Hate Plus OST Review

• Name: Hate Plus OST
• Label: Christine Love
• Composer(s): Isaac Schankler
• Number of Tracks: 20

I recently managed to get the Humble Bundle titled "For Lovers (of Games)" which meant I ended up with a lot of Japanese style visual novel games – one of them being Christine Love's Hate Plus. While I've finished the game I've yet to type up the review, so in the meantime let's take a look at the game's soundtrack (which was also included as part of the Humble Bundle).

The soundtrack contains 20 tracks all of which are very short (usually less than two minutes save for the ridiculously long "Cake!" which clocks in at 21 minutes) although you could almost discount the 6 second track "Probe" since it’s really just a sound effect.

The soundtrack starts off with a bang thanks to a catchy, vocal number called "It's Not Ero!" with vocals by Senah Kim and lyrics by the game's developer, Christine Love. Admittedly some of the irony is lost on me with this particular track since despite its happy, care-free music, the lyrics have dark undertones that only fans of the original game, Analogue: A Hate Story, would understand (I actually didn't get very far in the game.)

The rest of the soundtrack contains mostly short, ambient, minimalist stuff which I don't tend to like, although they work well when listened to in the game. Particular favourites of mine include "Dream", an appropriately dreamy and lovely piano piece that reminds me of the soundtrack from "The Shawshank Redemption", the toe-tapping and melodic "Vision" which reminds me of the game Frederik Pohl's Gateway and "Old" which sounds very serious and formal with a hint of the blues to it.

The rest of the soundtrack is okay save for the noisy or discordant tracks such as "People" and "Birth" that are really hard for me to get into.

Score - 5/10

Hate Plus has a great soundtrack when listened to in-game but probably doesn’t work so well as an album you’d listen to on your playlist save for the excellent vocal number "It's Not Ero!" (which is unfortunately very rare to hear in the game).

I managed to get this soundtrack along with the Humble Bundle but at the moment you can either get it as DLC off Steam for $5 USD or off Isaac Schankler's Bandcamp site for the same price.