VW265-J1: Ys: The Ark of Napishtim Special Sound CD

[Lackadaisical]

Changed the "Platforms represented" part to Playstation 2 because this parcticular enclosure did not come with the original PC version.

EDIT: After further review, this soundtrack was also included in the first/initial copies for the Playstation 2 port, so it isn't necessary to buy the limited edition version to obtain this soundtrack.

[Aifread]

Do we have any info on who did the additional music for the PS2 version? Only lead I can find is "Big Idea Music Productions."

Track 4 is an arrangement of a theme that only appears in the PS2/PSP versions, tracks 1 and 6 are from the original game, and the rest are what I assume are arranged versions of unused music intended for the PS2 version.

[《J》]

"BiG iDEA MUSIC PRODUCTiONS iNC" (Lisle Moore, Brady Ellis, Tino Salki, James Guymon, Kurt Bestor, John Hancock, Chuck E. Myers) are listed under "Music Composed and Arranged by" in the PS2 credits, so they likely did the additional music for the PS2 version. Konami had plans to replace Falcom's original soundtrack with a boomy-orchestral score (the PS2 Demo used some), but people protested against the change and Konami ultimately limited Big Idea's contributions to the sidequest dungeons they added (Alma's Trials) and that new CG opening Konami made for their PS2 version (2:38~3:36 use two Jindo orchestral cutscene tracks from the original game).

Falcom's original PC development team is not listed on Konami's console ports, which is why there's no mention of Sound Team jdk (nor Jindo's name under "Special Thanks").

Big Idea also provided some new music for the PSP port, although that version also credits Kousuke Yamashita along with with them, who also arranged Mountain Zone for this thread's promotional CD. In addition, Namba, who used to be a popular arranger for King Records's Falcom Label, wrote two arrangements for the same CD.

[Aifread]

Okay, cool. Thanks for the info. I can honestly see that music working, though it sets a completely different mood and makes the game feel like a traditional western action-RPG, which is maybe what they were going for. I never played the PSP version (I heard it had awful performance issues) so I had no idea it had even more music that wasn't in the PS2 one.

I love Namba's work and his presence on this album was the main reason I picked it up. It's kind of a happy coincidence because I believe he was doing other work for Konami outside of this at the time. I imagine he saw a Falcom-related project come down the pipeline from Konami and jumped at the chance to do some arrangements again.

[Phonograph]

Originally Posted by 《J》

... King Records's Falcom Label, ...

Nihon Falcom's Falcom Label *

[《J》]

Originally Posted by Aifread

I can honestly see that music working, though it sets a completely different mood and makes the game feel like a traditional western action-RPG, which is maybe what they were going for.

I can see that, maybe that's why they dropped the original chibi/SD-styled character graphics for these 3D models with more realistic proportions in the PS2 version. I'd probably wouldn't mind that kind of music in some different, more Western-like game (and if most of the music was more like this or this), but Ys VI has one of my favourite Falcom soundtracks and it just feels perfect for that game. It's so diverse and distinct and has a cool folky drum 'n' bass feel, while pulling out the rock boss themes when it needs to. The synth work is really nice and the entire soundtrack is very cohesive, nothing really feels out of place (well, except for Jindo's orchestral cutscene music).

And yeah, I also really like Namba, so him working on something Falcom-related again after so long was neat (even if what he arranged wasn't originally composed by Falcom). Not much people talk about his "Plus Mix" series of arrangements, but it's probably what inspired the overall arrangement direction for both Ys II Eternal and Ys I Complete. They sound like a continuation of these, and the mixture of synth from different generations sounds exceptional; great homage to both Falcom's FM era and Namba's work. Chronicles just sounds all the same to me and relies on band sound too much, and I don't find most of Yonemitsu's arrangements in Ys Book I&II to be all that good.

Originally Posted by Phonograph

Nihon Falcom's Falcom Label *

Falcom Label was the result of Falcom's partnership with King Records. It's because of King Records' resources and connections within the music industry that Falcom was able to able to collaborate with their massive amount of music producers and release all these arrange albums between late-80s and early-to-mid 90s, which in turn paved the way to the golden era of Falcom game music arrangement.

Falcom rarely contacts outside musicians on their own, they probably know next to nothing about how to deal with talented, experienced musicians as other SMEs do, if the pathetic state of their outsourcing since 2015 is any indication.

[Phonograph]

I hope that you aren't the pretension to teach me stuff about labels

the falcom label never belonged to king records, king records has its own labels
falcom only gave material that king records manufactured because they have the struture for that for decades, same with konami or scitron

[Aifread]

Originally Posted by 《J》

Ys VI has one of my favourite Falcom soundtracks and it just feels perfect for that game. It's so diverse and distinct and has a cool folky drum 'n' bass feel, while pulling out the rock boss themes when it needs to. The synth work is really nice and the entire soundtrack is very cohesive, nothing really feels out of place (well, except for Jindo's orchestral cutscene music).

And yeah, I also really like Namba, so him working on something Falcom-related again after so long was neat (even if what he arranged wasn't originally composed by Falcom). Not much people talk about his "Plus Mix" series of arrangements, but it's probably what inspired the overall arrangement direction for both Ys II Eternal and Ys I Complete. They sound like a continuation of these, and the mixture of synth from different generations sounds exceptional; great homage to both Falcom's FM era and Namba's work. Chronicles just sounds all the same to me and relies on band sound too much, and I don't find most of Yonemitsu's arrangements in Ys Book I&II to be all that good.

God, I agree with so much of this. Ys VI was in that silver age of Falcom where Sonoda was working his magic and Jindo wasn't ruining everything he touched yet. I wish Falcom took his mediocre orchestra tracks on Ys VI as a warning. He's otherwise a one-trick pony with the violin/J-rock guitar combo and I dunno if it's him or the mastering engineers but everything is so poorly balanced that all you can hear is this wall of sound where the individual instruments have no room to breathe. The only thing I can stand from him are the mellower tracks like Dreaming or Fair Wind. Quality of the game itself aside, it's probably a good thing that Konami handled the PSP port rather than Falcom because otherwise the music may have met with the same fate as Chronicles, Zwei 2008, Brandish The Dark Revenant, Vantage Master Portable, et al. Origin and Seven thankfully dodged that bullet and weren't as tainted by Jindo, though I think Falcom's problem now is that his sound has become iconic of the company as a whole and they've been leaning too heavily into that.

I recently discovered Namba's Plus Mixes and they're next on my want list. I hadn't thought about them influencing Eternal/Complete like that, but it makes sense. I listened to his SAV of Termination recently too and noticed how much later arrangements draw from it: the instrumentation from Perfect Collection, the bass solo from Chronicles, and even one of the guitar solos from Origin.

I was also never a big fan of Yonemitsu's work on I&II. I think he butchered just as many tracks as he made great, but I guess a lot of people are nostalgic for that music since that was one of the best-selling versions and a lot of westerners' first exposure to the series. I even know some people who were initially disappointed when they purchased "Music from Ys" and it wasn't the TGCD version. Yonemitsu didn't really come into his own until Dawn imo, but even then I prefer a lot of the originals from the JDK Specials. Ys I Complete and II Eternal will remain the gold standard for embracing the original FM sound and pushing it even further and it seems the Plus Mixes are cut from the same cloth (I've also found the PS2 versions for the first five games are quite good as far as faithful renditions go). I love stuff like that; it reminds me of the "grade up versions" from the original GSM Ninja Gaiden album or RushJet1's VRC6 versions of the Mega Man series.