The Oracle

February 28, 2021

The Oracle is the boss theme for Thanatos’ true form, Dark Lich. According to Hiroki Kikuta:

The kecak monkey dance chant, which is also a part of Javanese culture, was used for the purpose of this song. Composed of four beats, I put the chant in the song just like that.”

You can see the dance here:

The track sets this motif in a thrash metal style with rave elements that was not like anything I’d heard on a video game console.  It starts with a series of gongs, which move to the electronic implementation of the chant.  Synthetic and organic percussion sounds abound throughout the track, along with different samples.  Most of them are noisy rushes of sound, but there’s the memorable well placed laugh at :38.  Like Danger, this also makes you sit up and take note of the horrific doom you might be meeting soon as an ancient demonic entity could steal your body.  At :24, the track loses some noise, and gains the sense of a trip you wish would end.  We return to the theme before :54 which has a one measure transition to throw you off before the next section comes in.  This part is the most melodic and is highly reminiscent of the cave theme from the first Final Fantasy. It leads to a rising choir section at 1:19 which is similar to the second part of Ceremony.

It’s a track that makes a mockery of all that is good, which is precisely what Thanatos embodies.  The 2018 version is a totally different arrangement that lacks all of the exhilaration of the original.  It’s a fairly generic and comparatively pedestrian sounding remix that begs for a dose of energy worthy of the fight.