Less than one month after the release of the Tales of Eternia OST (through Marvelous), “Media Factory” released the “Tales of Eternia Remaster Audio”. To this day, I am not quite sure how this happened. What is its purpose? It has the exact same tracks as the OST, but now categorized in a more logical order. It features a slight improvement in audio quality (thanks to Yamamoto’s “remastering” work). But other than that, it’s no different from the OST. Was this supposed to be released as a competitor to the OST?
If it was, I have to say that the audio quality here is always at least slightly better, sometimes much better. I have sampled two tracks here that were also sampled on the OST review: Meredy Theme and Railroad. Both of these sound *much* better on the Remaster release. In my mind, the difference between the two versions is comparable to the “in-game” and “MIDI arrange” versions of Sakimoto’s soundtracks (such as Treasure Hunter G or Tactics Ogre). Those MIDI-enhanced tracks somehow sound much better than what was used in-game. This is definitely the case with Tales of Eternia Remaster Audio.
Regardless, neither this nor the OST uses the music that is heard directly from the PlayStation sound chip. They’ve already made two versions of the soundtrack…heck, why not release a third one featuring music that is ACTUALLY produced by the sound card in the system? Beats me…
This soundtrack, as of the time this review being written, is still somehow available at GameMusic.com. Pick it up before it disappears forever.