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Not only did Atelier Ayesha launch with a 3 disc OST, but a separate album was released for all the vocals. Only the opening and ending, “Flower Sign” and “Altair,” are found on the OST. So that’s 7 new tracks for those of you who purchase this album. And while they’re hit-or-miss, I think it’s… Read More »

Project A14, Atelier Ayesha, marks a continually evolving Gust. Especially in their music. Long-gone is the Nakagawa/Achiwa/Tsuchiya trio that made their sound team huge. Daisuke Achiwa is still around, and actually did a fair bit of Ayesha‘s music. Yanagawa-san, who joined up for the Arland trilogy (Rorona / Totori / Meruru) is on point as… Read More »

Final Fantasy XII is a game that I initially felt indifferent to, but have come to love in recent years. As I became deeper entrenched in the lore of Ivalice, I found myself connecting with the game’s music and art design more than any other aspect. Today, I hold its soundtrack in high esteem, and… Read More »

This entry exists for purely informational purposes. This package contains the Final Fantasy XII Original Soundtrack bundled together with the recently released Piano Collections Final Fantasy XII album, arranged and performed by Casey Ormond. The individual reviews for those albums are linked in the preceding sentence.

The Scythian Steppes, an album of remixes based upon Jim Guthrie’s already stellar Sword and Sworcery LP soundtrack, is a vast and diverse sonic journey that is utterly unforgettable from start to finish. I can say without hesitation that this is my favorite album of the year, thus far — and unless something incredible comes… Read More »

Genso Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki is a gaiden Suikoden game for the PSP that was released in Japan February 2012. While the Suikoden games themselves haven’t always struck the right chord with players (i.e. the backlash toward Suikoden IV), it is difficult to argue that the music in this series hasn’t always been good.… Read More »

You know what I love most about this 4 CD soundtrack? That it exists. That might sound like a stupid thing to say. But let’s face it: this is Jeremy Soule doing fantasy RPG music. We know he can and generally does do an amazing job. He has a style for these games: see Icewind… Read More »

Ka-ka-ka-Kaneko Chameleon! That’s my new theme song for Kenji Kaneko, lead composer at Idea Factory. Some of his more recent works are the soundtracks to the two Neptune titles (and, I assume, he’ll be on for Neptune V as well). The second Neptune title got its soundtrack published with the LE box in both JP… Read More »

Editor’s note: this soundtrack was printed as a LE bonus CD for the American version of the game. Compared to the Japanese bonus CD, the key difference is that five extra tracks were added to this disc. They are: The Four Felons (03), Play With A Toy ~Lowee~ (10), Scamper (12), Dancing Girl (15), and… Read More »

Kenji Kaneko has held out for over a decade now as the chief composer over at Idea Factory. And, for the second game in the Neptune (Hyperdimension Neptunia) series, he’s not holding anything back. Just from the sheer number of layers of audio found in each track, it’s clear that time and attention was put… Read More »

Dust: An Elysian Tail is 2012’s indie darling. The result of a one-man development house, Dust is an eye-popping game that easily stands toe-to-toe with Vanillaware titles such as Odin Sphere. Not only does the game look stunning and play responsively, but its music is just as lush and gorgeous as its visuals. It’s difficult… Read More »

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard this year. There, I said it. Now that it’s out of the way, we can move on. It’s difficult to avoid superlatives when talking about a release like this, but that’s because, by and large, it earns them. Square Enix turned to veteran… Read More »

“Listen to my chiptunes. This may be our last dance.” The Final Fantasy Chips onslaught continues with ten deconstructed tracks from one of my personal favorites, Final Fantasy X. Does the music of Spira hold up after being put through the retro grinder? I’m sad to say that this album is fairly hit-or-miss, though I’m… Read More »

Square Enix arrangements, ho! Even after a summer that was packed with releases, including the (originally misnomered) Final Fantasy XI Chips, Square Enix Music is showing no signs of slowing down. This month has seen the appearance of four new Final Fantasy-related chiptune albums spanning the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 eras. These albums are… forget… Read More »

When our Soundtracks Head, Stephen Meyerink, agreed to send Final Fantasy VIII Chips my way, I was absolutely stoked. Upon receipt, however, grave disappointment struck: this was not a delicious, salty treat. It was music! Fortunately, that is only one of few complaints with this fantastic demake of music. Granted, when the source music not… Read More »

If you always wanted Final Fantasy VII to begin with the sound of a synthetic cricket, this album is for you. FFVII’s original soundtrack ranks almost objectively among the greatest video game soundtracks. To attempt an arrangement album is to tamper with Uematsu’s finest. To turn that work into 8-bit chiptunes might seem a minor… Read More »

Ah, Persona 4. It’s easily one of my all-time favorite games, with a gripping story, lovable characters, and great music to boot. Luckily for fans like me, the upcoming PlayStation Vita version of the game features a glut of new content, which of course includes new music. Despite the fact that it was composed by… Read More »

Undulating. That is the summary of my review for the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of Koichi Sugiyama’s work released as a box set: the Symphonic Suite Dragon Quest Scene-Separated I~IX (yet another testimony of how much more beautiful music can be than words). All capital letters aside, this behemoth of musical fortitude simultaneously excites… Read More »

Jesper Kyd‘s been busy lately. And for that matter, so have his Borderlands 2 co-composers, Cris Velasco and Sasha Dikiciyan. Rapid proliferation of these excellent composers aside, when I heard they’d be returning to take on Borderlands 2, I was quite pleased. I was confident these musicians could pull off the sci-fi/western style whose promise… Read More »

Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers was a Megami Tensei RPG first released on the Sega Saturn then remade for the PlayStation. The PlayStation version was submitted for approval for a North American release but was denied by Sony. This is too bad, because Soul Hackers was an excellent and highly original cyberpunk RPG. A 3DS update… Read More »

Editor’s Note: This album is a combination of the various “Frontiers” mini-albums released on iTunes, as well as other, previously released tracks. The “Frontiers” albums do not feature any music that is not also featured here. Released digitally at the end of this month’s Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary event, Eorzean Frontiers is a collection of… Read More »

::Dusts off the cobwebs:: Holy crow, I’m writing a review again? Crap, hope I still remember how to review stuff. Okay, here it goes: As most of you are probably familiar with by now, Square Enix has been releasing a bunch of experimental/genre albums under the SQ line. One of those albums featured music in… Read More »

When the Seiken Densetsu book/box was released, Square Enix advertised three arranged albums from each of the three “main” composers in the series. First up was Kenji Ito, who arranged music from the Seiken Densetsu 1, Seiken Densetsu 4, Sword of Mana (SD1‘s remake) and Children of Mana on an album entitled Re:Birth. This second… Read More »

GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST, DUBSTEP IN A FINAL FANTASY ALBUM! With that out of the way, Battle SQ is one of several albums released this past summer by Square Enix Music. Like the numerous other SQ albums, this one features arrangements from SE’s considerable catalog of games, all set to a particular style of music. In… Read More »

As someone who has come late to the Jesper Kyd party, I feel that it is my obligation to say that, prior to some of his most recent works, I was almost totally unfamiliar with this composer. I knew I liked what I had heard in the Assassin’s Creed games (or, at least, the one… Read More »