PLAN 31: RISE OF MCFEAR
The Official Soundtrack

So RISE OF MCFEAR is a blog with music. Originally the music was just hastily-edited versions of old Sunsetters songs, but in 2023 I bit the bullet and actually made original compositions. Most of them are meant to stand in for Ace Attorney contexts, of which the story has plenty. "Cornered" is the only track that directly references the Ace Attorney OST; the rest of them simply pay tribute to the structures and ideas. And all of them contribute to a unique style that I wanted to represent PLAN 31. That style is, loosely, "broken jazz in a mechanical soundfont."

This page will continue to be updated as the story continues and more songs are introduced.
All the songs on this page will loop.

The Main Theme was composed first and established the style I wanted from the rest of the soundtrack. The first section of this song doubles as the theme of The Blog Without a Face.

This was also composed fairly early on. It may change from being Frank's theme if I find a better spot for it. For instance, it may work instead as an "Objection" theme, for when Frank makes a pretty good point in court. But placed here, track-wise, it leads well into the following track.

The theme of King's Court, under the jurisdiction of the Honorable Supreme Hat. This plays every time a court session begins and is designed to loop well. Towards the end of the loop, the piano plays a variation on the melody from the end of the Main Theme.

The Cross-Examination music is the glue that holds the Ace Attorney games together, as you will hear it on a loop many times, sometimes for very long times. It gets caught in your head, and you don't mind hearing it for that long. While the actual games generally root their C-E music in a piano melody, I rooted mine in a bass riff that gradually wanders. I have put this to the test and had it on for hours while I did other things, and I did not want to turn it off in the end.

The allegro variation plays during the "boss battles," the final testimonies, the climactic and often hardest logic puzzles. It plays a variation of the moderato piece at a faster tempo (hence, "allegro"), but also continues the composition with an additional section in a different key signature. I made sure to do all that too with mine. I can and have easily listened to this on a loop for hours.

This piece plays whenever Frank Slenderman makes a damn good point, turning the tides of the case and putting the prosecution on the backfoot. In Ace Attorney, Cornered is iconic; it is victorious, melodic, and exciting. My version is not as melodic, instead opting for a broken melody to fit in with the jazzy PLAN 31 style, but I root the piece in the traditional Ace Attorney Cornered riff (dun dun dun dun-dun-dun, dun dun dun dun-dun-dun) and made.... a pumping dance number. In hindsight, I made a later-generation Pokemon gym boss theme. Anyway, it's also very loopable. The melody is a variation on the melody in "Of Tension."

A mainstay of the Ace Attorney series is the iconic prosecutor character. RISE OF MCFEAR gives us the Black Mask, who has layers within him. This piece is rooted in a composition by Lindsay (my collaborator for Sunsetters), but I've done a lot of editing on it by this point. This song contains all the PLAN 31 OST staples, and ends with a representation of the Black Mask's hidden depths.