Archives

First, let me state that I have never played any of the Romancing SaGa games. As such, I had absolutely no expectations about this CD because I had never heard the music for any of the SaGa games. I’m sure that a lot of you are in the same situation that I was since none… Read More »

Note: track “00” of disc three is a hidden track that can be located by rewinding into the negative space of track 1. SaGa Frontier is one of those games that got bashed by many people. Many people called it “Square’s worst” or “Great as a coaster.” However, the game also has a strong-voiced group… Read More »

After 4 straight SaGa games with Kenji Ito as the composer, Ito takes a chair and relaxes so Hamauzu can put his stuff to the test. How do things work out? Different, but also extremely well-done. This sound works extremely well with the fast-past, high-energy songs that still require relatively light instrumentation. The “techno” tracks… Read More »

Edit (added August 10, 2010): the Square Enix reprint includes separate packaging and a bonus 25th track recorded in Milan during the Piano Collections Final Fantasy XIII recording. It is a different version of track 5. …If your main attraction to SaGa Frontier 2‘s OST was the use of piano, then this soundtrack is for… Read More »

Yoko Shimomura is, in my mind and in the mind of many others, one of Squaresoft’s “three composing giants” (the other two being Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda…And some consider Sakimoto one, but he hasn’t done enough work with Square yet). Anyway, this being Shimomura’s latest work, it is simply amazing. The synth quality, the… Read More »

Anyone who knows anything about Sakimoto knows that he’s good at what he does. Knowing this, everyone expected the Vagrant Story soundtrack to be good well ahead of time. Were expectations met? Yes, yes, and…yes! Sakimoto’s style retains itself from Final Fantasy Tactics, except that since he had to write music for “dungeons” (which didn’t… Read More »

…If you thought the Xenogears OST was good, “you ain’t heard nuthin’ yet”… Xenogears: CREID (Celtic for “Believe”) is my favorite CD that Yasunori Mitsuda has ever released (and I think I’ve heard them all up to this point). CREID is a Celtic-style CD, with a very diverse multitude of instruments. There are vocal and… Read More »

I was pretty excited when I received my copy of Grandia II “Special Package”, a limited edition of the import game on Dreamcast. With a music CD and art book, I was in gaming heaven…or was I? Before even turning on the game, I wanted to sample the music from the CD and look through… Read More »

Lunar: Eternal Blue is undoubtedly one of the best games made for the Sega CD. One of the features that pushed it to the top of the system’s lineup, was the musical score. Argueably the best composed music by Noriyuki Iwadare, the songs and themes are nothing but exceptional. With songs such as “Dragon Steamship… Read More »

Hands-down the best soundtrack I know of that was released in 1998 from Japan. I had heard Sakuraba’s work before this CD (namely, Shining Force) and I wasn’t all that impressed. This soundtrack, however, blew me away. I definitely like the 2nd disc more than the first disc, there are a lot more memorable tunes… Read More »

Tales of Destiny, the sequel to Tales of Phantasia, carries over its original composer and throws in a second one to mix things up a bit. And boy, does it mix things up! When listening to this soundtrack, one asks themself “is this Sakuraba’s style?”…If the answer is a definite “NO!”, chances are you’re hearing… Read More »

Equaling the game itself in its excellence, Valkyrie Profile OST is easily Motoi Sakuraba’s finest work and one of the most powerful game soundtracks ever composed. It contains two CDs filled with incredible compositions, ranging from beautiful orchestral melodies to accompany the many poignant moments in the game’s storyline, to the upbeat synthetic rock and… Read More »

This little Chrono Cross sample CD was released with Square’s “Summer of Adventure 2000” promotion, which was given to anyone who put a $10 reserve or more on the game to which this sample CD is featured. Many were upset to see that these CDs are only 5 tracks each and hoped for more. If… Read More »

Before going into musical details of Final Fantasy IX, I wish to cover the differences in this OST’s release compared to the other FF OSTs. Now, first of all, this is the first time that DigiCube has released a multi-disc soundtrack with a catalog # of that same multiple type. FFVII‘s OST, for example, was… Read More »

Breath of Fire III‘s music is usually described as “modern/jazzy.” With exception to like three tracks, I really didn’t like this OST all that much. The music is somewhat bland, lacking in intrigue. There is nothing wrong with the jazz genre in my opinion, but some of these tracks were downright boring. However, the ending… Read More »

I, in my entire life, had never played a Dragon Quest game before listening to this soundtrack. Because of this, I had no idea what to expect. Here’s an in-depth re-enactment, through text, of what happened when I listened to the CD. me: Whoa… 2 hours later me: Whoa… It was really, really good. Being… Read More »

Basically, the Falcom Perfect Sound Catalogs do exactly what the RPGFan Soundtracks section does [Editor’s note: used to do!], just specifically with Falcom music. It samples tracks, giving about 1 minute clips of various songs, letting you be the judge of what sounds good and what doesn’t. From there, one may purchase those CDs. Seeing… Read More »

Basically, the Falcom Perfect Sound Catalogs do exactly what the RPGFan Soundtracks section does [Editor’s note: used to do!], just specifically with Falcom music. It samples tracks, giving about 1 minute clips of various songs, letting you be the judge of what sounds good and what doesn’t. From there, one may purchase those CDs. Seeing… Read More »

Japanese vocals: They are quite the amazing experience to listen to when you don’t know the language. Combine that with the diverse (and extremely cool hard-rock) sounds of Falcom and you have quite the sound. Falcom has actually made four best-of soundtracks to make profit on that amazing sound. Those soundtracks are the “Falcom Vocal… Read More »

A long story behind this OST…And my experience with Langrisser in general. Back way before I joined RPGFan, I had a personal site called “The Monkey’s Nest Gaming Section” (which is actually how I got hired here). I had sections for different series’ of games. After beating Langrisser II’s ROM for Genesis, I decided that… Read More »

The Legaia OST (for Americans, “The Legend of Legaia”), admittedly, sucks. There really isn’t that much good music on it. The ending was alright, some of the world map stuff was ok…and some of the slow emotional themes were good. But basically, it isn’t special. Did you realize that those statements were utterly blasphemous? That’s… Read More »

Through the use of comparisons, I have discovered that The Legend of Heroes III music must be good. Now, let’s say that Falcom only made two “Very Best of” CDs (which they did). One of them is “Very Best of Ys”, covering Ys I and II, which had all kinds of kickin’ music. The other… Read More »

Pay no attention to the first two tracks, and this is the coolest CD! 😉 As you can tell by my previous statement, I really don’t like the first two tracks. However, the rest of the CD is really well-done as for arrangement. I’m a big fan of Terashima’s work (other Falcom arrangements…Music for the… Read More »

One day while doing some random searchings on eBay, I discovered this soundtrack. Figuring it was rare enough to pay any amount of money for, I bid on it and won it for it’s minimum bid of $27 (obscurity has a high minimum bid my friends). Was it worth the purchase?? Yes. The thing I… Read More »

It’s Ys…It’s Ys II…It’s “Renewed”…Ahh! Ys II Renewal! Hmm…Leaves a bitter aftertaste… Basically, Ys II Renewal is a “futuristic” or at least “more modern” version of the OST, still using synth music. It isn’t bad by any means…But I’ve never liked music from Ys II very much anyway, so my opinion is biased. If you… Read More »