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With Final Fantasy Brave Exvius being a mobile release, anticipation surrounding the soundtrack might be lower compared to other titles in the series. If this describes your attitude (as it did mine), then prepare to be pleasantly surprised: this music could easily have accompanied a “major” release. Noriyasu Agematsu‘s series debut, with the assistance of… Read More »

While Nobuo Uematsu may be enjoying the good life at his own pace, his legacy of contributions to the Final Fantasy franchise continues to grow as a vast library of arrangements and remixes. The awkwardly titled BRA★BRA FINAL FANTASY BRASS de BRAVO 2 again features the Siena Wind Orchestra, who perform 12 more arrangements from… Read More »

I absolutely love the music from Mega Ran and was looking forward to finally getting this musical treat off my candy dish, because I have a sweet tooth for hip hop. And boi, Mega Ran, Lost Perception and R23X did some fine work here weaving a lyrically fascinating narrative with the music of Final Fantasy… Read More »

Florence + the Machine dropped a 15 minute bombshell to their fanbase, as well as the FF fanbase, earlier this week. It came in the form of this digital EP, “Songs from Final Fantasy XV.” Note the beautiful minimalism of the cover artwork, the X and the V layered against one another, creating the shape… Read More »

I’ve had nearly a year to bathe in the warm glow of this fine album. Yes, some people were disappointed in it. “There’s not enough Chrono Cross source material! There are too many vocal tracks! It’s too short!” These complaints are all variants of “I didn’t get what I wanted, my expectations were not met.”… Read More »

In its first few tracks, Undertale initially comes across as a faithful tribute to the NES era à la Shovel Knight. Once the piano kicks in on “Ruins,” though, it becomes clear that Toby Fox is working from a wider palette. In fact, one of the defining features of Undertale‘s soundtrack is the way it… Read More »

When I researched the music of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D, I found many questions about whether there were any changes to the original soundtrack. Even Koji Kondo, lead composer of the original Nintendo 64 release, downplayed the differences in the new OST, saying that there was only “some rebalancing.” After careful cross-referencing… Read More »

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, composed by Revo, houses one of the best JRPG soundtracks of recent memory. Every piece felt perfectly paced and expertly constructed, and I still whistle tracks like “The Horizon: Endless Light and Shadow” without realizing it. Sadly, Revo was not available to work on Bravely Second: End Layer due to scheduling… Read More »

Squaresoft’s classic JRPGs released during the Super Nintendo’s reign are fondly remembered for many reasons, among them the masterful compositions of composers like Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda. So when I Am Setsuna (IAS) was initially announced as a return to this legacy, fans might’ve expected IAS’s music to approximate their styles. Interestingly, Square Enix… Read More »

NIS America’s PlayStation Vita port of Stranger of Sword City (Ken no Machi no Ihoujin) released late this April with an excellent limited edition that included the full 2-disc soundtrack. The soundtrack features the music of Naoaki Jimbo who has slowly but steadily matured his style over the years. This album continues his work with… Read More »

I would like to present to you an actual, totally true (not really) correspondence between myself and Square Enix. ~~~Dear Square Enix,Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden) remains one of my favorite games to this day. It is an absolute classic. And, while some people were disappointed in the Brownie Brown-reimagined Sword of… Read More »

Today is a day of triumph. Perhaps it was due to the success of those three (not one, not two, but three) SaGa Battle rock albums. But, in any case, we now have an orchestral album. That’s right! Friends, citizens, fellow SaGa-loving otaku, we now have an entire orchestral work devoted solely to the SaGa… Read More »

With digital music being the most convenient, and most popular, distribution model for consumers these days, publishers of physical artifact media (CD, audio Blu-ray, etc) have begun to regularly incentivize potential buyers with exclusive bonus content. This sort of thing has always been around, but in recent years, Square Enix has definitely increased the level… Read More »

Lush. Upbeat. Delightful. These are the words typically used to describe developer Gust‘s soundtracks in their Atelier series of RPGs. The latest game in the series, Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, has a soundtrack that totally lives up to that expectation. This lush, upbeat, and thoroughly delightful soundtrack is an absolute pleasure… Read More »

The relationship between console and mobile gaming has been a rocky, often unstable one. A number of classic franchises, including Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Sega’s Shining, have all wound up on cellphones and tablets in one form or another, and while re-releases of 8- and 16-bit titles have often suffered less for the transition,… Read More »

We collectors owe a debt of gratitude to XSEED Games, and especially to their localization specialist and Corpse Party champion, Thomas Lipschultz. You see, this two disc set titled songs of the dead, available exclusively with the physical copy (“Everafter Edition”) of the PS Vita title Corpse Party: Blood Drive, combines three full soundtracks from… Read More »

There’s something to be said for a well-curated experience. I tend to despise these bonus soundtracks, which will tout a few unique arrangements but are otherwise a “best-of” from the full OST. It creates a kind of collectors’ dilemma that ultimately costs the collector financially. In other words, we might call it a cheap grab… Read More »

Shin Sekaiju no MeiQ, or “Etrian Odyssey Untold” to we Westerners, is the remake of the original Etrian Odyssey. Alongside the move from DS to 3DS, the game offers a character-centered story that better explains the plot and world of EO, as well as two new classes, and most importantly, an entirely new soundtrack recording.… Read More »

Among the composers in the SaGa series, the one man Square Enix has turned to most often is Kenji Ito. Ito rooted himself with Square around 1990 with both SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2 in the US) and the first Seiken Densetsu title (Final Fantasy Adventure in the US). Ito wrote, on his own,… Read More »

My first exposure to Sean Schafianski’s work was Final Fantasy VII Remastered Tracks Volume 1. What I really love about that album is that he selected the more overlooked, lesser-known, and underrated tracks as his canvas. This fired up a subconsciously deeper nostalgia in me and made me think of the game’s quieter, more “in… Read More »

I don’t normally pre-order soundtracks, but when I heard Go Shiina was returning to help compose Tales of Zestiria alongside Motoi Sakuraba, my wallet leapt from my back pocket to my lap, shivering with excitement that could only be quelled by taking my money out and throwing it at the screen. To have two of… Read More »

Yes, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is a sequel to A Link to the Past. That being said, don’t worry if you haven’t played the SNES game. The Link Between Worlds OST can definitely stand on its own. A Link Between Worlds is loyal in its resurrection of songs from A Link… Read More »

When fellow RPGFan caretaker John Tucker tapped me to talk about the soundtrack to Bik, a spacey adventure game with a retro/sci-fi bent, I wasn’t sure what I’d be hearing. After spending some time with it, it seems that talking about it as an abstract experience is probably more appropriate than a discussion of its… Read More »

It’s always delightful to hear exciting new music when I return to my listening docket! Today, readers and listeners, we have Ryan Richko’s soundtrack to Telepath Tactics–a potpourri of sweet and wonderful pieces that will soothe the heart, excite the brain, and tickle the senses. Oh, how these scrumptious treats cause my ears to tingle… Read More »

Indie darling MidBoss came out of left field with their sleeper hit Read Only Memories, a cyberpunk point and click adventure that paid tribute to its primary predecessor: Snatcher. It also starred a fantastic ensemble cast of characters with varying identities: transhumanism in the form of AI sentience and human-animal hybrids; LGBT characters whose existence… Read More »