The Music of Terranigma

Terranigma's score is credited to Miyoko Kobayashi (also credited as Miyoko Takaoka) and Masanori Hikichi, who also designed the game's sounds. Hikichi arrived with an unusual line on his résumé: he had composed for Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 the year before. Between them they wrote one of the Super Nintendo's most praised scores, the element retrospective reviewers reach for first: USgamer's Nadia Oxford, writing about the track "Underworld," called the music one of the best soundtracks on the SNES and the carrier of the game's themes of mystery and unease.

The score had a commercial life of exactly one Japanese album. Tenchi Sōzō Creative Soundtracks was released by Kitty Enterprises on October 25, 1995, five days after the game: 33 compositions from the cartridge plus six arranged tracks. No Western release followed, because no Western game release followed in America, and the album joined the long list of Terranigma objects that exist only on the Japanese side of the story.

The strangest credit took twenty-nine years to surface. In December 2024, Yuzo Koshiro, who had scored ActRaiser for Quintet, announced that research had established the laboratory theme, Beruga's laboratory, as his composition, written at producer Masaya Hashimoto's request and never credited. Kobayashi confirmed the story in reply. For the 2027 re-release, the credited composers themselves are returning to rearrange select tracks: the score's third decade opens with its authors back at the desk.