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I can’t believe how many times I said to myself, while listening to this album, “now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” The Kukeiha Club comes through on this album in the same way they did on Snatcher Zoom Tracks and other classic arrange albums. Mostly jazz-styled arrangements with great “break” sections in nearly every piece,… Read More »

Though I loved Music Collection 1, I didn’t know what to make of the second set. Most of the music is above the “passing grade” as far as arranged albums go. But then, I also found some tracks that either irritated or bored me. Let’s just start with the bad stuff. The arrangement of “Graduation… Read More »

My initial reaction upon wrapping my head around the idea of FIVE discs worth of character vocal themes from Tokimeki Memorial 4 was, “Wow, this game sure has a lot of girls to date in it!” Sure, the album cover itself features portraits of ten girls, but it was the realization that there are five… Read More »

Far be it from the Japanese game developers of the world to discriminate. Stereotype, yes. Definitely. But not discriminate. That’s why “girl” versions of popular dating sims exist. Most dating sims have a target market of males (either young males or creepy old males!). And the objections of affection will be female (unless it’s a… Read More »

The new “SQ” series of arranged albums are right up my alley. The first album, Love SQ, had some really interesting arrangements. Now, the sequel Chill SQ is designed to be ideal for relaxing. That means, for starters, lots of cool electronic stuff. But there are live recordings mixed in as well. Each track is… Read More »

Less than three minutes of new music. And really, it’s the oldest music of all. That’s what I found on this CD. Granted, I wasn’t the target audience of an 8th anniversary “best of” CD. Considering I’m a huge Final Fantasy XI fan and have collected all the other CDs, I don’t know what else… Read More »

You just couldn’t bear the thought of not getting more Final Fantasy XIII, right? About a decade ago, Final Fantasy IX‘s four disc OST was revealed to be incomplete. In particular, about 30 orchestra-recorded cues for the game’s FMV sequences didn’t appear. Those tracks, alongside some bonus tracks and interesting arrangements, were put on “FFIX… Read More »

There have been a lot of different Final Fantasy concerts, with different brandings and different groups, since 2000. There was that 20020220 album, Dear Friends, More Friends, Voices, and now Distant Worlds. The latest seems to be the real deal. It’s solid. The album for the first “Distant Worlds” recording was published in two different… Read More »

I swear, all the right people are behind this Etrian Odyssey series. I love the art style, I love the super-hard retro dungeon-crawling, and I cannot stop talking about Yuzo Koshiro’s comeback, best represented in this series. Etrian Odyssey 3 (that’s Sekaiju no MeiQ 3 in Japan) is coming to North America, but in the… Read More »

Each of the previous Sekaiju no MeiQ (Etrian Odyssey) projects (as well as 7th Dragon) had a small promotional album with exclusive arrangements, B-Sides, outtakes, etc. This is that album specifically for the third game in the series. Of all those mini-albums released in the past, I found this one to be the least interesting.… Read More »

It’s so good to see a veteran composer “back in the saddle.” Yuzo Koshiro, one of the kings of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras (see Ys, ActRaiser, et al), took over a decade away from the VGM scene (with a few exceptions here and there). Koshiro came back in full force a few years ago… Read More »

You know, when The Oath in Felghana was first released on PC half a decade ago, the two albums created alongside it were an OST and a Super Arrange Version. The OST was awesome. The SAV was a total letdown. I think this JDK Special, released to commemorate the PSP release of Oath in Felghana,… Read More »

Every time you turn around, Falcom has found another way to repackage their classic soundtracks. In this case, Falcom released not one, but two promotional albums alongside their PSP port of Oath in Felghana (which, itself, is a massive overhaul of Ys III). One of those discs is an OST based on a particular sound… Read More »

.hack//Link is being touted as the final entry in the .hack// series. As the name “Link” suggests, it takes the two major threads of the series (the four “IMOQ” series starring Kite and the GU series starring Haseo) and brings the two protagonists together for the first time. This PSP Action RPG takes that “blending”… Read More »

There’s a fine line between nuance and repetitiveness, a line over which many film and game composers skirt–and most cross–when creating a score for an epic story. When that division is breached, it turns otherwise poignant melodies into recycled drudgery that reeks of dullness, and can actually make the epic seem less so. It is… Read More »

We are now so many levels removed from the source, I am painfully confused. Before even talking about the music, let’s just go over the history of Endless Frontier. In the early ’90s, a company called Banpresto created the Super Robot Taisen (Wars) franchise. All they did was cross over dozens of mecha anime classics… Read More »

Basiscape (Sakimoto and friends) provided the score to the old-school RPG-styled PS2 game Elminage (this predates any DS or PSP sequels, ports, or spinoffs). This was not long before Basiscape became their own record label and publishing house. Thus, the soundtrack was not released retail, and could only be obtained via preorder/promotional bonus in Japan.… Read More »

I had pegged Yuki Sugiura (and, by extension, the band Heinrich von Ofterdingen) as having a distinct sound and specialized style. I had best not try to narrowly scope people into specific musical categories anymore. The goth/punk rock sounds of Heinrich von Ofterdingen are, generally, not to be found on the Death Connection soundtrack. Death… Read More »

End of Eternity, known as Resonance of Fate in North America, is tri-Ace’s mammoth sci-fi RPG published by Sega (as opposed to their usual publisher, Square Enix). The soundtrack to said game, by sheer quantity alone, is just as epic as the game. 118 tracks across six discs. I’ve seen more tracks across two discs… Read More »

Okay, so Mimana Iyar Chronicle might not be the hit RPG of the year. Developed by GungHo and published in the US by Aksys, this PSP RPG reeks of cookie-cutter anime convention. I understand people having that problem with the game. I don’t have that problem, but to each his/her own, right? The music, on… Read More »

The Action RPG that almost wasn’t an Action RPG (according to the producer, anyway), NieR exists in two forms: one on Xbox 360, the other on PS3. This is a game developed by Cavia (Drag-on Dragoon, or “Drakengard”), and though I’m wary about whether or not I’d enjoy the game, I do have some definite… Read More »

Ahh, Tokimeki Memorial – the #1 name in dating sim games. More stat driven than a love adventure, dating sims have more in common with RPGs because, as Pat Benetar says, love is a battlefield. Bad ’80s references aside, what we have here is the soundtrack to Tokimeki Memorial 4. Though the series has produced… Read More »

Tokimeki can’t be contained in a mere two discs. It takes at least four, right? Well, looking at a full discography, it takes hundreds of compact discs to contain all the audio produced for this series. It’s so overwhelming. Just looking at a “Volume 2” of one OST for one entry in the series makes… Read More »

One of the best terms I learned in grade-school math was “least common denominator.” That the term can be used outside the realm of numbers makes it that much more special. Why am I talking about denominators? Well, Tokimeki Memorial is known for having way too much content produced for it. There are only four… Read More »

Ahh, Aveyond. Without Aveyond, the commercial RPG Maker scene would not exist. Sure these days games such as Blossomsoft’s Eternal Eden or Aldorlea’s Millennium are the current commercial RPGM benchmarks, but Aveyond continues to hold court. That series’ biggest trump card and the reason it holds a special place in my heart is Aaron Walz’s… Read More »