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Saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and VGM Renaissance man Sean Schafianski is back with the October 20 release of Jazz Arrange Version: Xenogears, and just in time for the 27th anniversary of the PSOne classic’s North American release. Those uninitiated into the complex psycho-religious mecha drama that is Xenogears (and the larger Xeno series) need not worry:… Read More »

Friends, have you spent any time in the Mount Holly mansion, centerpiece of the puzzle-adventure Blue Prince? If you haven’t, you really need to. If you have, you might have noticed some eerie, haunting music as you traversed the ever-changing halls and chambers. Without a doubt, the music fits the genre, the environment, the atmosphere,… Read More »

Now here’s an exciting compilation of arranged music! SQ Music Collections combines the entire catalog of Square Enix’s “SQ” music series in one handy release! That’s eleven albums, combined as a digital-only release. This release is freely streamable and is purchasable as a digital download for about 40 USD at various online distributors. Before digging… Read More »

Square Enix concludes their “SQ” series with Last SQ, a two-disc compilation of tracks from the eleven previous “SQ” entries. Fortunately, it does contain some new tunes as well. Four new arrangements, to be exact! As I write this, I should acknowledge that Last SQ is eclipsed in concept and in completeness by the recently… Read More »

As one of the final entries in Square Enix’s “SQ” album series, SQ Swing is a swingin’ thing. As I dug into this album, I found some startlingly impressive tracks. I also found some weak arrangements and some frustrating repeats. I also noticed a lack of cohesion in the “swing” theme. Not every one of… Read More »

In Square Enix Chill Out Arrangement Tracks – Around 80’s Mix, Square Enix answers the question, “What if lofi hip hop radio beats to relax/study to featured music from our earliest NES and Game Boy RPGs?” Specifically, six games get represented across this album: the first two Final Fantasy games, the first Seiken Densetsu game… Read More »

Very few games have such sweeping soundtracks that offering all of the alternate, prototype, and otherwise unused music seems a sensible option. Think Final Fantasy XIII OST PLUS albums. Now imagine it’s even more thorough, and it’s from Indivisible by Hiroki Kikuta! Indivisible Original Soundtrack PLUS is the inevitable, surprisingly enjoyable follow-up to the full… Read More »

After Square Enix shadow dropped SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered earlier this year, I patiently waited for Square Enix Music to publish this new version’s full soundtrack. Why? Well, not for a remastering of the original audio. My excitement was entirely for the ten new tracks, which make up disc four. If you don’t have the… Read More »

Suikoden II is one of my favourite games of all time and was the first game in the series I played. When the remaster of I and II was announced, I was thrilled. Not only would I get the chance to play through II again after a long time, but I could finally experience the… Read More »

I have dreamt of the day Xenosaga got its own piano collection. Thanks to Wayô Records, Benyamin Nuss, and many others, that day has arrived. And it arrived with some extra perks! Across the Kosmos ~ Xenosaga Piano Collection is a follow-up of sorts to Across the Worlds ~ Chrono Cross Wayô Piano Collection. Both… Read More »

Many gamers caught Deltarune fever in 2025, with the simultaneous release of Chapters 3 and 4 (of a planned seven total chapters). Personally, this game music fanboy had been waiting patiently for a Deltarune Piano Collections release from Materia Collective. After all, their official two-volume publication of piano arrangements for Toby Fox’s original Undertale has… Read More »

In a conversation with BAFTA-winning composer Yoko Shimomura, composer/auteur director Toby Fox spoke on teaching himself his favorite game music on piano by ear. In many ways, the soundtrack to his indie smash hit Undertale (2015) is a sharp-eared deconstruction of iconic NES and SNES-era tunes, just as the game’s story and gameplay pick apart… Read More »

The heavy-hearted PSOne synths of Nobuo Uematsu’s score for Final Fantasy VII (1997) have been arranged and reinterpreted officially and by fans more times than any game in our coverage, barring perhaps The Legend of Zelda. Among the many, many versions of FFVII‘s iconic soundtrack, 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake Acoustic Arrangements (coinciding with the… Read More »

SHIFT UP‘s Stellar Blade soundtrack turned out to be one of my favourites of 2024, taking me by surprise with its blend of contemporary popular music genres, electronics, and experimentation. I love how it moves from mellow atmospheric pieces to mid-tempo ambient pop to full-blown electro-bangers. You’d think after ten hours of music I might… Read More »

The Shin Megami Tensei 30th Anniversary -Special Sound Compilation- is a massive collection of music split between a 5-CD set and the baffling addition of a USB stick for what would have been another 14 CDs’ worth of music. In some ways, this set offers a massive, inclusive look at the music of Atlus’ flagship… Read More »

Oh snap! Time to break open some marble soda, because it’s time for #SQkawaii Sounds -Final Fantasy-! Enter a sugary synth-pop wonderland, where the music subverts genre expectations and the music is very, very hard to describe! What I can say for sure is that this is, indeed, a Final Fantasy series arranged album: one… Read More »

To say that Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei series deals in juxtapositions would be an oversimplification. The series’ ongoing motif of Tokyoite students battling and commandeering demons and creatures from various mythologies to halt universe-shattering wars between pseudo-biblical angels and devils is still present, but Shin Megami Tensei IV (released on the 3DS in 2013) further… Read More »

The latest release in the Gifts from Vana’diel music series, Final Fantasy XI Gifts from Vana’diel: Prime Memories Soundtrack, offers past and present players a glimpse into how the long-running MMORPG’s music has evolved more than twenty years after its beginnings. Final Fantasy XI veteran composer Naoshi Mizuta is still at the helm, and with… Read More »

The Songs of Rebirth digital EP for Final Fantasy XI covers the entirety of the Rhapsodies of Vana’diel chapter. The first six tracks are exclusive to this digital release. The remaining tracks were first published on the Final Fantasy XI Priceless Remembrance Blu-ray disc (and I encourage readers to check that review for discussion around… Read More »

When you strip away the fancy subtitles—your Replicants, your Gestalts, your *sigh* ver 1.22474487139…’s—the proper NieR series (NieRies?) doesn’t have all that many entries: NieR, NieR: Automata, and the free-to-play gacha mobile game NieR Re[in]carnation. It’s hard to believe this considering the dozen-plus NieR music albums Square Enix has released, including 2012’s Piano Collections NieR… Read More »

I was very pleasantly surprised when Star Ocean: The Divine Force was announced. After the lukewarm reception to Integrity & Faithlessness and its obvious lack of budget, I, along with probably most of the series’ fanbase, expected that to be the final entry. Thankfully, it was not, and I couldn’t be happier about it. The… Read More »

The longer a franchise continues with new entries, the more urgent the warning “evolve or die” comes to be. With the latest Atelier entry, Atelier Yumia ~The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land~, developer Gust must have been feeling that pressure. Without question, Project A26 is a new frontier for the Atelier series as… Read More »

“Wake up, Sleeper.” In Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, you awaken once again into your new body, its context, its emotions—or rather, singular emotion: fear. Somewhere, another you has signed away your consciousness to be emulated into a sleeper, a synthetic body built to toil in deep space on behalf of monolithic corporation Essen-Arp. Once… Read More »

“It’s at its worst when waking, when your self has spent many dark hours recalling what it felt like to be real, to be a person, to be in a body that was indisputably yours.” Right from the opening lines of solo developer Jump Over the Age’s (Gareth Damian Martin’s) Citizen Sleeper, the theme of… Read More »

Released months after the physical CD (Breath of Fire 6 Original Soundtrack -Pulse-), Breath of Fire 6 Original Soundtrack -Soar- served as a digital-only follow-up soundtrack, volume two of a live service title that could have had many more volumes of music. However, given the game’s servers shut down one year later, this soundtrack presently… Read More »