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Megami Ibunroku Persona, known as Revelations: Persona in the US, may have come out almost a decade ago, but it still remains one of hte most unique RPGs I’ve ever played. Its dark gritty subject matter, foreboding atmosphere, and modern urban environments set it apart from the crowd. It is only fitting then that the… Read More »

Note: This soundtrack is only available with the boxed Japanese print of the game, and thus is quite the rarity. This is because many gamers took the option of simply downloading the expansion rather than buying the game. Perhaps this soundtrack was the only reason to pick up the game in boxed form. If you… Read More »

Vain Dream II and Die Bahnwelt were titles both released by the company Glodia over a decade ago. It seems that, at this point, Glodia’s older star composer Tenpei Sato had moved on to other projects, and as a result left in-house composer Ikki Nakamura to do the work. Having composed music for Ragnarökkr and… Read More »

The second CD released in the Arc the Lad series was, fortunately, an actual “original” soundtrack. The previous album had actually been a misnomer and was actually an arranged album. Arc the Lad II Original Game Soundtrack gives us a thorough look at the compositional styles of Masahiro Andoh (and Hirotaka Izumi). Opening the album… Read More »

The third in a PS1 trilogy, Arc the Lad III was the last to feature a complete soundtrack from Masahiro Andoh (the PS2 games only list Andoh for having composed the “Arc the Lad Theme”). After proving himself in the first two games, Andoh seems to stretch out his compositional styles to incorporate some new… Read More »

Note: The alternate print was made to remove the controversial “Label Gate” copy protection software which was packaged with the original print. The Dragon Quest series is a venerable staple in the RPG community. It is truly a massive beast in the Japanese gaming industry, where adults take days off from work and bullies beat… Read More »

Suikoden has had a massive pouring out of awesomeness as of late. Beginning with the scans of Suikoden V suddenly blazing across the internet, hype and speculation for the series is at an all time high. The madness of TGS, the incredible Suikoden V trailers, the announcement of I & II on the PSP, the… Read More »

Ah, I see you are once again opening the vault to examine the RPGs of yester-year. Beyond that, you are willing to learn about an RPG that never quite made it to America. Sword World (a great tongue-twister, if you ask me) was an Japanese RPG released both for the Super Famicom and for PC.… Read More »

For those of you who remember an old game for SNES called Paladin’s Quest, you may or may not know that its original title was Lennus. While the US never got the second game in the series, the original had decent, though fairly unremarkable music. In fact, I would have never thought there would be… Read More »

Behind every officially-released album, there’s always some ridiculously obscure promo album. Okay, not always, but I’ve come to find these “Not For Sale” promo items are made on a regular basis. Take Lennus for example. Known as Paladin’s Quest in the US, Lennus was a decent turn-based RPG for Super Famicom with music from one… Read More »

Of all the crossover games known to man, Namco × Capcom is probably the most unique. Upon initial announcements of the title, people immediately assumed that it would be another fighting game crossover (like Marvel vs. Capcom). However, it turned out to be a strategy RPG. Not only that: it was a fairly successful strategy… Read More »

So you’re thinking, “what the heck is this?” It’s a bonus CD promo item, given out with preorders of the game and the OST. According to the scanty bits of packaging, the CD is probably published by Suleputer, as the disc’s inside label has a small “CPCA-10119” written on it. As the front cover reports,… Read More »

Fable was supposed to be an epic experience, one that allowed you to be whoever or do whatever you wanted. Though it was entertaining, the game was not the groundbreaking experience that it aspired to be. After listening to the Fable Original Soundtrack, I can tell you that its soundtrack doesn’t break any barriers either.… Read More »

I don’t think I’ve ever been overly pleased when a series replaces its musician with someone else. For instance, didn’t care as much for the Xenosaga II OST as I did for the first, although it wasn’t bad. Didn’t really take too kindly to the FF X-2 soundtrack, though I didn’t particularly hate it. But… Read More »

I’ll admit it, I am a Suikoden freak. I love it to no end. But there are a lot of good reasons to love the series. Besides excellent artwork, deep characters, an exhaustive history and backstory, and plots with more drama than you know what to do with, there’s great music. The newest installation to… Read More »

Falcom. To some, that doesn’t mean too much. To others, it’s legendary. In 1987, Falcom began the Ys series – a simplistic and linear, but fun and addicting series. But it’s really not the games themselves quite so much that, still today, are held in such high regard and attract newcomers. It’s the music! The… Read More »

As we do have separate reviews for the OST and Super Arrange Version, this entry exists for purely informative purposes. Along with being able to purchase the OST and Super Arrange Version separately, Falcom also offered a “package deal” with a cover slipcase, hence creating the “Perfect Collection.” Many fans of the game and music… Read More »

The Oath in Felghana has an amazing original soundtrack. Maybe even close to perfect. But ‘Ys – The Oath in Felghana: Super Arrange Version’ is…where can I even start? I don’t know how to form my thoughts into words. How about crappy? Short? Boring? Unoriginal? …I like crappy. Let’s take a look. In the vein… Read More »

Second in the Atelier series, Atelier Elie was the first to be graced with the musical styles of Akira Tsuchiya, who continued to work on music for Atelier games up to Iris (which is the sixth Atelier game). Toshiharu Yamanishi, who was responsible for Atelier Marie, is credited on this soundtrack primarily for songs from… Read More »

Ladies and gentlemen, behold: the very first Atelier soundtrack to ever be released. You’re not surprised to find that it is, indeed, a soundtrack for Atelier Marie, the first in the (currently) seven-part series. What you may be surprised to discover, however, is that this is no original soundtrack. No, Atelier Marie is an arranged… Read More »

Upon hearing the brilliant music of Atelier Iris, I was hooked. I had to track down everything Atelier I could find. Some would consider this a dangerous personality trait, but I took it as a sign for a spending spree, so I assembled myself a respectable little Atelier collection. One of the titles I bought… Read More »

When first starting up Atelier Iris the thing that stood out most to me was the opening song, “White Night Imagination.” It was very unique, sounding like nothing I’d heard before in VGM, and because of that it became one of my favorite vocal songs. Thinking of it when I saw Volkslied made it a… Read More »

Big fan of Suikoden series, blah, blah. Let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this album. Konami hates me having money, so they keep coming out with new albums from the Suikoden Series, this time a THIRD Celtic Collection, entitled, not surprisingly, Genso Suikoden Celtic Collection III. Now, I love Celtic and “world” music.… Read More »

So you thought you had heard every Lunar album ever made? If you skipped this one, you would be wrong. The Eternal Blue “Premium CD” was a bonus 8cm CD that came with the Japanese version of Eternal Blue for Sega’s “Mega CD” console (just “Sega CD” in America). The bonus album contained five tracks:… Read More »

TearRingSaga (or, if you prefer it, Tear Ring Saga, or TearRing Saga…the spacing changes on different products) is, I’m told, one of the better strategy RPGs for the PS1, rivaling the standard-setting Final Fantasy Tactics. However, the game would be more rightly compared to the Fire Emblem series (the game was originally scheduled to be… Read More »