosphere the PSOne version had. Glad modders are rectifying this in a huge way, I would love to see the PSP version released on modern platforms with the option to switch between the two soundtracks.
this is too good wtf, if there's another remake lord atlas pls give us the option of switching between the classic and new soundtracks like Persona 2 did 🙏🙏🙏
@@LostSoul2279 nah, you're stuck with the new shit lmao to get it in the psp version you have to emulate and patch the psp eboot/iso/whatever file type with an xdelta patch from reddit, which is buggy since the battle theme doesn't loop properly and it doesn't change all the music
@@FungalFury i know it's an old comment, but you can find the mod on gamebanana as "Persona 1 Music Restoration", SEBEC route is currently at 99% while Snow Queen is at 40%, been using it myself and it's been a blast so far, they somehow also restored the initial ambience loop and made some themes work just like the original release, same goes to dungeon themes when you enter a room.
Kenichi Tsuchiya is actually the one who composed this track, Aoki did the dungeon tracks as well as the SEBEC route final boss theme. Meguro did the 3d cutscenes/ending themes+ Kama Palace Entrance then the rest of the ost was spread between Tsuchiya and Misaki Okibe (Who composed most of the calm/ambient themes.)
Excuse the comparison, but this really sounds like it comes straight out of King Of Fighters or F-Zero X. The start of the battle part of the theme sounds so similar to Geese's Theme
For me,Persona 1 on the PSX version has the best ost in the saga,and also this is my favorite boss theme on the entire series,sadly that the PSP remake ruined the amazing ambient that the PSX version had.
totally agree. Only Persona 2 Innocent Sin for PS1 comes close to it, but sadly the P1 composer died inbetween the production for P2, hence why this style and composer Hidehito Aoki, was never heard from again.
Just a nitpick. Can we get the name of the track (Deadline) added in the title. I had a hard time finding this song when going through the playlist because I was looking for "Deadline".
I actually have an explanation for this, there were two soundtracks for Persona 1 (not counting the PSP version,) the first one only had about half of the full soundtrack (as well as a few arrangements,) but each track had a unique title. The second had almost the entire soundtrack barring a couple minor tracks, but some of the titles were more generic. For example on the 1st soundtrack the boss theme was titled "死線" ("Deadline" or "Between Life and Death") while on the latter soundtrack it was instead titled "戦闘～中ボス" (" Battle ~ Mid-Boss.")
Night Beast Grab my right arm Smiling like you got all 壊れかけた black box 抱いて Hidden fear overwhelms Mustn't go back, no control 締め付ける inner soul 固く Save me from that bloody destiny How do you feel seizing me now? You made me like this From that bloody destiny Oh God you can't Let me down
i love how the beginning is basically the classic SMT encounter theme but with a horror vibe this game was so damn unique, its a shame they went a different route with P3
@@ewerton8463 Personally (not pun intended) i like that they changed direction with Persona, don't get me wrong i like this but is really similar to SMT and from P3 forward the Persona series got a personality on its own
There was a comment from an older upload of this theme that said the first minute had Rick Wakeman playing in the corner to hype you up. I’m just here to continue that legacy.
papper Think you got confused there, the original composer is listed in the description and that was who you meant instead. I'm assuming that Random ness meant Hideki Naganuma, or there's another Hideki that I didn't know about connected to Persona.
The reason it's like that is because in the PS1 version, that beginning part would play until you hit "Fight", then the battle music would kick in as soon as you pressed it
