FFT A2 site - Sakimoto the composer?

[Lierre]

Oh, thanks for a great clarification. It’s a shame there is at least one track that I’ll surely hate. As for bagpipes, since it had been used in FFT (and “Strange World Ivalice” from FFTA?) and the instrument sounded like a double-reed, I assumed it was used again.

My shallow rants aside, it seems Panelo’s Theme” and “Gathering Allies”, with some jingles, make reappearances in FFT A2. The arrangements are likeable.

[Jormungand]

I should clarify, I wasn't saying you were wrong about the bagpipes. Those background chords really do sound like bagpipes and, as you pointed out, very reminiscent of their use in the FFT prologue tracks. But the same sample was used for the melody and it just doesn't sound right. I wonder what the intention was... :\

Anyway, I'm really reluctant about the game itself as I hated the first. The job system was totally ruined with secondary commands being 100% effective and jobs being race-specific. Not to mention I can't stand stories that are about as deep as Blue's Clues.

I need depth, self-reflection, violence, betrayal, all that great dramatic opera stuff. Otherwise, what's inspiring me to save the world as I know it? Some whiny kid battling with his harrowing preteen trials? No thanks, I'll let the world rot. [/rant]

[Lierre]

I see.

Well, this time Sakimoto is asked to use a certain instruments which is related to the story a bit. I think that is a hurdy-gurdy since moogles of that ilk make appearances in the game. When I heard the track, it reminded me of "Mabure Home" (CC) and some pieces from Crystal Chronicles. Perhaps FFT A2 has an element of early music if mostly dominated by his usual orchestral music.

[Ovelia]

The timbre of the string synth must be Sakimoto's!

Well, I don't think it is that unlikable, EXCEPT for that weird sample carrying the main melody...

[Lierre]

Wait, most tracks seem to be streamed? A huge amount of ROM space to store note/articulation samples, or incredibly skillful manipulators would be requisites to accomplish such a high sound quality on the DS sampler. To me, at the very least, this sounds far much better than sequenced ASH tracks. As much as a 64 megabyte ROM having streamed music is unlikely, this explains why VGMtrans didn't detect so many tracks.

The preceding games developed by the same team have been very disappointing sound-wise (Knight of Lodis = three PSGs and two samplings, FFTA = two PSG and some samplings), but I think FFT A2 is one of the foremost achievements in terms of audio quality.

[Lierre]

Masaharu Iwata, Noriyuki Kamikura, Mitsuhiro Kaneda and Kimihiro Abe are credited in this game as arrangers or the like. Their roles are most likely the same as FFXII RW: to trivialize previous music so that the DS sampler could sequence it. Yes, music is sequenced. Though there are some tracks that sound at the same level as FFXII soundtrack (especially "Ozmone Plains), putting on headphones, we can easily hear aliasing or quantization noise. All that said, I think FFT A2 is a remarkable work as far as sound quality goes.

I can't ever believe that a soundtrack will be released this month. More or less than the half of themes are just recycles, and the new materials are normally bland, with a few of exceptions. However, my assessment is always changed after soundtrack releases.

[Lierre]

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/cd/cd_top/

56 tracks included...?

Of FFTA, "Main Theme", "Save/Load Menu" (US/EU version only), "Companions That Surpassed Their Tribe", "Magic Beast Farm", "Unhideable Anxiety", " Bell of Victory", "Engage", "Gathering Allies", "Wind of Hope", "Wounded Comrades", "Gained Fruit", "Painful Battle", "Sleep of Defeat", "Level Up", "Law Card", "Mysterious Shop", "Beyond the Wasteland". 13 tracks (4 jingles excluded).

Of FFXII, "Ozmone Plains", "Salikawood", "Mosphoran Highwaste", "Panelo’s Theme", "Boss Battle", "Nativity". 6 tracks.

I, however, never thought new tracks would amount to good 37... it's 20 to 25 at most. I think much of one disc is a coverage of sequenced tracks.

[Lierre]

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/s...iew/index.html

Well, as I told you all along *cough*, music is streamed. More specifically, according to Sakimoto, battle themes are streamed (and I doubt that is totally exclusive to battle themes, despite his statement).

Let's pretend that I posted nothing on November 2nd *cough*

Regarding this matter, anyway it's too bad that Basiscapes generally wasted the chance of arranging FFXII/FFTA legathy. While those from FFXII/FFTA hardly could be called arrangements because of them being almost identical to the originals, none of them comes off the better one. If they had been sequenced, they could have won kudos for duplicating Sakimoto's layered VSTi&sampler works.

On an unrelated note, it's really surprising to know the DS sampler is inferior to the GBA one in terms of the number of usable samples (or maybe Sakimoto refers to how well GBA could do software sampling).

[Lierre]

http://shopping.yahoo.co.jp/p:554507...tails;diskno=1
http://shopping.yahoo.co.jp/p:554507...tails;diskno=2

Of FFTA, "Main Theme", "Companions That Surpassed Their Tribe", "In the Bar", "Engage", "Gained Fruit", "Gathering Allies", "Mysterious Shop", "Unhideable Anxiety", "Ritz", "Beyond the Wasteland", "Bell of Victory", "Magic Beast Farm", "Bookmark"(Law Card?), "Painful Battle", "Wounded Comrades" and "Sleep of Defeat" are reused.

Of FFXII, "Salikawood", "Ozmone Plains", "Mosphoran Highwaste", "To the Peak", "Boss Battle", "Panelo's Theme", "Naivety", "To the Place of the Gods" and "The Sky Fortress Bahamut" are reused.

As much as it's really glad to see "Ritz" and "To the Place of the Gods" receiving another renditions, I can swear I didn't hear them (plus "To the Peak") during the gameplay. Maybe they weren't presented in the game, or were used in only a few quests. One of my complaints with A2 score is Basiscape didn't always take stronger tracks from the previous soundtracks, nor thier arrangements were so good (I know they had to avoid some of those tracks which had been used in RW, though), but I look forward to hearing a new "Ritz" and don't mind pay money for it.


Edit: Or "Bookmark" can refer to the save/load menu theme exclusive to US/EU version.... That was of course not released in the Japanese game and soundtrack, but reused in A2. If this is the case however where the A2 version of "Law Card" is gone?

[Lierre]

Hell, this album doesn't have track-by-track arrangement credits which I really looked forward to reading because it's very important to grasp more of each employee's personality. As for arranged tracks, the samples used in those arranged track, to me, sound like exactly the same as what Sakimoto previously used. I mean, most arrangements come off being slightly retouched by other person who however had no idea as to how to tweak Sakimoto's sequence data, let alone improving it.

Despite being in the official forum, I'd go so far as to say their "arrangement" just stands for a small excuse for shamelessly reusing previous materials, like Ogre Battle 64. A more varid arrangement would really have saved this soundtrack, and I think at least Kaneda (and perhaps Kamikura, based on Romeo x Juliet?) was capable of it.

All that said, the biggest disappointment is, they mistagged "Law Card" as "Ritz". I mean, although "Ritz" is officially listed as being included in this soundtrack, it's just someone's mistake ...sigh. I really, really, really looked forward to hearing the track (it's easily one of the best tracks on FFTA).

Surprisingly, Mitsuhiro Kaneda contributed one track to this album, but the booklet says it's (2-42) ... where the hell is it (2-42)? Along with the case of "Ritz", again, the production and edition staffs did a terrible job. By the way, "To The Peak" is one of the few track which I actually think is arranged, and improved. Is it his?

Were not for this mistagging, I'd not be too harsh on this album. But my rate is 2/5. Nonetheless, "Determination" is awesome (a bit too short, though) and I find some other good tracks here and there.