“They just might be our future…”
It’s hard to listen to Chrono Trigger’s “The Day the World Revived” and not be reminded of the impoverished inhabitants of 2300 A.D. Doan and his people had given up on life, until Chrono (yes, I say “Chrono” because real life isn’t limited to 5 characters), Marle, and Lucca return with seeds, representing the potential for new life, and giving them something they’ve never had: Hope.
The song is one of Chrono Trigger’s more beautiful melodies and begged to be redone in a more orchestral style. There’s plenty of arrangements and remixes out there that successfully adapt music to a completely different style than the original, which is great. Sometimes though, a song has a certain sound, and a certain feel, that you want to retain. I’m almost always let down when listening to a remix of Terra’s Theme from Final Fantasy VI because it doesn’t have the right “feel” that made me fall in love with the original song to begin with.
While the Super Nintendo’s sound abilities were far from bad, I feel Blake Robinson has unlocked the true potential of The Day the World Revived with his arrangement. He understood the weight the original song carried and its place in the story and held true to that. The result is a track that’s slow, at times brooding, and completely captures the cathartic feelings of hope overcoming despair that it’s meant to. This song – and Blake Robinson’s works in general – come highly recommended.
