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Man, what an awesome bonus. Whether you bought the North American, European, or Japanese version of Chrono Trigger for DS, early-bird purchasers (that is, those who preordered or picked it up in the first few days of sale) were treated to this mini-soundtrack as a bonus. It contains two tracks, performed by an orchestra, and… Read More »

What a strange album. There is no cohesion at all, but if you can stomach listening to two entirely different musical styles on the same disc, back and forth, then you will love this album. And what are those two styles? String quartet (with piano), and late ’80s J-pop. Six tracks are the cheesey J-pop… Read More »

Memories Off: After Rain vol. 1-3 is a Memories Off gaiden that offers storylines following the events of Memories Off and Memories Off: 2nd. After Rain vol. 1 succeeds the events of Memories Off and volumes 2-3 succeed the events of Memories Off: 2nd. As such the soundtrack itself features many familiar pieces from both… Read More »

Composed by Jack Wall, the Jade Empire OST is a collection of Chinese-inspired themes, employing styles and instruments from that part of the world. While the soundtrack sounds, at times, a bit gimmicky and bland at others, the overall quality is high and the album provides delightful background music, with a few tracks that will… Read More »

Classic Ys songs in another arrange album? Of course. You should expect nothing less from Falcom. However, what you’re getting here is ultimately a dumbed-down alternative to the excellent “Perfect Collection” arrangements. Limited to the MIDI sound source, Sound Team JDK is forced to come up with alternative novelty to keep the songs fresh. And… Read More »

Omoide ni Kawaru Kimi Memory Collection Vol.2 – Mihu Kashima is one of a collection of albums from the Memories Off game Omoide ni Kawaru Kimi Memory, which was released for Playstation 2 and Dreamcast back in 2002. It appears that each album focuses on one of the heroines and features that heroine’s musical themes… Read More »

A cult classic title that, despite a few raving fans’ love, received mediocre reviews, Brigandine is one of Atlus USA‘s lesser-known PlayStation titles. Despite its (relative) unpopularity, the Japanese publishers decided to release a standalone soundtrack through Columbia. And here it is. Three composers worked hand-in-hand to bring this set of music together. The sound… Read More »

A lot of the MMORPGs in the last few years, particularly those from Korea that have saturated the market, have very generic soundtracks. But Granado Espada is an entirely new and different animal. Released in North America as “Sword of the New World,” this MMORPG features developers from Korea, Japan, and all over the world,… Read More »

Grim Fandango was the final graphic adventure from LucasArts and it remains one of the genre’s elite. It’s one of my personal favorite graphic adventures, sharing company in my heart with Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, The Longest Journey, and Gabriel Knight. Grim Fandango was a happy blend of unique flavors including the Jack… Read More »

Josh Whelchel’s soundtrack for “The Spirit Engine” is beautiful, if rudimentary. Like the game itself, this first soundtrack was an experiment, or even a prototype, for what would come later. This soundtrack doesn’t have any fadeouts, endings, or proper loopings for each song. They just stop, and then you are on to the next track.… Read More »

Wow. This album is perfect in almost every way. Kenichi Okuma is now a veteran composer for games and anime. But at the time of this release, Okuma was still building his repertoire. And what an excellent addition! Götzendiener (translated “Servant of God” from German) was an RPG for the PC Engine, and both the… Read More »

“The Spirit Engine 2” such vast improvements over its predecessor, it’s almost not worth one’s while to compare them. The same, it seems, may be said about the soundtrack. This mammoth four disc set provides VGM fans with over 100 tracks, all composed by Josh Whelchel. And boy oh boy, do I have a lot… Read More »

Tendo Dokuta is certainly not a well known video game franchise, at least not in the US. Tendo Dokuta 2 was released in the US under the name “Lifesigns: Surgical Unit” but was not a critical or commercial success. I quite liked the game because it could best be described as Phoenix Wright in a… Read More »

If you’re not interested in paying for a full, four-disc set of music for Josh Whelchel’s Spirit Engine 2 soundtrack, then you may want the “Selections” disc. A lot cheaper, and filtered down to the absolute best tracks, the “Selections” disc is a great experience from beginning to end. Indeed, though I own the four… Read More »

I’d never heard of Kazuhiko Sawaguchi before encountering this album, and I’m pretty sure the VGM community also hasn’t heard of him since the release of Weltorv Estleia, a PlayStation RPG that stayed in Japan. Sawaguchi’s compositional style is somewhere between Hitoshi Sakimoto, Hayato Matsuo, and Koichi Sugiyama. Unfortunately, Sawaguchi seems unable to match any… Read More »

KOEI took a long break from their “Daikoukai Jidai” (“Uncharted Waters”) series, but they returned with an MMORPG entitled “Uncharted Waters Online.” The game’s first expansion was “La Frontera,” which received about 30 minutes of new audio from composers Taku Iwasaki and Kazunori Miyake. These new songs are almost entirely area/environment themes, though two high-seas… Read More »

This album is beautiful. However, it’s quite obscure. And not only that, it is also obsolete. You see, not long after this album was published, KOEI put out a much larger print of the album “Uncharted Waters II Special Edition.” The album included this entire 12-track CD, but also tacked on five songs from the… Read More »

Four years before Uncharted Waters II Special Edition, there was the original: “Uncharted Waters.” This arranged album from 1990 features 11 pieces performed by Yoko Kanno and her extremely talented friends. Five of these songs got reprinted on the aforementioned “Special Edition” album, which is still an easy item to procure. But the other six… Read More »

Fable II‘s soundtrack is one that I figured would just be background music like most open world games of its type, and I was right for the most part. That said, the opening theme to Fable II instantly grabbed me and became one of my favorite theme songs in an RPG. It helps that the… Read More »

Nearly every Final Fantasy got its own “Piano Collection” solo arrangement. But why not guitar? And I don’t mean wailing electric guitar a la The Black Mages. I mean impressive, technical, classical guitar solo. Well, it seems the time has finally come. This CD+Book set gives guitarists something to strive towards. Now, I’m no professional… Read More »

The midi piano Mother 1+2 soundtrack translates the in-game versions of each song into something a bit simpler. Instead of the whimsical array of sounds and instruments accompanying each song, the melodies play out in tinny piano fashion. The quality of the compositions remains intact from the original recordings, but without the variety of sounds,… Read More »

The quirky, whimsical Mother franchise has more than a few faithful followers, and while skeptical at first, I joined that group not long ago by playing (and thoroughly enjoying) Earthbound. What I didn’t realize at the time was how fantastic the soundtrack is. Upon hearing it again, I have come to love Keiichi Suzuki’s work… Read More »

Despite a change in composers, the Mother 3 arranged album retains the same quirky, but thoughtful feel so well captured by the previous entries in the series. Containing ten selections, Mother 3+ combines classic themes with new ones to create a real fan-pleaser. Shogo Sakai orchestrates most of the tracks, with Taeko Onuki and Satoshi… Read More »

“It’s quantity, not quality!” Sakuraba has written far too much music for one lifetime. And it’s starting to spread too thin even for me. It’s come to the point where I actually dread listening to the next Sakuraba album, for fear that it’s just more of the same, but even further watered down. Then, a… Read More »

X Edge (pronounced “Cross Edge”) is like a cartoon crossover, but with games (and their respective developers). Disgaea (NIS), Ar Tonelico and Mana Khemia (Gust), Darkstalkers (Capcom), and the Spectral series (Idea Factory) all join together in an adventure led by two original characters: the hero Yuuto and heroine Mikoto. We’ve seen this sort of… Read More »