Archives

Dark Chronicle (or Dark Cloud 2 here in the US) is a fascinating story of two companions who travel through time, correcting mistakes and reshaping events in order to recreate a future that has been destroyed. While the story itself is sometimes dark and deep, the music is often very light and shallow. Most pieces… Read More »

Dark Cloud‘s sequel, Dark Chronicle (or Dark Cloud 2 in the US) brought along with it a pretty standard RPG soundtrack: I’d say, in a few words, that it was above the quality of the average RPG OST, but not spectacular. But, as we all know, a solid arrangement featuring real instruments and musical elaboration… Read More »

Note: this is the domestic (US) soundtrack release that can only be found alongside limited edition packaging. In an act of praise and salutation for publishing of US version of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (SMTN for short), I have decided to write a lengthy review of its accompanying soundtrack release. If you purchased the limited… Read More »

Motoi Sakuraba’s “Star Ocean: Till the End of Time Director’s Cut OST” is a perfect blend of brilliantly written orchestrations and awful instrument selection. Sakuraba’s genius and flair are as dependable as ever, but the sound of these pieces range from mildly irritating to downright absurd. As a mostly synthesized soundtrack, I had to lower… Read More »

I have been a huge Star Ocean fan ever since I first played Star Ocean: The Second Story. Interestingly enough, it was at about this time that I first realized just how important music is to games, especially RPGs. Naturally, when I first heard about Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, I was excited… Read More »

When one is playing an RPG, atmosphere is extremely important. Character themes, dungeon themes, battle themes, town themes, overworld themes, cinematic themes, etc are all important to the concept of mood and atmosphere. Volume 1 of the Star Ocean: Till the End of Time dealt with compositions made with an orchestra, whereas Volume 2 contains… Read More »

Every time an RPG with voice acting comes out in the US, I hope that those localizing would consider including the original Japanese voice with subtitles as an alternative to English dubbing. So far, the only example I know of this happening is Shenmue II for X-Box, and the only reason that happened was because… Read More »

Tenpei Sato is well-known for his work on a number of recent Nippon Ichi titles, including Puppet Princess (Rhapsody), La Pucelle, Phantom Brave, and Disgaea. Long before these games had their fifteen minutes of fame, Sato did work with a fairly obscure company named Glodia, who released a number of traditional and strategy RPGs in… Read More »

Falcom’s arranged albums are many, and they are probably most well-known for the semi-cheesy J-Rock and pop vocal tracks. Other arrangements have come about as well, including orchestral performances, techno-synth, and my personal favorite: piano solo. To date, Falcom has released four “Piano Collection” CDs: Ys Piano Collection, Ys Piano Collection 2, Legend of Heroes… Read More »

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles belongs in a genre of its own right. I give the composer, Kumi Tanioka, a vast amount of credit for composing an entire soundtrack with instrumentation based upon what she calls “ancient instruments,” ones that were popular during medieval and renaissance times but have faded out of mainstream listening, you won’t… Read More »

Wee-ha, an image album! This album contains ten vocal tracks from five female seiyuu (voice actors) of the Sega Saturn game Langrisser III. Despite the general cheesiness that comes along with these sorts of collaborations, I was personally impressed with this album, and it quickly grew on me. All of the vocalists have their own… Read More »

Ragnarøkkr is a PC-98 Strategy RPG from Glodia, a smaller game company that is most well-known for the game Emerald Dragon. This particular game is entirely unknown to me: all I know is that I have the soundtrack in my hands, and it is composed by Ikki Nakamura, who has composed music for other Glodia… Read More »

The day I heard that a sequel to Shadow Hearts was in the works, I immediately began to think about the original’s brilliant musical score, and how I’d now be able to hear more of that same great style. Upon getting my grubby little hands on the OST, I was incredibly hopeful that I would… Read More »

Ah, Ys IV. Among the dozens of Falcom-produced albums, the ‘Perfect Collections’ tend to be among the most loved and lauded of them. Ys IV had two separate scenarios written, and the music on the Perfect Collections is largely based upon Ryo Yonemitsu’s arrangements of the PCE version, entitled “The Dawn of Ys.” What we… Read More »

What happens when you combine solid orchestral performances with elevator music? You get the Arc the Lad Original Game Sound Track, which is ironically a disc filled with arranged tracks: nothing originally from the game. Well, except for the “Royal Philharmonic Orchestra” work on the opening and ending tracks, which are beautiful orchestral works used… Read More »

I hope I am not the only one who has noticed a certain trend about games that are released alongside a new videogame console: they’re almost always terrible. This has been especially true with RPGs. From Software, the company that decided not to pay attention to this tried and true rule of game-making, put out… Read More »

Evergrace was an action RPG released during the PS2’s earlier days by “From Software.” This game is regarded as one of the worst games ever to be released on the console: I have played the game myself, and I agreed that the game felt rushed into an early release. In its defense, the game was… Read More »

Boldly going where I’ve never gone before, this is my first experience with Mitsuda’s musical style. Having heard numerous times, that Xenogears has the best RPG soundtrack of all time, I felt I had to witness this myself. Does it live up to the claim? Well, yes and no. Considering that I’ve never experienced the… Read More »

Note: Shinko Ogata (from FFVIII Piano Collections) performs the songs arranged by Matsueda and Eguchi. The other arrangers performed their own arrangements, which is a first in FF Piano history. Note also the slight change in title from “Piano Collections” (IV–X all use this title) to “Piano Collection”…Just a little idiosyncrasy. I have listened to… Read More »

One of the most popular Anime series in Japan from 2002 to the present review date, the Fullmetal Alchemist series spawned its own Action RPG, which was published by Square Enix. This is a review of that game’s soundtrack. Before saying anything about this soundtrack, I must admit that, at the time of writing this… Read More »

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was not one of my favorites in the Legend of Zelda series. Though it had interesting gameplay, to me it lacked the epic feel that was in its predecessors, such as Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past. It seems that my feelings for the game extend to… Read More »

As I started to listen to this album, I was a bit wary to say the least. I am a huge fan of the Zelda series, but I am definitely not a huge fan of techno remixes. I was also pretty apprehensive about them messing with my precious Zelda music. But imagine my shock when… Read More »

What you are about to read is an incredibly biased review. I cannot help but do otherwise: Michiko Naruke has captivated my heart, and I cannot manage to get it back. Every melody Naruke writes and releases to the public draws me closer to the vague entity that we know as the Wild ARMs series.… Read More »

Long before Final Fantasy VII took the gaming world by storm, savvy gamers world-wide were already familiar with the previous six games in the series (well, Americans only had access to three, but the well-informed American knew that six existed). “Old-school” gamers are, to this day, nostalgic for a time when FMV sequences didn’t exist,… Read More »

When a person thinks of oft-arranged game music, the top contenders wind up being series such as Ys, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest. However, Konami’s Genso Suikoden series is catching up. Not only that, but the majority of the soundtracks produced are of excellent quality, including the subject of this review; Genso Suikoden Piano Collection… Read More »