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Memories Off: 2nd is a sequel to the acclaimed love adventure Memories Off. Not only does the game find itself taking risks with the narrative, but composer Takeshi Abo seems to have taken more compositional risks here as well. The music to the first Memories Off game was rather innocuous “play it safe” music with… Read More »

Kentaro Haneda worked solo on his first three Wizardry albums. On the next three (V, VI, and this one), he worked with Tamiya Terashima for the arranging of these excellent songs. This would be Haneda’s last entry in the Wizardry universe. The late Kentaro Haneda chose not to participate in future Wizardry albums (such as… Read More »

Kentaro Haneda is a well-respected VGM composer, one of the true “veterans” in the field. If there is one series that helped him earn this title, it is Wizardry. The franchise that originally started in the US as a fun, unique text-based RPG went on to become a completely different creature in Japan. “We Love… Read More »

Haneda, after producing a decent score for the original Japanese version of Wizardry, returned for the sequel. He would do so again for many sequels after this as well. However, as is the case with the initial sequels of many a franchise, this one is mighty weak. The style is very much the same as… Read More »

Three years after the first Wizardry, and its first soundtrack, Haneda returns for the third soundtrack in the game’s series. This installment, the “Knight of Diamonds,” features what I believe is the best music of the original trilogy (the “Llylgamyn” saga). By this time, Haneda’s style had become a staple of the game’s soundscape. But… Read More »

Was Haneda burnt out after 6 years of composing for the same series? I can’t say for sure. But I do imagine that he was tired of making the arranged albums. Though the first three were well done (in my opinion, the third was excellent), no album (arranged or otherwise) would be released for Wizardry… Read More »

After the successful formula of the Haneda/Terashima duo used in Wizardry V, it looks like the team decided to work together arranging the next album in the series. “Bane of the Cosmic Forge” was the sixth installment in the Japanese Wizardry series, and it’s the last album from Haneda in the series (other than Llylgamyn… Read More »

The Dragon Ball Z phenomenon has spawned plenty of games. As an action-packed anime, one expectations the usual 2D fighters, 3D fighters, and action-oriented adventures. But a turn-based RPG? Yeah, there have actually been quite a few of them, particularly during the NES and SNES years. This particular soundtrack is for Dragon Ball Z Gaiden… Read More »

Kenji Yamamoto, not to be confused with the composer of the same name who has produced the soundtracks for Nintendo’s Metroid series, has done a lot of work on DBZ-related videogames. One of his earliest efforts was for the Super Famicom game Dragon Ball Z: Super Gokuden Assault Chapter. This SNES RPG, obviously the sort… Read More »

Rurouni Kenshin, like most other well-recognized anime, had an RPG released as a related installment on PlayStation. This is the soundtrack for said game. In its advertisement, from many years past, it seemed that the game’s opening and ending themes were the “attractions” used to sell the album. There’s a good reason for that: the… Read More »

One of the first RPGs released for the PS2 was based on the “Orphen” anime. Known as “Orphen: Scion of Sorcery” in the US, the PS2 game “Sorcerous Stabber Orphen” was an underwhelming release for Sony’s then-new console. The game’s music features an extreme and unashamed focus on one genre: techno. In fact, this “Perfect… Read More »

The second of Ar tonelico’s “half drama” albums, the hymmnos musical series, focuses on Spica. As Claire was the supporting character behind Aurica, Spica is the supporting character behind Misha. All the same staff and seiyuu are back, with the notable exception being a separate vocalist covering our new feature character: Spica. She has a… Read More »

Nostalgia makes us evil men. It can corrupt our minds and romanticize our childhoods as better than they were. It can twist the cartoons of our youth into shining grails that haunt our merchandisable impulses to this day. It can make us believe that Final Fantasy Mystic Quest wasn’t as awful as they say. Oh… Read More »

Note: The DVD that comes with the soundtrack includes an animated promotional video for Emil Chronicle. Hey look, another underdog MMO with a cute premise and catchy artistic/musical merits! The big question…are we tired of it yet? Has the market been saturated? I’m not sure. Yeah, Ragnarok Online and TalesWeaver both hold significant status, but… Read More »

Dictionary.com defines mishmash as a confused mess; hodgepodge; jumble. I would use mishmash to describe this soundtrack, as within its 11 tracks lie in-game music, drama tracks, and promotional music not heard in the game. So does this smattering of material result in a worthwhile CD or does it seem like a hurriedly thrown-together lack… Read More »

Mother 2 is, for people of a certain age, one of the great moments of video gaming. Released as EarthBound in North America, its quirky nature, bizarre homage to pop culture, and subtle humor have made it a cult favorite that people still play today. The music was always an integral part of this, and… Read More »

Loosely translated, Suigetsu means “water month.” The game’s logo, the character designs, the short clip on the game’s official site, and the songs on this soundtrack evoke images of shimmering water on a clear moonlit night. I never had the chance to play this game, but from what I understand, it is about a young… Read More »

In March of 2007, Falcom celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Ys series with a live concert. This concert was called “Falcom Live 2007,” and it featured an all-star cast of vocalists, guitarists, and other instrumentalists who had some affiliation with Falcom in the last two decades. If you wanted to hear what that performance… Read More »

Note: according to the album’s packaging, disc two’s tracks are listed as if they continued from disc one (that is, they are tracks 22-46 instead of another 1-25). We at RPGFan have listed the tracks of disc two as they would appear in a CD player. We hope this does not cause any confusion. Nearly… Read More »

The seventh album in Media Ring’s “GM-Progress” series, Genesis of Dragon Force is a half-drama half-arranged album in a style similar to Lunar’s “Lunatic Festa” albums. As the album’s title suggests, the drama tracks tell the story before the game’s introduction, giving a Genesis account of how the current events came to pass. It is… Read More »

What we have here is an original soundtrack for a criminally underplayed game. The tracks are organized neatly and in a logical order, going from the intro songs to the character themes, the character themes to the menu songs, and then the menu songs to the battle songs, and then finally to the end game… Read More »

After reviewing the Dragon Force Original Soundtrack I went on to review the sequel’s soundtrack as well, and while I’ve never played Dragon Force II, everything I’ve ever read about it says that it’s mostly a rehashing of the original with a roster update and some new features. However, one of the big changes was… Read More »

Toru Kobayashi did much of the early musical work for Idea Factory. He has yet to impress me. His work in the Generation of Chaos series is drab and uninspired. This time he’s working on a side-story in the Spectral Force series that takes place 2 years after Spectral Force 2. It’s entitled “Lovely Wickedness.”… Read More »

If you couldn’t tell from the tracklist, apparently “The Best” thing that Spectral Force offers musically is from the “Spectral Force Chronicle” title, which I believe is a remake for PS2. Let’s work backwards to get the less appealing stuff out of the way, then hit the main course: shall we? Let us anon. The… Read More »

If you read my scathing review for the Spectral Force “Lovely Wickedness” soundtrack (which was actually printed after this second one), you may be surprised to find that I have much better things to say about this soundtrack. However, if you are surprised, you shouldn’t be: look up. See that? Kobayashi only contributed two songs… Read More »