Archives

Five unused tracks from Yuzo Koshiro’s score for 7th Dragon were published as a limited edition bonus with the DS game in Japan. The music is DS sound source, not “8-bit retro,” in nature. There’s a reason why these songs were cut from the game. In my opinion, there isn’t much interesting content to be… Read More »

After Norihiko Hibino and Yuzo Koshiro produced the Sekaiju no MeiQ (Etrian Odyssey) I and II Super Arrange Version, I was convinced that this series of music would become the hip new thing. It was one of my favorite albums from last year. Then, this year, they announced that another album in this same vein… Read More »

I looked everywhere to get this album. Composer and vocalist Akiko Shikata made her own, unique arranged album for the Ar tonelico “Hymmnos” tracks. The album had a low print run and is already a hard-to-find CD. I needed to know, was this album any good? Did Akiko Shikata know how to make interesting orgel… Read More »

The newest Atelier game is Atelier Rorona for PlayStation 3. It takes a turn back in time, going for the style of the older Atelier games (such as Atelier Marie) instead of the more recent, combat-heavy Ateliers (Atelier Iris and Mana-Khemia). The all-star trio of the Gust Sound Team (Akira Tsuchiya, Daisuke Achiwa, and Ken… Read More »

Gust’s Atelier series (which includes Mana-Khemia) has some awesome music. It awesome has beautiful vocal tracks strewn throughout. So very, very good are these vocal tracks, that Team Entertainment published a three disc collection of vocal tracks from the series entitled Atelier Vocal Historia. What will you find here? Let’s discuss. First of all, what… Read More »

In my review for the Nintendo DS title Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon I mentioned that I thought there was little variety in the soundtrack while I was playing the game, so I was astonished when I saw this soundtrack had 63 songs. Were they playing the same songs constantly or were they just so unmemorable… Read More »

Disgaea 3 was released on the PlayStation 3, the first of Sony’s consoles to offer “downloadable content.” So much extra content was developed for NIS’s latest in their flagship series, that they were able to put together a full soundtrack for the new music Tenpei Sato wrote to support all the new content created for… Read More »

I’d been scouring auction services and used shops across the whole wide Internet for years in a desperate attempt to get this album. I finally have it. I wasn’t disappointed. For those unaware of the artist Motoaki Furukawa, you need to know that he is awesome. As a guitarist, his solos are always sublime (never… Read More »

A la carte, indeed. The third (and, I pray, final) album in the new brass quintet series is a most random smattering of songs from Koichi Sugiyama‘s repertoire of Dragon Quest compositions. Like its predecessors, this brass quintet also includes some diverse percussion, which allows for a lot of jazz influence on these arrangements. Unfortunately,… Read More »

This soundtrack was a promotional item for the premium version of KID’s acclaimed visual novel Ever17 -the out of infinity- on PSP. The soundtrack itself is nearly identical to the prior Ever17 OST except for a pair of new vocal pieces entitled “It’s a Fine Day” and “The Azure ~Blue Memory.” Strangely, the tracklist appears… Read More »

The Star Onions are back! Years after one critically successful arranged album, this eclectic group of musicians (primarily, but not exclusively, from Square Enix) return for their second studio album of arrangements from Final Fantasy XI. The album focuses primarily on music from the game’s four expansions (all composed by Naoshi Mizuta), though some notable… Read More »

The soundtracks for Izuna and Izuna 2 were published together in a special-order two disc set from Success. For whatever reason, Success and Ninja Studio have decided to withhold any and all information about the game’s sound team. The games themselves don’t seem to have the information in any “end credits” sequence, and the composer(s)… Read More »

I don’t know why this soundtrack exists. Don’t get me wrong, I like the music. I like it a lot, in fact. But the difference between this album and its predecessor, “Jin no Shou,” I cannot determine. About 70% of the tracklist is the same. The music quality isn’t that different (it was a port… Read More »

Long live chiptunes, and long live Koshiro-san! The king of old-school chiptunes, Yuzo Koshiro (Ys, Streets of Rage, Actraiser), took an extended hiatus from the game music scene after the 16-bit era. With only occasional cameos with Sega (Shenmue) or Konami (Tokimeki Memorial), Mr. Koshiro saw fit to avoid the game music world, perhaps because… Read More »

Falcom’s Brandish series isn’t remembered for having the best music among Falcom games. In fact, it’s not really remembered for being the best of anything. Many Falcom fans consider the Brandish series a B-level franchise compared to the likes of The Legend of Heroes and Ys. But within the Brandish series, there are highs and… Read More »

Ready to listen to the same music twice, with varying sound qualities? Then you’re ready for this two disc promotional Brandish treat from Falcom! Here you’ll find the Brandish OST for two different ports of the game. The “FM TOWNS” version is the less powerful of the two in terms of synth (for those ignorant… Read More »

After the lackluster Final Fantasy Remix CD was released last year, someone decided it would be a good idea for the Enix half of Square Enix to get in on the action. I don’t know if Sugiyama himself had any say in this project; but if he did, I would imagine he’d be wary of… Read More »

It’s been awhile since Square Enix released a piano solo CD for something other than Final Fantasy. It happens so rarely, that I cannot help but get excited. When word got out that a Kingdom Hearts piano CD was coming, I was on cloud nine. Then, not long after the announcement, the tracklist was announced,… Read More »

Sometimes, in judging the merits of a soundtrack (or game, or movie), it’s all a matter of expectation. For months, I had been dreading the prospect of reviewing yet another Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack. And, for a high-profile title like Star Ocean: The Last Hope (aka “Star Ocean 4”), that just compounded the anxiety and frustration.… Read More »

This bundled CD came with the Japanese version of the Nintendo DS “Endless Frontier” gaiden game in the Super Robot Taisen series. And, surprisingly, it’s a great little CD. The first three tracks, being Japanese-language drama tracks, aren’t the sort of thing you’d expect a poor “gaijin” like myself to appreciate. But I did. I… Read More »

Atlus USA is a clever, resourceful publisher. In their tireless efforts to bundle “extras” with their games, the first place to look is the easiest. Soundtracks are easy to bundle, primarily because they were probably released in Japan a few months prior. Everything is ther:; even the packaging (though you need to change text from… Read More »

Instead of having to go back year after year to old Ys albums, Falcom has done us the favor of rearranging, upsampling, and otherwise updating music from Ys I and II on a near-annual basis. It’s something I look forward to from time to time, to see what direction they go with each new arrangement.… Read More »

For the last few years, having an “arrange” album for anything other than a handheld game seems strange, if not redundant. The highest quality, live-recorded performances can now be streamed in the game itself. In the past, arranged albums existed to bring a full-life musical experience to a game with MIDI/sequenced music. So, what purpose… Read More »

Shigeki Hayashi has been working almost exclusively with developer Sting for some time now. His frantic, fast-paced tunes on past games Riviera and Yggdra Union have earned him some reputation. Unfortunately, I fear that his reputation will soon mimic that of a man with whom many have love/hate relationships: Motoi Sakuraba. There are two reasons… Read More »

The first volume of this trilogy of vocal albums featured two characters: Ayane and Midori. Volume 3 is just Midori. But Volume 2 has representation from almost the entire cast of female characters in the original True Love Story. So if you want diversity, this is the album from the trilogy you’d want. But, then… Read More »