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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 »

Square Enix seems to be exhausting every possible take on their franchises’ music, but who can blame them? With timeless contributions from composer legends Mitsuda and Uematsu, the well remains full and coppery. As us third to fifth generations get a little older and start our careers, so too begins coffee addiction (at least for… Read More »

Similar to how Best Buy, GameStop, etc. offer different bonus items in pre-order deals for games, Square Enix has decided to offer two different bonus discs depending on if one buys Cafe SQ at Village/Vanguard or Tower Records. These four-track bonus discs are identical save the fourth track. These CDs contains Final Fantasy VI‘s famous… Read More »

Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari, more commonly known as Final Promise Story in the West, is a traditional RPG by Imageepoch – the prolific developer behind the Luminous Arc games, Fate/Extra, Last Ranker, Sands of Destruction, Black Rock Shooter: The Game, the upcoming Tokitowa, and many more. Final Promise Story’s music is composed by GainGauge,… Read More »

When the Seiken Densetsu book/box was released, Square Enix advertised 3 arranged albums from each of the 3 “main” composers in the series. First up was Kenji Ito, who arranged music from the SD1, SD4, Sword of Mana (SD1’s remake) and Children of Mana on an album entitled “Re:Birth.” Unexpectedly, Ito-ken decided to follow up… Read More »

I really enjoy remixed, rearranged, and reinterpreted video game music. A couple of soundtracks I loved, reviewed for RPGFan, and thoroughly recommend are Persona 3 Portable Voice Mix Arrange (remixed by Shinji Hosoe and sandg) and Retro Remix Revue (jazz arrangements of classic video game themes performed by venerable session and studio musicians like drummer… Read More »

Video game taverns are often accompanied by memorable, rousing tunes, and no genre is more conducive to such establishments of respite than our very own favorite, RPGs. Real world taverns have their own unique soundtrack, but what if the two worlds combined in a sort of crossroads pub located on the borderlands between Earth and… Read More »

While I do hold that the EO4 OST is the best yet in the series, this bonus album is the weakest of the bonus albums in the series. Each of the four games has gotten some kind of LE bonus disc with a few tracks of some unique variety (“rough sketches,” “piano sketches,” “outtakes,” etc).… Read More »

As one denizen of the Internet put it: “this turned out to be a Falcom album.” Now, granted, the Etrian Odyssey franchise itself owes something to some of Falcom’s early titles (though it holds more in common with Wizardry than Dragon Slayer). But the series’ sole composer, Yuzo Koshiro, was an early member of Sound… Read More »

For the three prior Etrian Odyssey (Sekaiju no MeiQ) games, Yuzo Koshiro would compose the soundtrack first in a retro sound source (FM synth, 8-bit emulated “chiptune” hardware, etc), and then upgraded those tunes for a more modern synth sound to fit the DS. Players of the games could choose which version of the soundtrack… Read More »

When I heard that Kinuyo Yamashita would be appearing at some US-based game music events (VGO Boston in October 2012, MAGFest in January 2013), I decided to get some background on her. Originally a composer under Konami’s “Kukeiha Club” sound label, much of her work went uncredited for years, and only recently has she been… Read More »

Dragon’s Dogma has one of the most incomplete, incoherent, and forgettable soundtracks I’ve ever heard. Within the context of the game, the soundtrack is forgettable at best and inappropriate at worst. Outside that context, there’s even less incentive to listen to 147 minutes of generic, perfunctory fantasy music, some of which falls below the mediocre… Read More »

Noora to Toki no Koubou: Kiri no Mori no Majo is a game similar to Atelier Annie that English language sites have dubbed “Nora and the Time Studio: The Witch of the Misty Forest.” To be honest, everything I’ve read and seen about the game hasn’t really appealed to me, as it seems too similar… Read More »

Unlike some of the other Mass Effect 2 DLCs, Lair of the Shadow Broker introduces seven new music tracks, quite a large number for several hours of gameplay. Not unlike some of the other DLCs, however, the overall quality doesn’t hold up to the standard of the core game’s soundtrack. There are a few pieces… Read More »

I’m not sure why Mass Effect’s music hasn’t been as lauded as it deserves. Perhaps it’s because other elements of the game are more immediately interesting (or controversial). I have another idea, however, that at least pertains to the battle music: combat is simply too intense. I don’t remember hearing much music during Mass Effect… Read More »

One of the bigger complaints about Mass Effect 3’s endings was the lack of diversity between your three given choices (implied consequences aside). BioWare not only addressed this issue with the Extended Cut DLC, but also in its accompanying soundtrack which, like the EC, has been provided for free. Composer Sam Hulick, who contributed to… Read More »

The Overlord DLC introduces four new pieces of music to the already large list of Mass Effect music. One might wish for more, but not when it’s this disappointingly bland. There’s not a single track in the Mass Effect trilogy that I would turn off per se, but the difference between the best and the… Read More »

Kasumi’s Stolen Memory consists of just four new tracks, and none are extremely impressive. I commend BioWare for being thorough enough to include new music for their Mass Effect 2 DLCs, however, and there are a couple of interesting pieces here. The first two sound far too similar, and they’re somewhat typical action/combat tracks at… Read More »