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A few years ago when Final Fantasy Chronicles was released, I picked up the Final Fantasy IV soundtrack that was sitting on shelf beside it. It was the best CD I’ve ever bought for $9.99. This album is basically a domestic release of the Japanese OST, with one bonus track, which is a wonderful piano… Read More »

Before you read the remainder of this review, I’m just going to come out and say it. I dislike Tokyopop. I’m ecstatic that they’ve ventured to bring some Squaresoft OSTs over to American shores, but I wish they’d do a better job. When I bought this OST, I knew that it truly was Uematsu’s “Best… Read More »

The Black Mages II: The Skies Above, is the second arranged album by Nobuo Uematsu’s rock group, The Black Mages. While the first album consisted of rocked-out versions of popular Final Fantasy battle themes, like “J-E-N-O-V-A” and Final Fantasy VI’s “Decisive Battle”, BMII: The Skies Above takes a different route, by incorporating rock arrangements of… Read More »

I have always considered myself “open-minded”: one who is able to listen to all music, in whatever quality instrumentation it is presented. I was especially fond of early Game Boy synth, which was some of the most limited VGM to which one can listen. For some reason, the Game Boy Advance (GBA) has seemed to… Read More »

Note: The year 2005 reprint from Aniplex was made for the purpose of releasing a disc without the controversial “Label Gate” copy protection software, as the original version had come with this software. Atlus’ pseudo-sequel to Hoshigami, Stella Deus, made waves in Japan with gameplay and storyline that has been the first to rival Final… Read More »

I’ve said it so many times now that I feel it should go unsaid, but just as a preface for VGM novices that are reading this review: any soundtrack that extends to this number of discs/tracks (in this case, 4 discs and exactly 100 tracks) is guaranteed to have a lot of boring tracks. There… Read More »

Now this was a pleasant treat. I bought the Baten Kaitos ~Eternal Wings and The Lost Ocean~ Original Soundtrack only days before Baten Kaitos was released domestically, not knowing that the soundtrack had been out for almost a year. I made a good decision, too, because this contains some of Motoi Sakuraba‘s best works, though… Read More »

I had been looking forward to this soundtrack’s release for quite some time. Naoshi Mizuta, who had actually impressed me with his compositions in the Final Fantasy XI OST and its first expansion, Rise of the Zilart, was announced as the composer for Chains of Promathia, the MMORPG’s second expansion (which was heralded as being… Read More »

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 »