Secret of Mana Genesis / Seiken Densetsu 2 Arrange Album, 08.08.2012

[Yggdrasil]

Tracklist:

01. Genesis: Fear of the Heavens   
02. Fantasies: A Curious Tale   
03. Friends: Together Always   
04. Wilderness: Into the Thick of It   
05. Memories: The Color of the Summer Sky   
06. Fairies: The Little Sprite   
07. Mystics: What the Forest Taught Me   
08. Avengers: Danger   
09. Winds: Calm Before the Storm   
10. Gremlins: Flight into the Unknown   
11. Prophecies: Prophecy   
12. Machines: Steel and Snare   
13. Secrets: Leave Time for Love   
14. Ballads: Still of the Night   
15. Mass: Meridian Dance   
16. Truth: The Second Truth from the Left

Composed and Arranged by: Hiroki Kikuta (source)

Official website

Previews of the tracks in the "TRACK LIST" section

[GrimReality]

Secret of Mana 2 has one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. I went to the site and they just seem to be playing snippets of actual game music, not arranged stuff. I'll want to hear the real deal before purchasing.

[Ramza]

um ...Grim? Those ARE the arrangements.

This is clearly a "sound upgrade" project, taking the source material and routing it through the best sound libraries available today.

Frankly, I'm psyched for the album.

Also, the page has plenty of info. The full tracklist is there (16 tracks in all, new titles in English, source tune names in Japanese), and a multi-paragraph note from Kikuta talking about the project is there as well. And there are four separate audio samples. Listen closely to "prophecies" on that site, and compare it to...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEilQOiuE_g -- original

There's a clear difference in sound quality.

[GrimReality]

Yeah, I listened to both again, and I hear the difference now. Still, when I see the word "arrangement" I'm hoping for a bit more than just better quality sound. Secret of Mana music done with a full orchestra, perhaps? Now THAT would be awesome. Until then I'll happily continue listening to my OST, which is quite fantastic.

[Ramza]

Yeah, I listened to both again, and I hear the difference now. Still, when I see the word "arrangement" I'm hoping for a bit more than just better quality sound. Secret of Mana music done with a full orchestra, perhaps? Not THAT would be awesome. Until then I happily continue listening to my OST, which is quite fantastic.

See "Symphonic Fantasies" (and the newer "Symphonic Fantasies Tokyo"), track 3. It's 20 minutes of orchestral joy.

[chronos]

Honestly it is a bit disappointing. I was expecting something more lively, with better instrument quality. The result is still charming of course! I played the game so many times and know the melodies by heart with the Snes sound library.
Games were so good at the time!

[Ramza]

I'll admit that the thing I'm really excited about is when Kikuta does this same concept for Seiken Densetsu 3. That game has some great music that gets sorely neglected in the world of recent SQ-arrangement-milking.

[chronos]

So anyone grabbed the CD ? It was released 2 days ago..
There are more and more samples on the official page, and it doesn't sound so bad after all ^^
Stil I can't understand why the track "Machinaries" was chosen among the other ones.