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Final Fantasy IV Original Sound Version was released in 1991, was re-released in 2004 and now sees a special re-release in 2013. Final Fantasy IV Original Soundtrack Remaster Version is an upgraded version of the original OSV release. Similar to a DVD to Blu-ray upgrade, the core of the album is the same, but it… Read More »

I wish I hadn’t listened to this album. Hearing all these crisply remastered versions of nostalgic FF7 tunes only makes my inner fanboy further clamor for that HD Final Fantasy VII remake that everyone wants Square Enix to create. FFX and Kingdom Hearts got the HD remaster treatment, so why not a full-on HD remake… Read More »

Author’s note: the track names on these CDs are given in Japanese only. The English track names listed below are unofficial translations. It’s funny how you can play entry after entry in a series without ever really noticing the way its music has evolved over time. You simply hear the themes you’ve heard time and… Read More »

The Final Fantasy franchise has evolved in many ways since its inception. No two Final Fantasy games are alike, and each game offers a unique experience unto itself. But whether the games are single-player or MMO, traditional fantasy or post-modern/futuristic, turn-based or action RPGs, one creature has been a constant companion since Final Fantasy II:… Read More »

In Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney, two of the biggest names in the puzzle/crime solving video game genres, team up to unravel the mystery of Labyrinth City. Likewise, the composers of both series, Tomohito Nishiura (Professor Layton) and Masakazu Sugimori (Phoenix Wright), with newcomer Yasumasa Kitagawa, collaborate on a 3-disc epic that captures the atmosphere… Read More »

When last we visited Blake Robinson, he was making incredible music. Not much has changed (dude, get some sleep!), though Volume 2 of his Chrono Trigger Symphony album boasts more artistic license than Volume 1. Is there merit in his wide brush strokes, or is he better off painting by numbers? If he were painting… Read More »

Growing up, I never appreciated orchestral music. It’d be played at school or come on the television and my immediate reaction would be “boring.” Like many things I thought I knew as a teenager, I was so, so wrong. The Videri String Quartet’s rendition of these famous game scores is proof of that. Portals is… Read More »

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening has the distinction of being one of the first games to cause me to shed a tear over a game’s story. Since Final Fantasy IV released 2 years prior, that game may have been the first, but even the (meaningless) deaths of characters there didn’t hit me as hard… Read More »

From the moment I first heard the soundtrack to Valdis Story: Abyssal City (composed by Zack Parrish), the sneaking suspicion that it would become my favorite album of 2013 lurked in my mind. With barely a scant detail on the game it was to accompany, I dove headfirst into this collection of over three hours… Read More »

The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra has become a mainstay on my MP3 player. His incredible arrangements of well-known game music, both within the RPG sphere and beyond, feature high-quality faux instrumentation that sounds like it should cost a boatload of money to produce. My relatively untrained ear can discern virtually no difference between his work… Read More »

Blake Robinson is no stranger to tasteful video game music arrangements. Earlier this year he debuted his talents with a Super Metroid album, and later Banjo-Kazooie. After sampling his previous work, one can safely assume that Volume 1 of his Chrono Trigger Symphony collection will not only satiate, but elate. Though, why assume when the… Read More »

Ragnarok Online II was a sequel to the massively popular MMORPG Ragnarok Online. It gained a loyal fan base throughout the years, so much so that it garnered a re-release in 2012 under the same name, albeit with a different subtitle: “Legend of the Second.” While only lasting 3 years before being shut down, the… Read More »

Life these days is rush rush rush, isn’t it? A million things to do, and everything needs to be done yesterday. You know you need to slow down a little bit, but just thinking about that stresses you out because you just can’t afford to slow down and take a breather, lest something doesn’t get… Read More »

I have a semi-morbid fascination with bad gaming. If a game is deemed bad, I’m curious enough to want to try it for myself just to see how bad it really is. However, after the utter spanking Time and Eternity has garnered from people who’ve played it, I’m actually willing to let that sleeping dog… Read More »

Tales of Symphonia was a fine RPG that pretty much did everything right. I remember the lovely visuals, the quality voice acting, the solid storytelling, and the thoroughly enjoyable gameplay. Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything about the game’s music. The soundtrack was inoffensive, but not at all memorable. This is precisely why I wanted to… Read More »

Thanks to recent efforts from the likes of Joypad Records and others, we’re seeing more and more officially-licensed “cover” tunes. In this instance, London-based GameChops DJ Mykah offers a handful of his best arrangements from his favorite trio (or Triple Triad) of Final Fantasy games: VI, VII, and VIII. Mykah previously worked on one of… Read More »

When last we spoke on the topic of Final Fantasy guitar solo albums (as we are wont to do on a daily basis), I inundated readers with a deluge of compliments aimed at Daisuke Minamizawa‘s expert string plucking mixed with a passion not often experienced in arrangement albums. I speak, of course, of the second… Read More »

Few game series evoke doom and gloom quite like Shin Megami Tensei, due to its unique post-apocalyptic settings and consistently eerie soundscapes. The long-awaited Shin Megami Tensei IV continues this trend, and thanks to the inclusion of a Shin Megami Tensei Music Collection CD in first-edition copies of the game (called Shin Megami Tensei IV… Read More »

Falcom’s hot, new music series, the “Zanmai” albums, is in its fourth installment with the debut of Sora no Kiseki Zanmai. The scope of the album is the Sora no Kiseki trilogy proper: no Ys vs SnK, no Ao, Zero, or Nayuta. And that’s perfectly fine with me. This trilogy of music, written in the… Read More »

Editor’s Note: Regarding the tracklist used here, fans have had long-standing translations for many of these track titles. Because this album was released not just as a CD in Japan, but also digitally via US iTunes, we’ve used the official iTunes tracklist on our page. So, just as an example, the track which we would… Read More »

Editor’s Note: Regarding the tracklist used here, fans have had long-standing translations for many of these track titles. Because this album was released not just as a CD in Japan, but also digitally via US iTunes, we’ve used the official iTunes tracklist on our page. So, just as an example, the first track is known… Read More »

When Falcom started their “Zanmai” music series, released at Japan’s twice-annual Comiket, they started with a humble offering: five versions of the same song. “Hoshi no Arika” (which translates to “Where the Stars Are”) is the ending vocal song from The Legend of Heroes VI: Sora no Kiseki. This was a pivotal release for Falcom;… Read More »

The Triforce of Bass is an interesting album for me. While I’m not normally a fan of electronica, the best way I can describe most of the album is a mix of classic Zelda music intermingled with some electronic flavor. This album is a compilation of three artists, each of whom takes a slightly different… Read More »

In Skyrim’s soundtrack, From Past To Present is a fairly soft piece that features a full orchestra. It is clearly meant as background music for walking the world and enjoying what there is to see there, not an accompaniment to battle. Kyle Landry’s version of the track retains much of that feeling, but it does… Read More »

The in-game version of The Dragonborn Comes is very bare, sung by Skyrim’s bards unaccompanied by any instrument. And because each line of the song is a separate dialogue bit for them, it’s filled with awkward pauses that stop it from being a very toe-tapping tune. Tera Catallo and Ro have, thankfully, filled things out… Read More »