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Note: The obvious typos on the tracklist are the work of the publisher, and not this website. “Tears stained Eyes” and “Tention” are due to bad Engrish, not bad RPGFan staff. One of the things I’m known for in the circles I run in is my fondness for power rock. I’m a huge, huge fan… Read More »

About a year ago, reader Connary presented to me a rather unique review: the two-disc soundtrack to the Korean MMORPG “TalesWeaver.” The soundtrack was a limited edition item printed in Korea, not available for sale through any retail outlets. We were pleased to have such a review submitted to us. Connary raved about the quality… Read More »

This single is an interesting conglomeration of songs from the new group “Sound Horizon,” which includes “Revo” (the folks who did the Atelier Iris Grand Fantasm intro) and some more people. It’s like a giant collection of awesome like-minded artists that are interested in the VGM industry. In other words, it’s my dream come true.… Read More »

To date, no full OST has been announced for Monster Kingdom Jewel Summoner. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. This PSP RPG has an all-star cast of eleven composers, of which only two appear on this tiny promotional album. The tiny taste of the goodness to come is almost too tantalizing. With music… Read More »

The “Summon Night Soundtrack” is a generic title, and for a reason. It’s not a full OST, and it actually contains songs from Summon Nights 1 through 3. Particularly, all of the opening and ending themes appear on this soundtrack: six of the 16 total tracks are vocal performances from the first three games. Then,… Read More »

Apollon printed many of the earlier Wizardry albums (such as this one), but later Nippon Columbia and Toshiba EMI started to print soundtracks for Sir-Tech’s beloved series. Perhaps it is for this reason that the Wizardry “CD Drama” series ended prematurely: that is, with only one chapter. The album is labeled “CD Drama I” (and… Read More »

The three “Wizardry Gaiden” RPGs released on the original Game Boy each received an arranged soundtrack. Of the three, the first one had a soundtrack printed by Apollon (the others were from Columbia), and this is also the only one to contain original audio samples alongside the typical arranged tracks. I’m going to work backwards… Read More »

Note: the tracklist is written in English and Japanese. The parts added in parantheses are parts of the track title in Japanese that didn’t get put in the English version of the song title. Though the series overall has gained some strong fanbases over the world, the soundtrack for “Wizardry Gaiden II” (and all of… Read More »

Note: the tracklist is written in English and Japanese. On this soundtrack, the differences between the English and Japanese track names were so slight that we’ve simply kept the English names. The first Wizardry Gaiden included some lovely orchestra music, as well as a lengthy OST track medley. The second Wizardry Gaiden laced some jam-band… Read More »

Ahhh, MIDI. Nothing sounds quite like the old school days of ancient MIDI compositions and arrangements. Game music has progressed quite a bit since then, featuring full orchestras a la Shadow of the Colossus and who knows what else, but it’s occasionally nice to dip back to the days long past. And about fifty percent… Read More »

The Sora no Kiseki Vocal Collection is, quite simply, the most recent example in a long line of albums that show Falcom’s clear ability to milk their games and the games’ music. When “The Legend of Heroes VI ~ Sora no Kiseki” was released, there were three soundtracks released alongside it: the opening/ending single, the… Read More »

Two years ago, Falcom released an album entitled “The Legend of Heroes VI ~ Sora no Kiseki Super Arrange Version.” On it were ten tracks: eight instrumental, two vocal. The two vocal tracks have since been added to a Sora no Kiseki vocal collection, and the eight instrumentals are now found on this “First Chapter… Read More »

The Legend of Heroes VI ~ Sora no Kiseki was a huge success for Falcom, not in terms of sales, but in terms of quality music. I loved the soundtrack for it, and it’s awesome to hear the same quality music from the recent Ys titles found on Falcom’s other staple RPG series. “SC” (Second… Read More »

One of the earlier releases in Falcom’s “MIDI Collection” series was the Legend of Heroes (“Eiyuu Densetsu”) Collection. The data track contains over 90 minutes of MIDI data, but the real focus of this review is on the CD Audio, which contains arrangements based on the MIDI Systems. The album splits up the songs based… Read More »

The “Shin Eiyuu Densetsu” (or “New Legend of Heroes”) MIDI Collection was the last of Falcom’s MIDI Collection series, and it is hands-down the most worthwhile of all the releases. For starters, the data track contains a whopping six hours of MIDI data (the others, in comparison, usually had 2 to 3 hours of music).… Read More »

Though not in the same series as the original Arcana released on Super Famicom by Hal, Arcana Strikes is a Card-Based RPG for Sega Saturn, developed by Takara and Red. An odd alliance if you ask me, but the result was apparently one of the more enjoyable, if obscure, Saturn RPGs. The sound team, from… Read More »

Note: “tereport” on disc 2 tracks 8-9 are written as such on the CD’s packaging and are clearly a case of poor romanization. SNK’s beloved character Athena Asamiya has spawned her own line of games (the Psycho Soldier series), and she’s also a regular character in the King of Fighters series. In 1999, SNK released… Read More »

As you know at this point, I am becoming (or already am) a Super Robot Wars (SRW) fanboy. I fell in love with Original Generation, and drooled over playing Alpha 3. Along with good gameplay, plot and characters, it provides me with an array of nice music too. Alpha 2 is chronologically the 3rd installment… Read More »

The Alpha 2 original soundtrack did not feature full versions of the opening and ending songs. Instead, it was released as a single along with karaoke versions of them. I thought the songs were quite good overall, thus I would like to give my two cents to the full versions of the song “Skill” and… Read More »

I have gotten into the Super Robot Wars (or Taisen) series when I played Original Generations. As I learned more, and get more into the series, I played some of the import games and the first (and currently only) was Super Robot Wars Alpha 3. While I still think highly of Original Generations, in terms… Read More »

As you ought to know by now, I thought the OST to Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 was great. I especially fell in love with the opening and ending songs. If I had to pick one fault to that soundtrack, it would be having no full versions of either of them. It is understandable since… Read More »

“Fuuun! Kabuki Den” is a side-story title to Tengai Makyou II. With music composed by Kouhei Tanaka (who later went on to score all things Sakura Taisen), this “original soundtrack” is actually a fully orchestrated album. The only problem with it, besides this misnomer, is the disc length: only 35 minutes! I wanted 70 minutes… Read More »

Tengai Makyou’s “perfect graffiti” album includes audio tracks from three Tengai Makyou titles released before the end of 1993. The first is Tengai Makyou ZIRIA. These five tracks seem to be pulled from the Ziria anime, rather than the first game; though, I cannot say for sure whether or not these tracks were re-used in… Read More »

The Tengai Makyou (Far East of Eden) series is one with deep roots, combining issues of “east meets west” conflicts and religious tension between the two sides. The traditional Asian sounds found in all installments of the series are thanks to composers such as Joe Hisaishi and Kouhei Tanaka, experts in orchestrating music that seamlessly… Read More »

Released over a decade after its original counterpart, this two disc reprint of the old one-disc Manjimaru OST takes things a step further: well, at least half of it. The first disc is the orchestrated section, and it is ported entirely from NEC Avenue’s original release and stuck here. As you can see, the disc… Read More »