Archives

Though it holds no connection to the Dept Heaven series (Yggdra, Riviera, KitN), Hexyz Force is still an RPG from Sting, and it’s still having its music composed by the venerable Shigeki Hayashi, who has written great music for many other Sting titles. Hexyz Force for PSP (coming to North America in May 2010) may… Read More »

Love it or hate it, Muramasa: The Demon Blade demonstrated an authentic samurai feel. Few games make you feel like you’re running parallel to the ground in a giant bathrobe and wooden sandals in feudal Japan quite like this game did–and the music might be a big part of that! Okay, I’m overplaying the game’s… Read More »

One of Neverland’s first RPGs to be localized outside the Taito branding was a GBA RPG known in North America as CIMA: The Enemy. The original title of this game, in Japan, was “Frontier Stories.” The soundtrack to this game is extremely hard to find, as it was distributed as a LE/preorder bonus with the… Read More »

Last year, Square Enix did a remake of the Game Boy classic SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend II) for the DS. A summary of my soundtrack review for that release was that the remake’s music, and its publication on CD, was unnecessary. Unfortunately, I think I’m about to make the same statement for this soundtrack.… Read More »

The holy trinity of Neverland/Taito projects: Estpolis (Lufia), Chaos Seed, and Energy Breaker. Lufia was primarily Shiono, Chaos Seed had a nice balance of Shiono and Nakajima. But Energy Breaker is almost entirely Yukio Nakajima‘s baby. Strangely, though, it’s a soundscape that almost entirely fits my memories of the Lufia games. Before Scitron/Happinet published the… Read More »

Previously, the music for Chaos Seed was only published as part of the GM Progress series, and on this album, the music was almost entirely high-quality synth arrangement and some music from a Sega Saturn remake. A proper OST never saw the light of day, back when this SNES title from the same creators as… Read More »

EVER LAST by Hironobu Kageyama is a song that plays during the opening sequence of the NIS and HitMaker game Last Rebellion. The song starts out with a slow violin lick that would not be out of place in a movie like House of Flying Daggers, but once the drums and guitars kick in, the… Read More »

The ending for Last Rebellion wass definitely not a happy ending. Thus, the ending theme needed to have the right balance of melancholy with catchy pop sensibility. Last Signpost by Haruka Shimotsuki certainly delivers here and may just be the best piece of music from the game. The instruments are nicely balanced and layered, plus… Read More »

Before digging into the specificities of Dragon Quest IX, let me just make one thing clear. If you’ve never listened, and I mean truly listened, to one of Koichi Sugiyama’s “Symphonic Suite Dragon Quest” albums, you are missing out. Turn off the lights, be sitting or laying, and do nothing but actually listen, actively, to… Read More »

The DS got Spectral Force Genesis. In turn, the PSP got When These Hands Will Be Stained (Itsuka Kono Te ga Kegareru Toki ni) -Spectral Force Legacy-. But the two projects had two entirely different musicians. Genesis was contracted from a group called “Solidtunes,” whereas Legacy has music from Yuki Sugiura and his band Heinrich… Read More »

For Spectral Force Genesis on the DS, a new sound team was contracted to do the music (in place of Kenji Kaneko and other Idea Factory regulars). Now, the soundtrack CD was a promotional item that came with the game (hence the disc being the closest thing to “cover art” we have). The track layout… Read More »

L2 is one of many games on Idea Factory’s “Otomate” label for graphic adventures. The game’s concept and character art looks supremely interesting, but the real blessing here is that the soundtrack was done by Yuki Sugiura and his band, Heinrich von Ofterdingen. The opening track, “eli lama asabthani” has a very intentionally religious meaning… Read More »

Now this is what I’m talkin’ about! The first KH piano collection was terribly underwhelming. Why? The arrangements were primarily character and town themes. No one remembers that music from the Kingdom Hearts series. The only really memorable track on that whole album was “Dearly Beloved,” since that’s the title music. The rest of the… Read More »

Let me tell you a story. I got this album with admittedly low expectations. While I did somewhat enjoy the Tears of Blood soundtrack (and, from what I’ve heard, even some of the “Phantom of Avalanche” soundtrack), I didn’t think there’d be much good music on this soundtrack. That’s just based on things I’d heard… Read More »

The latest Phantasy Star soundtrack is, without a doubt, one of the best in years. I haven’t heard music of such high quality since PSO Episodes I and II. Previous to this, there were soundtracks for Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star 0 released. Those soundtracks both had their good moments, and they were by… Read More »

The original Professor Layton trilogy was a huge success, so Level-5 naturally did what any company would do with a successful franchise: extend it indefinitely. A second trilogy has been announced, and this is the beginning of that trilogy. Hence, the fourth game in the series, Professor Layton and the Last Specter (Professor Layton and… Read More »

Note: disc 3 track 14 “Coup de Grbce” is a typo on the packaging. One would assume it’s meant to be Coup de Grace. Oh boy, it’s another Tales mash-up. And you know what that means! Another opportunity to rehash the music of Motoi Sakuraba et al. To be fair, if you look at the… Read More »

Note: the official tracklist is in French. The English meanings are provided in parentheses. This exclusive arranged CD for DOFUS, the French MMORPG with turn-based strategy combat, is one of the coolest bonus items a company could possibly release. The album takes all twelve of the character class’ music themes, as well as two other… Read More »

Note: the official tracklist is in French. The English meanings are provided in parentheses. So I’ve really been investing a lot of time learning more about Ankama Studios’ strategy-based MMORPG DOFUS. I was talking to the game’s community manager about the DOFUS original soundtrack (for sale at the Ankama Shop), and she told me that… Read More »

Note: the tracklist is as “officially” translated to English by Square Enix. Comparing the Japanese tracklist to the English shows glaring and obvious changes at some points, but since Square Enix bothered to make their own version of the tracklist in English, that’s what we’re giving you. Masashi Hamauzu, the king of impressionist composition in… Read More »

Ar tonelico III’s hymmnos albums continue to move in a direction that no one would have guessed they’d go based on the first two hymmnos CDs (and, perhaps, not even the second two would have clued us in). Side Red features everyone you know and love from previous hymmnos albums, minus Akiko Shikata. Haruka Shimotsuki… Read More »

The Gust Sound Team is back (sort of), alongside a big pile of female vocalists who are eager to play the part of “Reyvateil,” in Ar tonelico III. Graphically, the game took a big jump into cel-shaded characters and 3D battles. it also took the console jump from PS2 to PS3. But, musically, there wasn’t… Read More »

Ar tonelico III’s hymmnos albums continue to move in a direction that no one would have guessed they’d go based on the first two hymmnos CDs (and, perhaps, not even the second two would have clued us in). Side Blue features Akiko Shikata as the primary vocalist, though she also gets help from KOKIA and… Read More »

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers has a soundtrack that’s hard to categorize. There are so many different kinds of music going on here that it could feel at times random and disjointed, though if you’ve spent any time with the game, you’ll see how well this approach works. While not all-inclusive, I’ve found… Read More »

Pianist Keita Egusa has teamed up with Nobuo Uematsu’s Dog Ear Records label to start a series of classic game music arranged for solo piano. This first album covers seven different Famicom (NES) games, many of which were ports of arcade games, and one of which comes from Uematsu’s own repertoire. And though only three… Read More »