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Old Jan 22, 2016, 05:16 AM
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Jormungand Jormungand is offline
 
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Location: Wisconsin, USA
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Valkyria: Azure Revolution theme song(s).
http://gematsu.com/2016/01/valkyria-...g-demo-details

The vocal theme in the beginning really reminded me of Sakimoto, but I was wrong. I wonder if Mitsuda is also doing the BGM? Someone in the comments section seems to believe so. If so, I would have mixed feelings.

First, an all Mitsuda-score would be great, but I can't help but think there will be a healthy portion of Tsuchiya too.

Second, as much as I love Mitsuda and nearly everything he does, orchestral music is not and has never been his strength. He's hit gold a few times--for example, his Terra Battle theme, which is absolutely perfect and one of my favorite themes he's ever written. But the orchestral theme for this game? Totally unsurprising and cliche.

On the other hand, though you might argue (with reasonable accuracy) that Sakimoto's orchestral stuff has sounded samey since Stella Deus, he's better at it than Mitsuda (you could flip the argument and say Mitsuda's orchestral stuff has sounded samey since Xenosaga Ep.1).

At the very least, I will say this: either of them is an excellent composer with a pedigree of the highest quality. Recently a lot of good game designers have been making terrible, terrible choices when selecting composers. So good on the Valkyria team for not lowering the bar (if in fact Mitsuda is doing all the BGM). I wouldn't mind Mitsuda on the theme songs and Sakimoto on the BGM myself.
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