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  #1  
Old Feb 5, 2011, 05:08 PM
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BahamutZ BahamutZ is offline
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Very interesting read with the translated Mitsuda liner notes about his difficulty with the orchestration. While in no way does this soundtrack equal his work in Xenogears, it is a competent score nevertheless. I never played any Xeno game, so more props to composers who can get me to listen to their music without seeing the source material.

No big standout track for me. However, highlights include Rising Emotions, Gnosis, Battling KOS-MOS, Life or Death, Relief, Kookai Founderation, Beacjh of Nothingness, Green Sleeves, The Miracle, Proto Merkabah, and Pain.

4/5.

Last edited by BahamutZ; Feb 8, 2011 at 05:56 PM.
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  #2  
Old Feb 5, 2011, 07:28 PM
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Why haven't you played Xenogears? Get on that, quick! The XS trilogy is worth a spin, too. Well, 1 and 3 anyway. Ep.2 is worth at least a wikipedia plot summary...
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  #3  
Old Jan 28, 2013, 05:41 PM
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I discovered some time ago that Song of Nephilim uses a fairly popular vocal sample or imitates one, i wouldn't have thought that this work is not all original.

@BahamutZ
My opinion is quite the opposite, this album was the first i heard by Mitsuda, back in 2002 when i played the game, and i still think this album is a symphonic masterpiece. Best tracks: Battle's End, U-TIC Facility, The Girl Who Closed Her Heart, KOS-MOS, Ormus, Song of Nephilim, The Miracle.
Then i got interested in Mitsuda so i listened to Xenogears but surprisingly i felt it was mostly forgettable.

@Jormungand
My biggest problem with Xenosaga Episode I the game was that the battles were too frequent and repetitive, but at least the characters and the story were good, the thematics and the depth especially. Episode II the game was a similar chore battle-wise and it didn't really start even a few hours in so i stopped playing. The Episode II and III OSTs are by Yuki Kajiura so they should be interesting.

And there's Xenosaga: The Animation, an anime series that retells the story of Episode I. It's OST is fairly good (Battle Strategy Conference, Requiem).
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  #4  
Old Jan 28, 2013, 06:52 PM
Xenofan 29A Xenofan 29A is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DanteLectro View Post
I discovered some time ago that Song of Nephilim uses a fairly popular vocal sample or imitates one, i wouldn't have thought that this work is not all original.
The sample may not be unique, but he uses it in a wonderfully unique way.

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Originally Posted by DanteLectro
@BahamutZ
My opinion is quite the opposite, this album was the first i heard by Mitsuda, back in 2002 when i played the game, and i still think this album is a symphonic masterpiece. Best tracks: Battle's End, U-TIC Facility, The Girl Who Closed Her Heart, KOS-MOS, Ormus, Song of Nephilim, The Miracle.
Then i got interested in Mitsuda so i listened to Xenogears but surprisingly i felt it was mostly forgettable.
I got interested in Xenogears because I heard the music first (the opening theme, in fact), and the soundtrack is one of my favorites.

As for Xenosaga, I played through the whole series, and I was definitely disappointed by the staff changes (and the fact that Takahashi didn't get to do half of what he wanted with it).

Particular tracks from this one I like: Prologue, Battle, The Girl Who Closed Her Heart, Ormus, Space Ship Pursuit, Last Battle, and Kokoro.

I thought Xenosaga: The Animation was abominable, and I didn't care for the music, either. I have mixed feelings about Kajiura's Xeno scores (and Hosoe's contribution to II, for that matter). She's nowhere near Mitsuda's level, that's for sure.

I also feel that the release on Mitsuda's Sleigh Bells label is far better in every way except track order than this one.

Last edited by Xenofan 29A; Jan 28, 2013 at 06:55 PM.
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  #5  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 05:59 AM
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Originally Posted by Xenofan 29A View Post
I also feel that the release on Mitsuda's Sleigh Bells label is far better in every way except track order than this one.
Track order is chronological on this one, right?

How's the Sleigh Bells release better?

Last edited by DanteLectro; Jan 29, 2013 at 07:11 AM.
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  #6  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 06:32 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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Originally Posted by DanteLectro View Post
Track order is chronologic on this one, right?

How's the Sleigh Bells release better?
The additional track ("World to be Born") was pretty good.
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  #7  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 08:49 AM
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Wow, that's really odd, I found the mastering on the Sleigh Bells release to be way too loud, I can't stand it.

Life or Death, U.N.M. Mode, Kukai Foundation, KOS-MOS, and most of all, Panic, are my favorite tracks here, so I agree with some of you guys and then I guess I just have a couple of my own loves. No love for U.N.M. Mode, how sad, hahah. Xenosaga is a great soundtrack though, I literally have 3 times more songs than that on my favorites list from this soundtrack. I think Yasunori Mitsuda is somebody who lives up to his praise. Oh, and as for Xenogears, I find it to be really... cheesy. But I still like a number of songs from it. Aveh, Thames, and then The Sky, the Clouds, and You, just to name a few (I have many more favorites from Xenogears too though).

Last edited by Mortavia; Jan 29, 2013 at 08:52 AM.
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  #8  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:00 AM
Xenofan 29A Xenofan 29A is offline
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Originally Posted by Mortavia View Post
Wow, that's really odd, I found the mastering on the Sleigh Bells release to be way too loud, I can't stand it.
What??? It's several dB quieter than the Digicube release, and has none of the distortion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia
Oh, and as for Xenogears, I find it to be really... cheesy.
How so? You don't like the ethnic vocals?

Quote:
Originally Posted by DanteLectro
How's the Sleigh Bells release better?
Better mastering, some tracks were re-recorded live, and yes, World to Be Born is pretty good. If the sound on the Digicube release doesn't bother you, though, there's probably not enough reason to switch.
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  #9  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:04 AM
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Well, I kind of didn't mean that in a bad way about Xenogears. It's just... oh, how would Dag put it... so typically RPG music? I like Xenogears in all of its cheesiness, and no it's not really the ethnic vocals, it's just the kind of over-emotional quality of some of the tracks. It's a good soundtrack. I didn't listen to it back in the day, I listened to it about 4 years ago, but I was still impressed by a number of songs and I go back to them a lot.

As for the mastering differences, now I'm going to have to go back and listen to these Xenosaga releases again, I was sure that the Sleigh Bells release was really blocky and distortion everywhere. This was also true for the Tsugunai soundtrack, an cinniùint, which was another Sleigh Bells release, so I'm sure I have this right...
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  #10  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:12 AM
Xenofan 29A Xenofan 29A is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia View Post
As for the mastering differences, now I'm going to have to go back and listen to these Xenosaga releases again, I was sure that the Sleigh Bells release was really blocky and distortion everywhere. This was also true for the Tsugunai soundtrack, an cinniùint, which was another Sleigh Bells release, so I'm sure I have this right...
No, no, you're absolutely wrong. The Sleigh Bells release is far less blocky and distorted. an cinniuint is, but Xenosaga I and subsequent Sleigh Bells releases have not been.

The track Battle, from both releases:

Sleigh Bells:


Digicube:


Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia
Well, I kind of didn't mean that in a bad way about Xenogears. It's just... oh, how would Dag put it... so typically RPG music? I like Xenogears in all of its cheesiness, and no it's not really the ethnic vocals, it's just the kind of over-emotional quality of some of the tracks.
I think I see where you're coming from, but I disagree. One of the things that's impressive about Xenogears' score is that it's very restrained emotionally. Tracks like Place Where the Dream Egg Hatches and Cage of Remorse and Regret have an emotional subtlety that you rarely find in RPG scores, especially compared to say, Ito or Sakuraba, who are always baring their hearts on their sleeves.

Last edited by Xenofan 29A; Jan 29, 2013 at 09:16 AM.
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  #11  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:17 AM
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Mortavia Mortavia is offline
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Haha, yeah, I just did the same thing myself in Sound Forge! My apologies, I was wrong. Weird thing though, the Sleigh Bells release sounds... echoey. I don't think this is my speakers, it does it in my headphones too. The DigiCube release is louder, but I don't find it to distort, I find it to be crisper. Maybe I suck at sound quality! But I still prefer the DigiCube release despite it being the louder soundtrack, there's something funny about the way the Sleigh Bells release sounds.

It's good to know I remember an cinniùint correctly though.

(By the way, I tested this with the Battle theme track, and I forget how good it really is, wow.)

EDIT: Oh yeah, and about Xenogears, sure, it has those tracks. But then what about
A Gathering of Stars in the Night Sky
Tears of the Stars, Thoughts of the People
Flight
Wings (all in a row, haha)
The Blue Traveler
Minus the second one I listed, these tracks are all on my favorites list. But c'mon, they are all really emotional! I like them for that though. You're right, Xenogears has some more subtle tracks, like The Treasure Which Cannot Be Stolen (or Unstealable Jewel as we have it at VGMdb). I love that track, and it's subtle. Others... less so. And I guess the emotional tracks are what I remember Xenogears for.

Last edited by Mortavia; Jan 29, 2013 at 09:21 AM.
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  #12  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:22 AM
Xenofan 29A Xenofan 29A is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia View Post
Haha, yeah, I just did the same thing myself in Sound Forge! My apologies, I was wrong. Weird thing though, the Sleigh Bells release sounds... echoey. I don't think this is my speakers, it does it in my headphones too. The DigiCube release is louder, but I don't find it to distort, I find it to be crisper. Maybe I suck at sound quality! But I still prefer the DigiCube release despite it being the louder soundtrack, there's something funny about the way the Sleigh Bells release sounds.
You can see the distortion, though...even if you can't hear it. For me, it's only really audible on a few tracks, Albedo in particular. But if don't mind, or like it better, that's fine. Enjoy what you like!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia
It's good to know I remember an cinniùint correctly though.
Yeah. Mitsuda didn't have experience with mastering then, so he compressed it a lot more than he should have (not brickwalled, thankfully, but still limited far too heavily).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia
Oh yeah, and about Xenogears, sure, it has those tracks. But then what about
A Gathering of Stars in the Night Sky
Tears of the Stars, Thoughts of the People
Flight
Wings (all in a row, haha)
The Blue Traveler
I don't particularly find The Blue Traveller all that emotional, but yes, the others are. Not over-emotional, or unsubtle though, which in my mind connotes something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ0uDk5i_s0
(Ick)

Last edited by Xenofan 29A; Jan 29, 2013 at 09:26 AM.
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  #13  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:31 AM
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That tracks starts out okay, but gets kind of heavy. I just have to shrug my shoulders whenever I hear something from Xenoblade though. But then, Xenoblade is kind of the case of giving a game the name "Xeno" just for the sake of doing so, right? It was originally named Monado or something, it has nothing to do with Xeno... bah, anyway, that doesn't matter, the music still is what it is, but I don't find it to be impressive.

But it's like Chrono Cross in that way, why call it the sequel to Chrono Trigger? It's some re-imagining of a game called Radical Dreamers or something, it makes me so sad sometimes...
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  #14  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:37 AM
Xenofan 29A Xenofan 29A is offline
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But it's like Chrono Cross in that way, why call it the sequel to Chrono Trigger? It's some re-imagining of a game called Radical Dreamers or something, it makes me so sad sometimes...
It is directly connected to Chrono Trigger's plot as well as Radical Dreamers. I know it isn't the same, but I'm one of the people who really loved Chrono Cross.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia
But then, Xenoblade is kind of the case of giving a game the name "Xeno" just for the sake of doing so, right? It was originally named Monado or something, it has nothing to do with Xeno... bah, anyway, that doesn't matter, the music still is what it is, but I don't find it to be impressive.
I wasn't terribly impressed by most of Xenoblade's soundtrack either, although it had some good tracks. As for the game, it's made by the same person who did Xenogears/Saga, so it's probably connected to the overall mythology/feel in his mind.
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  #15  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:42 AM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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Chrono Cross _is_ heavily connected to CT.
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  #16  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:47 AM
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Only because they transformed some old (and unreleased?) Super Famicom text adventure game and then threw some Chrono Trigger connections in there to make it work. It's different than creating a game whose original vision is to continue the story of a previous game. I'm not saying Chrono Cross was a bad game, but it's just kind of lame to take something that has nothing to do with a game and say "let's make this a sequel to (really good-selling game here) because we want to sell it under a good name!" Ugh.
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  #17  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 09:59 AM
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1) What about Radical Dreamers exactly is unreleased? It's a a Satellaview/BS-X game.
2) Where did you get this nonsense from that CC is a "port" of RD?
3) And no, CC isn't a sequel to CT in the sense that it starts at the point where the CT timeline ends. However it connects to CT by continuing certain storylines, which were left unexplained.

I suggest you play the games again. Especially RD and CC.
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  #18  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 12:30 PM
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Emotional =/= Cheesy (always felt dubious about this word). Cheesiness is all about contextual appropriateness, I feel. And that balance was struck masterfully by Mitsuda, like Xenofan says.

Back to Xenosaga, I just came across this footage of the recording of Zarathustra!

Edit: Guess I'm four years late to the party.
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  #19  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 04:00 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia View Post
Only because they transformed some old (and unreleased?) Super Famicom text adventure game and then threw some Chrono Trigger connections in there to make it work. It's different than creating a game whose original vision is to continue the story of a previous game. I'm not saying Chrono Cross was a bad game, but it's just kind of lame to take something that has nothing to do with a game and say "let's make this a sequel to (really good-selling game here) because we want to sell it under a good name!" Ugh.
I think it's important to understand here that Masato Kato is to Chrono almost as much as Tetsuya Takahashi is to Xeno. The fact is, Kato was a major scenario contributor to Trigger, and subsequently wrote and directed both Radical Dreamers and Cross.

As it turns out, in the earliest planning stages, Xenogears first was FF7 and then Chrono Trigger 2. Hironobu Sakaguchi was so intrigued by Takahashi and Soraya Saga's concepts for FF7 that he decided to give Takahashi his own team. Initially Chrono Trigger 2 was bounced around, but Xenogears ultimately was the product of the development. After Xenogears was completed, the dev team (which now largely compromises the development core of Monolith Soft) migrated variously to Threads of Fate, Front Mission 3, and the official Chrono Trigger 2, aka Chrono Cross

In other words, Chrono Cross had always been planned as a sequel to Trigger. "Chrono Trigger 2" was the actual name used internally to refer to the project in its early stages.
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Old Jan 29, 2013, 04:41 PM
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I'm a bit too lazy to make the search by myself, could you source that chrono trigger 2 thing?
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  #21  
Old Jan 29, 2013, 05:36 PM
Xenofan 29A Xenofan 29A is offline
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Originally Posted by Jormungand View Post
As it turns out, in the earliest planning stages, Xenogears first was FF7 and then Chrono Trigger 2. Hironobu Sakaguchi was so intrigued by Takahashi and Soraya Saga's concepts for FF7 that he decided to give Takahashi his own team. Initially Chrono Trigger 2 was bounced around, but Xenogears ultimately was the product of the development. After Xenogears was completed, the dev team (which now largely compromises the development core of Monolith Soft) migrated variously to Threads of Fate, Front Mission 3, and the official Chrono Trigger 2, aka Chrono Cross
I remember hearing that it was the original idea for FFVII. The version I heard was that the concept was "too dark" for a Final Fantasy game. I've never heard that it was supposed to be Chrono Trigger 2, though.

Saga had worked on FFVI previously, particularly on the Figaro brothers' story, which is why it bears a resemblance to Bart's character in Xenogears. That's something that's pretty unquestionably her contribution.

Kato, if I remember correctly, wrote the Zeal section of Chrono Trigger, which is the part that is most connected to Chrono Cross.

Didn't some of the Xenogears/Chrono Trigger team stay at Square and work on FFXI?
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Old Jan 30, 2013, 03:40 PM
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I'm a bit too lazy to make the search by myself, could you source that chrono trigger 2 thing?
With pleasure. It's a good read.
Quote:
Xenogears was considered a possible FFVII during the latter's planning stages, though Hironobu Sakaguchi decided against the idea. It was then developed as Chrono Trigger 2, but various circumstances meant it was reformed into Xenogears. This is also a reason why it shares a number of similarities with Chrono Cross, in addition to sharing some staff members.
http://xenoverse.xenotensei.com/hist...eno_part01.htm

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Originally Posted by Xenofan 29A View Post
Didn't some of the Xenogears/Chrono Trigger team stay at Square and work on FFXI?
They certainly did. Namely Hiromichi Tanaka who helmed FFXI right up through XIV's first development phase.

Apparently, Mitsuda was asked to work on FFXI's soundtrack but at the time was busy with... yes, Xenosaga.
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  #23  
Old Feb 28, 2013, 07:51 AM
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Originally Posted by jdkluv View Post
Back to Xenosaga, I just came across this footage of the recording of Zarathustra!
Does anyone know the source of that clip (bonus DVD material, broadcast Japanese television recording, etc...)?

Edit: Never mind, I already had it the whole time and I didn't even know that I did.

Last edited by layzee; Aug 10, 2013 at 10:03 AM.
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  #24  
Old Aug 9, 2019, 08:52 AM
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I remember being terribly disappointed that "Life or Death" was not the boss battle theme in this game and furthermore, there was no boss battle theme at all. There are also I think three interesting things to point out:

1) The similarly-named "Between Life and Death" or "Brink of Death" or "On the Verge of Death" track from Chrono Cross was the boss battle theme for that game.
2) Both songs have a similar feel (e.g. a sense of impending danger, a sense of urgency etc) that would suit a boss battle or indeed... (see point 3)
3) If I remember correctly, both songs are used as a dungeon theme once and only once.

So, basically, the weight of the world lies on the shoulders of the standard battle theme (until the last boss where you finally get to hear something different). Doubly so considering this game was marketed as a cinematic movie experience (and the dual layer DVD to hold all the data) with the "movie music" to match. When there actually is music anyway. The other half is ambient and environmental sounds. And, in the end, "Battle" manages to not outwear its welcome. Well okay, to be fair, it did but it did a damn good admirable job. There's something special about this battle theme for me. In general, I do like the "menacing -> buildup -> uplifting" musical story progression. Not sure if there is a word for this kind of thing.
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