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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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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’d been scouring auction services and used shops across the whole wide Internet in a desperate attempt to find Kukeiha Club pro-fusion ~Tokimeki Memorial~. 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… 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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Phantasy Star 0 (or “ZERO” if you prefer it) features music from Sega’s same team of musicians who have worked on Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe, though some added composers have since joined the mix. Upon first inspection, I had to question the album’s tracklist. Four discs of music for one DS game?… Read More »

We at RPGFan have extensively tracked each and every JAM Project single from the Super Robot Taisen (Super Robot Wars) series. Now, JAM Project has released all of their SRT contributions, from A to Z (well, from “Alpha” to Z), in one handy collection. If you haven’t collected the previous singles, but you enjoy the… Read More »

What’s being rumored as the next SRT series (after Alpha), Super Robot Taisen Z decides not to break any of the musical traditions. The PlayStation 2 Strategy RPG featured four discs’ worth of music, and as usual, it’s broken out as two discs of mecha anime themes, and two discs of original music for the… Read More »

Crest of “Z’s” is the most awesome song I’ve ever heard from JAM Project. I’m serious. I’m not a huge JAM Project fanboy, and I’m generally not into the giant mecha anime scene. JAM Project really went “hardcore” with this particular single, though. This theme song single, for Super Robot Taisen Z, displays a greater… Read More »

Amidst hundreds of JRPG opening themes, there are perhaps half a dozen that could be considered something other than generic gutter material. Surprisingly, Tales of Vesperia‘s opening vocal track sung by Bonnie Pink is among the better, despite a game that is little more than mediocre. The music is not entirely inspired, but the vocals… 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 »

The first in a three-part series of vocal collections for True Love Story ~Remember My Heart~ (the first game in the prolific series) features the seiyuu for two key characters: Ayane Katsuragi and Midori Amano (played by Shiho Kikuchi and Haruna Ikezawa). There are ten vocal tracks on this album, each one separated by a… Read More »