[LiquidAcid]

I found some time to work on my 2016 backlog again, so here is an update to my ranking from above.

Hitokui no Oowashi Trico Original Soundtrack
This one gets first place together with Setsuna. I honestly can't decide which one of the two I like better. Beautiful orchestrations together with the intelligent use of only a few themes. I hope to see Furukawa return to score another videogame.

Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai! A Music Collection
Mostly composed by Basiscape's Azuba Chiba, but compared to the last Majikoi soundtrack more on the rocking side. Which I find a bit sad, since Chiba doesn't have any chance to display her versatility.

Disappointed by
Final Fantasy XV Original Soundtrack
This album is mess. So, I waited like 8 years for this album. Well, not exactly 'waited' (which I usually understand as an active process), but I looked forward to the soundtrack since I heard Somnus on Shimomura's drammatica arrange album. I really looked forward to hearing what else was in store for us on this new FF title. And thus, it pains me that Somnus is still, by far, the best track on the album, in its original version with vocals that is.

Don't get me wrong, there are a number of really good tracks on the album. Also by the composers that joined much later. But everything feels so disconnected and fluctuating in production quality. One track, you have the impression that, yes, that's what a FF title should sound like, and the next one, you think that you're hearing some unfinished temp track, which was copy&pasted together in the last minutes before the album went into production.

And what I also don't understand is the following. If you have some characteristic themes, like the aforementioned Somnus, why is used almost nowhere in the rest of the album? I have the impression, that a theme usually pops up once, and if we're very lucky, you hear it a second time. It's almost if the composers weren't confident in what they had created?

I mostly blame these issues on the development problems. Like the game, also the soundtrack feels like a patchwork puzzle. I dont't see where the music is supposed to take me. It's meandering around, throwing blues, filler tracks and epic orchestral renditions left and right, leaving me in a floating state and when it's over, I feel... nothing?

I guess that happens if you mostly scrap a game, but desperately try to re-use as much material as possible. A clean cut would have helped here. Shimomura could've released a Final Fantasy XIII Versus Image Album album, and done something completly different for FF15, together with the rest of the composers (which joined much later).

I mean, we had this other game this year, which took a very long time to develop, but the end results turned out great. I guess things can work out, if you just do it right. Here too much simply went wrong.


EDIT: Another thing that was going through my mind, but which I didn't note down last time.

The use of character themes. We have themes for Noctis, Luna, Cindy and Ardyn. But if my information about the game isn't totally bogus, then there's four guys around Noctis almost the entire time. Why didn't anyone from the development team say: "Hey, aren't these guys so important that we should give them each a musical theme? I mean, just something to highlight each of their personalities."

So I came to the conclusion that either:
(a) There's no personality to write any theme against. (BAD)
(b) They're aren't that important after all. (BAD)