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Austin Wintory’s soundtrack to The Banner Saga sounds like music the people in the game might make. These are voices raised to comfort those on a harrowing journey and instruments played to ease the pain of tough travel. Warm horns stoke the fire inside, woodwinds soothe, and drums make marching seem like a part of… Read More »

Since The Elder Scrolls first went from “cool” to “wildly popular” in 2002 with its third installment, Morrowind, the singular provider of the series’ soundscape has been Jeremy Soule. Soule is a talented composer, someone who can provide quality and quantity in equal measure. He stepped us his game significantly in the past few years,… Read More »

When Square Enix released “The 3rd Birthday” (aka Parasite Eve 3), they decided to bring back some goodies from the past. The now-defunct DigiCube was the sole publisher of the first Parasite Eve soundtrack, and the sole Japanese publisher of the sequel’s soundtrack. Both were long out of print. So S-E reprinted both soundtracks individually.… Read More »

2008’s drammatica – The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura is one of my all-time most beloved albums. I’ve listened to it regularly since it debuted and hold each and every track on the disc in the highest regard. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that memória! / The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura had… Read More »

I was a big fan of the original Borderlands 2 soundtrack (and the game itself, of course). The tunes wavered between spacey western-style shootout tracks and more ambient, electronic pieces (like the absolutely stellar “Wildlife Exploitation Preserve” track). It capitalized on the vibes the first game had been aiming for while giving them a sense… Read More »

With Mister Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, we have perhaps my least favorite of the Borderlands 2 soundtracks. The campaign itself was hilarious and over-the-top, and if nothing else, the tunes do complete the 1980s-Thunderdome-meets-hair-bands-rocking-and-shooting-each-other-in-the-face vibe that the DLC itself was going for. In that regard, this album is certainly a success, but it’s rather forgettable… Read More »

Koichi Sugiyama left his imprint on the sands of RPG history long before Dragon Quest X was even a glint in SquareEnix’s eyes. The composer of the Dragon Quest franchise, Sugiyama builds on what has been done before with refinements along the way. Anyone who’s played even a couple games of this flagship series knows… Read More »

The first “Re:Birth” album from Kenji Ito featured new arrangements of his work on the Seiken Densetsu series. “Re:Birth II” gave us an excellent collection of battle music arrangements from the Romancing SaGa trilogy. Now, in “Re:Birth II -Sen-,” Ito-san returns with most of Falcom’s highly-esteemed JDK Band to give us even more SaGa love.… Read More »

Path of Exile has burst onto the scene recently as a solid, online action RPG in similar vein to the Diablo and Torchlight series. Independently developed by Grinding Gear Games, Adgio Hutchings, with some contributions from Gautier Serre, helms the extensive soundtrack list that is integral to the dark, brooding atmosphere of the island of… Read More »

In the interest of full disclosure, let me first say that I have been friends with Jayson Napolitano and looked to him as a mentor of sorts for years. Scarlet Moon is Jayson’s record label, and he is using it as a vehicle to publish music that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. So,… Read More »

In the interest of full disclosure, let me first say that I have been friends with Jayson Napolitano and looked to him as a mentor of sorts for years. Scarlet Moon is Jayson’s record label, and he is using it as a vehicle to publish music that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. So,… Read More »

One of my most memorable experiences of E3 2012 was attending the Video Games Live concert, and the portion of the concert that stuck with me the most was the performance of Pokémon music, because it made me take a long, hard look at perhaps the most overlooked and underrated aspect of the popular phenomenon.… Read More »

I had been highly anticipating Blake Robinson‘s third volume of Chrono Trigger Symphony for months. The first two volumes were great, but this was where some of my favorite tracks would be. While Robinson didn’t arrange every track from Chrono Trigger, he did follow the track list of the game’s original album, which meant the… Read More »

Just as its name might lead you to believe, Dragon Fantasy is a retro-inspired indie RPG series that borrows generously from titles released during the genre’s golden years. I admit I wasn’t a fan of the first game, which I felt had hit-or-miss humor and hyper-simplified mechanics, so I did not particularly anticipate Dragon Fantasy… Read More »

As a game, Saturday Morning RPG is all about the ’80s references, and one might think that this would be a little hard to translate into the backing music for a Christmas episode… but thanks to a visit from our friend the electronic keyboard, Vince DiCola was able to bring that ’80s feeling into this… Read More »

Daisuke Minamizawa’s third and possibly final volume in the Final Fantasy Solo Guitar Collections series echoes the first two in terms of quality. Classy acoustic guitar enthusiasts have much to celebrate with this collection, and those who missed some of their favorite pieces may be satiated in this broad selection. Hosting tracks from every numeric… Read More »

Randomly select any five tracks on the Shining Ark Tenshi no Fandisc OST, and you’ll likely be delighted by a mix of gentle, atmospheric tracks and perhaps one or two more extravagant melodies expressing the danger of battle or the heights of victory. Listen to all fifty tracks (188 and a half minutes, that is),… Read More »

Five years after its initial release, The World Ends With You still remains one of the most unique and stylish JRPGs I’ve played in recent memory. Among its many standout aspects is a soundtrack whose compositions are inspired by hip-hop DJ-style remixing and other urban/street styles of music. This album contains remixes of TWEWY’s music,… Read More »

I’ve personally witnessed ‘net-chatter among FFXI fans clamoring for a third “Star Onions” arranged CD. Fans of this MMORPG tend to be quite faithful to all things related, whether it be collectibles, manga, or (of course) the beautiful music. Well, it seems the Star Onions either broke up or went on indefinite hiatus, but in… Read More »

Note: As of this writing (end of 2013), Drag-on Dragoon Chips Music is planned only to be released with the Japanese limited edition of Drag-on Dragoon 3, which costs roughly $200, so the entry fee just to experience this music is steep. Consider yourself warned. An unlikely thing happened. Well, a few unlikely things happened.… Read More »

Shackled by capricious gods and forced to play puppet in their schemes, Lightning is a woman whose entire adult life has been a battle against an unjust fate. Her involuntary journey across time, space, and worlds has at last reached its end with the release of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. The game’s setting, Nova… Read More »

Editor’s Note: Please note that these are rough tracklist translations that may not necessarily be 100% accurate. If you see an error in the translation and have suggestions for how we can tighten them up, feel free to contact me via email. – Stephen M. Wizardry Online’s expertly composed soundtrack features two helmsmen: the famed… Read More »

Buried in the Snow: A Melancholy Tribute is like a collection of those Christmas tree bulbs that seem to be made of impossibly thin glass: grasp one too hard between thumb and fingers, and it will shatter. Globes of red, silver, and gold in which you see a clownish copy of yourself. This album’s songs… Read More »

Final Fantasy VI is one of my favourite games in the series, and to this day has some of the best music. If you’ve read any of the recent Final Fantasy news stories I’ve posted, you may have noticed my hopes that VI will one day see a re-release on a modern system. In the… Read More »

A game like Mars: War Logs doesn’t inspire verbosity, and if I have little to say about the game itself, I have even less to say about its soundtrack. After two competent opening tracks, the War Logs OST crumbles into unmemorable pieces: distant industrial sounds, broad synth groans, and mundane drum beats. The first two… Read More »