This promotional soundtrack is currently the only album that exists for Arc Rise Fantasia. An "in-spirit" member of the Luminous Arc series, it seems that this Wii title isn't going to have a full soundtrack. This promotional item, with the definite "Original Soundtrack" surname, only has 13 tracks on it. And here's the shocker: the best music comes from the lesser-known composers.

First of all, Shimomura's name only appears here because the song "Kopin Race" uses the melody of a song from Luminous Arc 2. Shimomura had no direct work on this soundtrack. As for Mitsuda, he worked on the vocal themes and a few other songs... but they did not stand out. Shunsuke Tsuchiya, however, wrote some very hip music for this game.

Tsuchiya composed my favorite track from this short disc: "Waiting at the Farthest Ends." Oddly enough, the piece sounds like something Shimomura would've written for Parasite Eve, Legend of Mana, or Kingdom Hearts (in its better musical moments). Pieces like this one are rare to come by, but I truly enjoyed it.

In fact, I enjoyed most of what I heard on this disc. A shame, that it's only a small sample of what I assume is a much larger body of work written for the game. I hope I'm wrong about this being the only CD we ever see for the game. I also hope to hear more from Hiroki Harada and Shunsuke Tsuchiya in the near future.

Reviewed by: Patrick Gann