Archives

Blue Dragon‘s new boss battle theme “Eternity” came in the form of a pretty unlikely alliance: Nobuo Uematsu (the Final Fantasy guy) and Ian Gillian (the vocalist of the band Deep Purple). When the song first got out (in a trailer from Tokyo Game Show), people were saying “hey, that sounds like Deep Purple.” They… Read More »

Ayako Kawasumi contributed her vocal talent to three songs on Uematsu’s “Blue Dragon” OST. All three of those songs came, in full form, on this single. “My Tears and the Sky” (or, if you prefer, “Watashi no Mizu to Sora”), is the game’s primary vocal theme, one that was saved for the ending (even though… Read More »

Jeremy Soule is lauded as the videogame composer of the United States. His works are the most critically acclaimed, and many people agree that his work is on par (perhaps above par) to some of the better film scores out there. Though I only dabbled with Morrowind, the third of Bethesda’s “Elder Scrolls” series, I… Read More »

Prior to the release of the game’s original soundtrack, a small album entitled “Save This World: Phantasy Star Universe original score” was released. This album consists of orchestral pieces from the game, excluding the opening and ending songs. Some of the songs are remixes turned orchestral, giving some freshness to the song. The way most… Read More »

Phantasy Star Universe is the true successor to Sega’s Phantasy Star Online. Neither game has a lot of content compared to a lot of other small MMORPGs, nor did they live up to the name of the original four games; but PSU has gotten and cult following, and the game is quite enjoyable if you… Read More »

Note: This is the import version of the promotional CD. Gamestop (and other North American retailers) had been giving away this CD as well, but it included no artbook. This promotional album is for those who had pre-ordered Phantasy Star Universe (PSU) in Japan back in the summer of ’06. It also came with a… Read More »

If you’re a regular reader at RPGFan, there are three things that you have probably figured out by now: 1) I really like Gust (developers of the Atelier series and, of course, Ar tonelico); 2) we at RPGFan keep tabs on virtually every NIS America release; 3) NIS America almost always prints a bonus soundtrack… Read More »

Cartagra was released in 2005 on PC and 2006 on PlayStation 2 in Japan. The latter version, as per console standards, removed the “fan-service” sexual scenes but maintained much of the violent content, as it was integral to the game’s plot. The soundtrack, composed by the somewhat well-known pseudonymous entity Little Wing, was published after… Read More »

An RPG/SLG hybrid originally released for Sega Saturn (then ported to PlayStation), QuoVadis takes the popular Japanese playing genre and sticks it in another popular Japanese realm: outer space. The artwork and style of the game are reminiscent of Macross: the music, however, is more like a Gundam soundtrack. With the exception of a few… Read More »

RF (Rising Force) Online is a sci-fi MMORPG that was developed in Korea and now has a fair base of US and European players joining in the fun. The game hasn’t seen an officially published OST, but since Asian pop star “Lia” did a bunch of work on the game, she released a full length… Read More »

A spiritual successor to Super Robot Taisen IMPACT, MX was released a year after Alpha 2 and a year before Alpha 3. It served to bridge the gap between the two titles for the year, and it managed to be a rather successful title in its own right. …Particularly, its soundtrack was incredibly impressive. Most… Read More »

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology was released in Japan recently on the PSP. The game’s ending theme, from artist Kana Uemura, is one big happy surprise. If you’re ready to throw aside what you previously thought of Japanese Pop in favor of a “new wave” of modern-Asia-meets-modern-America, check this out. “Paper Plane” (Kami Hikouki)… Read More »

I find this soundtrack to be quite a strange one. Released months after the original Alpha Gaiden OST (which was awesome) had come out, it was marketed a “complete” collection of songs from Alpha, the Dreamcast version of Alpha and Alpha Gaiden. Listening to the Alpha Gaiden OST the very least, I can safely say… Read More »

The first SRT Alpha game was a hit, managing to evolve the franchise in a new direction. That includes the dynamics of the music too. This is the second installment in the series (not numbered for some reason). Since I heard all the other soundtracks from the other series, I initially thought I would be… Read More »

When Alpha Gaiden was released back in 2001, it was also the debut of the J-Rock group JAM Project, who would be the official performers for all the future Super Robot games. Considering the fact that some of the band members sang openings for mecha shows long before, and that some even do seiyuu for… Read More »

While the Alpha Complete Sound Track is somewhat enjoyable, it was missing the character theme songs, which is a big letdown, considering those portions of the songs I tend to find most enjoyable. However, there were three albums released that contained the character themes featured in the game, along with some of the original music… Read More »

Super Robot Wars Alpha Original Score II: Earth Chapter continues the Original Score trilogy. This installment consists vocal versions of the SRX crew, plus Levi, along with miscellaneous songs. None of their theme songs are featured in this album (that’s in the next installment). As much as I like the SRX team, I did not… Read More »

Original Score III: Soldier Chapter is the third and final album from the Alpha Original Scores. It is personally my favorite among the three. It contains a number of good character theme songs, some nice vocals, and there is no drama portions in the vocal songs, so listeners can engage in the songs easily. It… Read More »

“IMPACT” took the Super Robot Taisen “Compact” series (on WonderSwan) and mashed it into one lovely PS2 title (much like how the PS2 “Original Generations” in 2007 is a compilation of the two OG games on GBA). This soundtrack is really excellent, for two reasons in particular: first, the sound quality is amazing on both… Read More »

Since JAM Project began to sing for Banpresto’s Super Robot Wars series, they have done opening and ending songs for the later SRW games (excluding GameCube and all the handheld ones). This single is from 2002’s SRW Impact (A remake of 3 WonderSwan games into one). It is their second SRW single as well. Though… Read More »

JAM Project has done it again. They have done another great single, this time covering 2004’s Super Robot Wars/Taisen MX (A miscellaneous SRW title). Like the other singles, it covers the full versions of the opening and ending songs. In general, I greatly enjoy their songs, but there have been some that stood out to… Read More »

There have been a lot of vocal albums released under the banner of “Super Robot Taisen,” both studio compilations and live concert albums. However, most of the songs performed would come from the classic anime, particularly the works of Tomino (Gundam) and Nagai (Mazinger). Now, however, Super Robot Taisen has become so large that its… Read More »

The first of Kitty Records’ three SRW soundtrack releases, this album is an OST/arrange album for 4th Super Robot Wars, which was released on the Super Famicom in 1995. The album marked the first attempt to really market the music to a strategy RPG that bred itself with a multitude of mecha anime. The soundtrack,… Read More »

A musical “sequel” to the 4th SRT soundtrack, Shin (New) Super Robot Taisen Powerful Music Battle II is an OST/arrange album for the PlayStation strategy RPG that helped usher the series into the 32-bit era. I’ve listened through my fair share of SRT (or SRW, however you want to abbreviate Taisen/Wars) soundtracks, though this is… Read More »

It is no secret that I quite enjoyed the soundtrack to To Heart. Great soundtrack, great game. So when To Heart 2 came out, fans were overjoyed. I was certainly looking forward to listening to this soundtrack. It offers more: more tracks than its predecessor (41 over two CDs versus 33 on one CD), longer… Read More »