View Single Post
  #47  
Old Apr 17, 2016, 06:49 AM
《J》's Avatar
《J》 《J》 is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Spain
Posts: 120
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
I just bought Celceta (the game). Some of the songs I've heard so far sound alright when they could have very bad. In The Scorching Flames sounds ok, and I like that it's been repurposed into a boss theme.
Celceta's soundtrack is overall good but there are quite a few hit and miss songs (both old and anew). I mostly like the arrangements of Ys IV's music -- they sound faithful to the J.D.K. Special(s) counterparts. Burning Sword is a great field arrange and so far my favorite version of it. Harlequin's Temptation may be missing the choirs from the PCE/Perfect Collection version, but that slap bass and glorious melody still hit it. Ancient Legend, Sanctuary and Tower/Iris are among my favorites arrangements, and In the Fires of Ignition is just great in Celceta -- the most upbeat and metal version of all.

(The Dawn of Ys was really bad in this game for some weird reason.)

I don't really enjoy most of the new songs, but I blame it on Falcom out-sourcing the arrangement of Sound Team jdk's music to Jindo & co. because the compositions themselves are great. Can't say I'm a fan of this direction in Falcom music, and Falcom really needs to grow out of this parasitic dependence on violin that has been noodling Sound Team jdk stuff for about a decade.

Thankfully arrangers were barely involved with Sen no Kiseki II/Tokyo Xanadu and didn't prevent them from sounding really good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
Ys IV itself is 55 tracks. The Perfect Collection albums have extra material.
Ys IV isn't even 50 tracks if you take both J.D.K. Special albums and remove all the unused tracks and rehashes from Ys I (Fountain of Love '93, Theme of Adol 1993).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
This right here is the entire problem with the Falcom community. They live off incredibly dull arranges and cannot process proper FM synth. It is absolutely horrifying behavior that shows a complete lack of taste and respect to anyone who creates or consumes music.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
I have a problem with preference being called conclusion. I have a problem with dishonesty and lies.
"Matron" was my previous account. It's been 4 years and my opinion has evolved quite significantly over the time.

I wholeheartedly, 100% agree with these two statements here, and this is a stigma you can find in most self-called "experts" of Falcom music in the West. It completely ashames me that I used to think this way thanks to SEMO, RPGFan and Soundtrack Central "reviews" of Falcom albums from the '80s and '90s because "muh old 8-bit/MIDI music" regarding the "terrible synth quality" of their PC-X8/X68000/PCE/early Windows scores and all the Redbook Audio/Yonemitsu/Jindo/Koshiro wanking. They are all guilty of presenting their erroneous opinions and biases as facts because they think they know better than they do when really, they are just as ignorant. It's not until I found Chinese blog FalcomBOB and decided to form my own opinion by listening their old scores via Hoot that I got a better glimpse on Falcom.

Live arranges are overrated.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
Correct, but Felghana didn't try to do everything, it tried to do nothing. It is the safest and the most banal way of handling music on the entire planet.

FM, FC, SFC, PCE, they're all far superior. Ys VI and Origin, both far superior. Felghana is irredemable trash. There is zero soul within the Felghana soundtrack, even as the game threatens to be one of the greatest RPGs ever made.
While I wouldn't go as far as to put Felghana arrangements in the same category as pure trash, I'd say it's my least favorite in the series. Complete, VI, Origin and Seven are all so much better.

I do think Felghana is better than FC and SFC, though. SFC is cute due to the trumphets and the new tracks, IMO.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
For all we know, Felghana was planned to be Ys VII.
Don't really care at this point. We all agree that Felghana is a fantastic game. Celceta was great too but could have been better with extra months of development.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
I is horrible, II is incredible. When they did Complete, they redid I to sound more like II. Ys I+II Complete is almost the best way to hear those games; Ys I+II PCE is very interesting and some tracks turn out better.
Nah, Ys I Eternal is definitely good. It's just that Ys II Eternal is a lot better. Interestingly enough, many tracks from the Saturn version feel like protos for Ys I Eternal.

Ys I & II PCE is overrated but it has some really interesting arrangements like Theme of Adol, Final Battle, Ruins of Moondoria and Subterranean Canal. Ys I & II Complete is the definitely best thanks to the FM-like arrangements and the newly added synth solos.

Sidenote: Ys Super Collection came with certain prints of Ys I Eternal, and Falcom purposedly put 2 of 4 of the game's soundtracks into this disc to boost their Special Edition sales. Ys I Eternal comes with CD-DA and General MIDI soundtracks, but if you get this album, you can install 2 missing soundtracks into the game: GS and SC-88 MIDI.

In the end, Ys I Eternal actually has 4 different soundtracks: CD-DA, GM, GS and SC-88. The latter two are just... incredible. Same about Ys II Eternal's SC-88Pro soundtrack.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Despatche View Post
Ys III X68000 also threatens to be the best way to hear that game, alongside Ys III PCE.
Agreed. The Mega Drive version is also really good.

I don't agree with every bit of what you said, but the general thrust is spot on.

Last edited by 《J》; Apr 17, 2016 at 12:49 PM.
Reply With Quote