Music Releases

As the name would imply, 20020220 is a live recording of a Final Fantasy performed on February 20th 2002. This was the first live recording of its type for the Final Fantasy franchise and was wildly popular among fans. It features music up to Final Fantasy X, and many of the tracks used in the program have found their way into subsequent concerts such as "Liberi Fatali" and "One-Winged Angel."

Being the fan of Final Fantasy VIII that I am, I love this track and especially this live rendition. The choir is powerful and spot-on. Every piece of this song falls into place nicely and the natural draw of a live performance only enhances the emotion behind the composition. Hamaguchi's orchestral arrangement does what it needs to keep true to the original song while enhancing it through a full orchestra. It's an impressive start to a wonderful album.

The Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite is the grand-daddy of orchestral Final Fantasy albums. Originally released in 1989, Symphonic Suite features the music of the first two Final Fantasy titles arranged for orchestra by Katsuhisa Hattori and his son Takayuki. The tracks were performed by the Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra and conducted by Katsuhisa Hattori as well. An interesting thing about the album is the naming scheme used for the tracks. None of them feature the names given to the originals for the soundtrack and instead follow a numbered sequence prefixed by the word "Scene."

Scene I is the main theme of Final Fantasy II, and a wonderful version at that. For being the original, Hattori did a splendid job of transcribing the 8-bit composition to a fully-fledged orchestral masterpiece. There is not much to say other than every time I hear it, I have to stop for a moment to fully enjoy it.

Jet Set Radio garnered a good amount of press and recognition back during its release for its (then) cutting edge use of cel-shading, its unique gameplay and its soundtrack. The game was originally released for Dreamcast, but also made appearances on the Gameboy Advance and the Xbox.

The track selected is the title track from the game. The artist behind the song, Hideki Naganuma also did many of the other tracks for the game along with a collection of licensed music. The song uses a sample from the old BBC Radio comedy Hancock's Half Hour (wikipedia). It is house electronica and is very enjoyable. Although the style is one that garners either love or hate, it is a definite winner for most who enjoy the genre.

While I've used Jade Empire in a previous post (What about the yankees?), it is one more the better soundtracks on the Xbox, and in the J category quite simply.

Unlike the previous song posted, "Anthem of the Tyrant" has almost no Asian influence on the composition. It is fairly straight forward Western Classical, but still quite good. As can be inferred from the name of the song, it is one of the darker, more “epic” tracks from the album. It uses a lot of deep, guttural horns along with almost-screeching strings.

ICO was released in 2001 for the PS2 and quickly fell under the radar. Though being critically acclaimed, it found itself in the "cult classic" niche. Directed by Fumito Ueda, who later when on to develop Shadow of the Colossus, ICO is a unique adventure game set in an abandoned castle. Michiru Oshima and Pentagon composed the soundtrack for the game, creating a minimal, atmospheric score.

As the last track of the album, "ICO ~You were there~" features the vocal talents of former Libera member Steven Geraghty. The song is extremely beautiful, using a mixture of synthesized instruments and real ones to create a powerful yet subtle ambiance that is only accented by the high vocals of the young singer.

Published by Enix in Japan and Nintendo everywhere else, Illusion of Gaia is an RPG released for the Super Nintendo back in '94. It is part of the so-called "Soul Blazer" series which consists four titles developed by Quintet that share both "plot themes and gameplay elements." Illusion of Gaia ended up being the only major soundtrack developed by composer Yasuhiro Kawasaki who did only minor titles afterwards such as the Japanese version of Sim Tower: The Vertical Empire for PC in '95.

The track "Temple" is about as cliche of a SNES RPG track as you can find. Though showing off the best of the best in the world of VGM is important, the mediocre songs are just as vital. By '94, the major RPG franchises of the day were already in full swing with the fifth iterations of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series both already on shelves. Because of the success of their style of music, many other titles turned to mimicry to help them find success in the market, including Illusion of Gaia's soundtrack. The production sounds like early Final Fantasy but less inspired. This is perhaps why Kawasaki found little work after the release of this game.

Hitman 2 was released in 2002 and almost immediately found itself mixed up in controversy over the content. Even with the controversy, though, the game was received well amongst gamers and helped establish the Hitman franchise. The soundtrack, composed by Jesper Kyd and performed by the Budapest Symphonic Orchestra, was nominated for multiple awards honoring the best soundtrack including GameSpot's Soundtrack of the Year and multiple Game Audio Network Guild awards.

"Waiting for Action" is the second track of the soundtrack and occurs early on in the game. Featuring a strong orchestral score, the track has an almost Eastern-European feel to it. The brooding feel of the song only intensifies as the drums, though short, make their appearance near the end of the composition.

There isn't much need to detail the pedigree of the Half-Life series. Being the sequel to one of the most influential FPS titles to ever grace a PC, Half-Life 2 was an excellent follow up and the soundtrack was no slouch either. Kelly Bailey returned to score Half-Life 2 which helped maintain a sense of continuity from the first title to the second which was released almost exactly six years later.

The track Black Mesa Inbound is actually a remix of a track from the original Half-Life soundtrack which was entitled "Vague voices." By itself, this extremely atmospheric track is almost forgettable, but in a good way. It does it's job of making your forget you are listening to a piece of music and instead evokes the basic emotions it was set out to. The arrangement is extremely minimal, with a few electronic sounds heard throughout. The sound is almost metallic with a soft organic undertone as the sound pads fluctuate in and out.

Originally released in 1988 in Japan, Hanjuku Hero was “[a] real time strategy game, Hanjuku Hero lets you command monsters and troops in a land-based battle for supremacy. Humor and strategy mix in this unique game. The fate of your kingdom is on this battle!” (RPGamer.com) The composer Nobuo Uematsu had just come off his first Final Fantasy composition when he scored this game.

“First Moon Event” falls in line well with Uematsu’s style. The strong melody and solid use of simple harmonics through the old Famicom system shows his ability to make a memorable song from anything. Though the song isn’t as impactful or epic as his Final Fantasy tracks, it’s the light-hearted feel that makes it an enjoyable listen. Even without having played the game, listening to the song makes one imagine the kind of enjoyment young Japanese kids probably felt in the early days of Squaresoft.

Gears of War is one of the best selling Xbox 360 titles so far, and with good reason. Developed by Epic Games using the Unreal Engine 3.0 and masterminded by Cliff Bleszinski, this third-person shooter game is the most fun you can have with a gun that also acts as a chainsaw. The soundtrack was scored by Kevin Riepl, composer of many other titles such as Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004, Unreal Championship 2, and City of Villains.

The track “Train Wreck - Locust Theme” is a great example of the atmosphere that the soundtrack does such a great job of creating. The mix of winds, strings, and electronic sounds creates helps build tension in the music and while keeping the music exciting. The strings that appear about a forth of the way in sound like something out of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain.”

Originally developed for the arcade, Guilty Gear X helped establish the Guilty Gear series among the top tiers of the 2D fighters. The game (along with the rest of the series) was riddled with references to popular rock music and included a soundtrack to fit the theme. Writer and character designer for the Guilty Gear series, Daisuke Ishiwatari, also wrote the music.

“Blue Water Blue Sky” sounds like you’d expect a rock song with such a name to sound. It’s upbeat, extremely catchy, and worth listening to over and over again. If you have ever listened to early 90s Jrock, then the main melody to the track will sound very familiar. The writing style coincides with the 90s style of writing found in Jrock, but not in a bad way. Instead, it creates around 3 minutes of enjoyable instrumental rock that does a great job of representing what the Guilty Gear music is all about.

The Suikoden series has been around for almost 12 years now and while the fifth installment in the series was released in 2006, the second game is considered the pinnacle of the series by many of its fans. Due to the immediate competition with the release of Final Fantasy VIII, unfortunately, the game was quickly overshadowed and fell into obscurity, remaining as one of the rarest PSX titles in the US. The soundtracks to Suikoden II and the rest of the series have proven to be popular with around 15 albums released to accompany the five Suikoden titles.

This track is one of my favorite Suikoden tracks of all time. The piano composition is extremely beautiful and compelling and the accompaniment of the traditional Japanese vocals helps to propel this track above the others. The tone of the piece is both uplifting and somber which is conveyed so well with the minimal use of instruments. Unlike the arranged version found later in the album, the use of only a piano, a few stringed instruments and the vocals helps to make the track much more emotional than the arranged version.

Although I didn’t include arguably the most famous “F” RPG, Fable isn’t too far off. Released in the fall of 2004, Fable was touted to be a new evolution in the world of RPGs, featuring a system that allowed for great user interaction in the story development. Whether the game lived up to the hype is up to you, but the soundtrack is definitely worth mentioning. Russell Shaw, having done other Lionhead titles, scored the soundtrack with Danny Elfman composing the theme.

The track itself is a wonderfully mellow tune. The mixing of atmospheric strings and quiet winds helped to create a feeling that someone could very well imagine as the soundtrack to a flowing field of grass in the late afternoon on a summer’s day. There is no real build up in the song, staying consistent most of the way through, with a small build to a slightly dark feeling about 3/4ths of the way through as the bass becomes much more prominent.

Genealogy of Holy War (or Seisen no Keifu) was the fourth Fire Emblem title in the series, appearing on the Super Famicom in Japan. While the title only found its way to American shores through fan-translations, other titles in the series have since been released in America and quickly found a strong following. Yuka Tsujiyoko scored the soundtrack along with most of the Fire Emblem franchise.

“Theme of Fire Emblem” is a classic RPG theme. The epic nature of the composition helps to build the anticipation in the player as the begin their quest while establishing a style of music that will be heard throughout their adventure. While sounding a bit generic after having heard numerous RPG themes, “Theme of Fire Emblem” still manages to make its own distinct impression on me and many other fans of the soundtrack.

F-Zero needs no introduction. Originally released for the Super Nintendo, this futuristic racing game broke new grounds in terms of technology and the soundtrack wasn’t too bad either. Composed by Yumiko Kanki and Naota Ishida, the soundtrack has a very contemporary feel to it, which was enhanced when released to album and arranged PeeWee and Michiko Hill.

The theme for Mute City sounds much like late 80s/early 90s contemporary jazz. It’s upbeat with a catchy melody and helps to enhance the feeling of speed when playing. The saxophone work in this arrangement is strong and clear without overpowering the ensemble established in the song. The style to the track is slightly dated, however, sounding like it belongs on a 90s sitcom or movie.