DERP-10008~11: Xenoblade Original Soundtrack

[Mentalo]

With Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition releasing soon, I hope its soundtrack will have a complete release so we can finally have separated credits for Kenji Hiramatsu and ACE.

We already know Hiramatsu did at least the tracks featured in this post but it would be amazing to have full ACE+ credits!

Also, I'm really happy that they are remaking some of the game's tracks! Engage the Enemy with real violins is amazing!
Here are the link for some of the new music :
- Gaur Plain
- Engage the Enemy
- A brand new theme most likely featured in the new epilogue (I guess it was made by ACE (or perhaps Hiramatsu but I'm leaning more toward ACE))

An Obstacle in Our Path also seems to have been re-arranged !
And we also have another brand new theme heard during the trailer (also most likely made by ACE).

I hope Yoko Shimomura will be involved and that she'll re-arrange "Colony 9", "Hometown" and "Time to Fight!" (it would be amazing to hear them with real violins).
I also hope that tracks such as "The End Lies Ahead", "The God-Slaying Sword" or "Epilogue" will get a full orchestra arrangement.

[Jormungand]

Whoa what, Hiramatsu really did Mechonis Field? It's so unlike everything else he did. Everything else listed for his XB1 work on that biography I unfortunately abhor (so many battle themes I immediately want to mute), and I only like a few of his contributions (in moderation) from XB2.

But Mechonis Field is quite good. This is troublesome because Mechonis Field is so very similar to... uh, that one field/dungeon theme from Xenoblade 2 (which is credited to ACE). I'm wondering if the biography section on the Procyon site might not necessarily distinguish composing and arranging, which we've seen happen in the past.

Central Arsenal also sounds more like ACE. And though Hiramatsu did Agniratha, I would wager ACE arranged the night version (like they did for Kiyota and Shimomura in other fields/towns).

I'll accept that he 100% did Mechonis Field if it's double-confirmed, but it just doesn't line up with a single thing he's been credited for elsewhere (and does nicely line up with multiple ACE works)

That said--I second the composer credits for distinguishing ACE+. What I really want is more differentiation between Kudo and Yamanaka, regardless of the "music unit" schtick. Like, yeah, Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi operated like that too--AND, it was clear on many of their tracks one composer did the majority or all of the composing/arranging.

One thing I can say for certain is that there is not a single ACE track where both of them did exactly 50% of the work, because that's nearly impossible to substantiate. Given the sometimes jarring bipolarity of their music, I think it's a lot of "I composed this thing on piano, you arrange it for a bigger ensemble" or "this track is mostly done, can you add some extra touches please and thank you". Or like, we know Yamanaka is doing a lot of choral recording and arranging and probably composing too, and Kudo is clearly the e.guitar expert.

[Mentalo]

Originally Posted by Jormungand

Whoa what, Hiramatsu really did Mechonis Field? It's so unlike everything else he did. Everything else listed for his XB1 work on that biography I unfortunately abhor (so many battle themes I immediately want to mute), and I only like a few of his contributions (in moderation) from XB2.

But Mechonis Field is quite good. This is troublesome because Mechonis Field is so very similar to... uh, that one field/dungeon theme from Xenoblade 2 (which is credited to ACE). I'm wondering if the biography section on the Procyon site might not necessarily distinguish composing and arranging, which we've seen happen in the past.

Do you mean this one ? It was made by Hiramatsu (you can check the Xenoblade 2 album credits).
There is also this music that's credited to Hiramatsu and that shares some similarities with Mechonis Field.

Central Arsenal also sounds more like ACE. And though Hiramatsu did Agniratha, I would wager ACE arranged the night version (like they did for Kiyota and Shimomura in other fields/towns).

The Xenoblade album officially credits ACE+ for those arrangements. And I think that Hiramatsu did the arrangement for Colony 9 (Night) and Hometown (Night). These arrangements' style kinda are like if Fonsa Myma (Night) and Mechonis Field were merged (especially Colony 9).
And I also think that Hiramatsu did the arrangement for the night version of Agniratha himself.

I think that you're heavily underestimating the work Hiramatsu did for the first Xenoblade... Personally, I really love what he made for the two games (even when only counting tracks we're sure he made for the first game like You Will Know Our Names, Engage the Enemy and Mechanical Rhythm) and I think the series would lose a lot of its musical personality if Hiramatsu was to not come back for future games (I especially love his battle themes, even though ACE also made some great ones for Xenoblade 2).

I'll accept that he 100% did Mechonis Field if it's double-confirmed, but it just doesn't line up with a single thing he's been credited for elsewhere (and does nicely line up with multiple ACE works)

That said--I second the composer credits for distinguishing ACE+. What I really want is more differentiation between Kudo and Yamanaka, regardless of the "music unit" schtick. Like, yeah, Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi operated like that too--AND, it was clear on many of their tracks one composer did the majority or all of the composing/arranging.

One thing I can say for certain is that there is not a single ACE track where both of them did exactly 50% of the work, because that's nearly impossible to substantiate. Given the sometimes jarring bipolarity of their music, I think it's a lot of "I composed this thing on piano, you arrange it for a bigger ensemble" or "this track is mostly done, can you add some extra touches please and thank you". Or like, we know Yamanaka is doing a lot of choral recording and arranging and probably composing too, and Kudo is clearly the e.guitar expert.

That could be nice but I'd be very surprised if it ends up happening.

[Jormungand]

Originally Posted by Mentalo

Do you mean this one ? It was made by Hiramatsu (you can check the Xenoblade 2 album credits).
There is also this music that's credited to Hiramatsu and that shares some similarities with Mechonis Field.

Yup you're right. I got that all mixed up. Thank you!

I think that you're heavily underestimating the work Hiramatsu did for the first Xenoblade... Personally, I really love what he made for the two games (even when only counting tracks we're sure he made for the first game like You Will Know Our Names, Engage the Enemy and Mechanical Rhythm) and I think the series would lose a lot of its musical personality if Hiramatsu was to not come back for future games (I especially love his battle themes, even though ACE also made some great ones for Xenoblade 2).

Well, I actually have a very low opinion of the XB1 OST in general (I wrote about it somewhere in this thread maybe?) I can queue up about ... let's see, this is a nice chance to review and see which tracks I do actually enjoy. There are... less than 20. I mean it's 110% better than XBX but doesn't hold a candle to XB2.

So here would be my breakdown of what I consider quality XB1 tracks, in OST order:

(Yasunori Mitsuda) Beyond the Sky - I really didn't love it at first, but it has grown on me over time. Mitsuda quality is always top-notch even on stuff I don't want to listen to over and over. He should've composed 75% of Xenoblade 1, 'cause that's about how much I would have rejected if I were the music director.

(Yoko Shimomura) Hometown - like an upgraded version of standard Shimomura fare. She did well, although it isn't my all-time favorite of her town works. I'm also not generally a big YS fan in general.

(ACE, Shimomura) Hometown (Night) - ACE did a serviceable arrangement.

(Yoko Shimomura) Colony 9 - This is the one I'll keep coming back to forever. I mentioned not being a YS fan that much, but man did she kill this one. It is legitamately one of the best VGM compositions I've ever heard, perfect in every way. Only improvement that could possibly be made is a live violin, and she did a fine job sequencing a synth one anyway. This is the kind of thing that I wish Shimomura would do more of. It is the essence of her particular art.

(ACE, Yoko Shimomura) Colony 9 (Night) - ACE maintained the spirit of the original quite well. Does justice where justice is demanded.

(Yoko Shimomura) Fight! - I don't love it, but it does what Shimomura battle themes are good at doing. It's also one of two listenable battle themes on the entire OST.

(ACE) Gaur Plains - yeah, the fan favorite. I mean it does everything right without taking any risks, so there's no surprise it's popular. ACE did not successfully reproduce this methodology much for XB1, which I wrote about in another post. But they did create what is basically Gaur Plains Mk. II in XB2, and it's somehow way better and exemplary game music.

(ACE) Gaur Plains (Night) - yep.

(ACE) One Who Gets in Our Way - and the second of two battle themes which are tolerable. But only because of the melody--I would change the arrangement in many ways.

(Manami Kiyota) Satorl Marsh (Night) - It's hilarious how different this is from the day theme. To this day I can't detect a common motif, and believe me I've tried many times. But she nails it, despite it being about as compositionally sophomoric as all her other contributions to this score. It's the atmosphere that saves this one and rises it above the rest of her work. And her singing.

(ACE, Manami Kiyota) Alcamoth (Night) - ACE somewhat saves this by the quality of the arrangement, even though the composition leaves little to work with. The use of the organ here is really inventive on their part, and improves the atmosphere a lot. And Yamanaka's singing, as well.

(Manami Kiyota) Where the Ancestors Sleep - again it's about the atmosphere. There's nothing to this compositionally, but it operates more on texture and environmental affect than it does melody. It could have fit perfectly on Xenosaga 3's OST (and would have been better than most of it, too).

(ACE) Snowy Mt. Valak - another ACE hit. Picture perfect like Gaur Plains. I think it took some inspiration from how Naoshi Mizuta did his music for FFXI--namely that game's own snowy region Xarcabard!

(ACE) Snowy Mt. Valak (Night) - annnnnnd then they just throw all of the above out and start from scratch. And somehow it's still a perfect match. This is 100% one of those tracks that only one of the two ACE composers did most of, I'm sure of it.

(Manami Kiyota) Great Sword Canyon (Night) - the day version is just as pompously silly as her other orchestral stuff, and this version sort of is too. But I love what she did with the electric violin stuff in the intro. Even though it probably is just a sound library sample... but anyway, the overall melody works better at this incredibly slow-burn, ominous tempo.

(Kenji Hiramatsu?!) Mechonis Field - well I eat my words. He did do the very similar XB2 track so clearly this is confirmation. It's a really standout track, so why doesn't anything else he did sound like it? This track is all about lush, pulpy synths which are expertly arranged and employed. And not a single other Hiramatsu track is like it... the rest are way over the top, overwrought, sappy, melodramatic. This one, though, is none of that.

(Manami Kiyota) - Inside the Giant -Carcass- - Kiyota borrows some of that pulpy synthy sound for what is basically a carbon copy of her previous two cave and mine themes, but this time it takes on the atmospheric mantle that was successful for the other tracks of hers I've singled out. It fits the map it plays on perfectly. That said, this time ACE do not help with their arrangement used in the final stages of this area--they speed it up and kind of destroy the atmosphere and tension that Kiyota legitimately succeeded at.

----------------

A lot of that may sound negative, but it makes it clear why I'm not really underestimating anything. I just don't think it's a good JRPG soundtrack. And it's maddening, because the Xeno series is my favorite of all JRPG series (and games in general for that matter), but somehow they've always screwed up on the music. I count XG, XS1, the in-game BGM part of XS2, and XB2 as the only good OSTs of the whole series, and 50% is not a good success rate. My advice to Mr. Takahashi going farther is in three parts: 1) hire Yasunori Mitsuda again, 2) have Yasunori Mitsuda do all of the town/field/dungeon tracks and make someone else do the event scenes, and 3) if you can't get steps 1 and 2 accomplished, that's fine, but there are a hundred better composers than the ones you've been picking over the years.

I know you didn't ask for all that but this is an appropriate place to list my thoughts after 10 years of listening to this OST.

[Mentalo]

Originally Posted by Jormungand

Yup you're right. I got that all mixed up. Thank you!


Well, I actually have a very low opinion of the XB1 OST in general (I wrote about it somewhere in this thread maybe?) I can queue up about ... let's see, this is a nice chance to review and see which tracks I do actually enjoy. There are... less than 20. I mean it's 110% better than XBX but doesn't hold a candle to XB2.

So here would be my breakdown of what I consider quality XB1 tracks, in OST order:

(Yasunori Mitsuda) Beyond the Sky - I really didn't love it at first, but it has grown on me over time. Mitsuda quality is always top-notch even on stuff I don't want to listen to over and over. He should've composed 75% of Xenoblade 1, 'cause that's about how much I would have rejected if I were the music director.

(Yoko Shimomura) Hometown - like an upgraded version of standard Shimomura fare. She did well, although it isn't my all-time favorite of her town works. I'm also not generally a big YS fan in general.

(ACE, Shimomura) Hometown (Night) - ACE did a serviceable arrangement.

(Yoko Shimomura) Colony 9 - This is the one I'll keep coming back to forever. I mentioned not being a YS fan that much, but man did she kill this one. It is legitamately one of the best VGM compositions I've ever heard, perfect in every way. Only improvement that could possibly be made is a live violin, and she did a fine job sequencing a synth one anyway. This is the kind of thing that I wish Shimomura would do more of. It is the essence of her particular art.

(ACE, Yoko Shimomura) Colony 9 (Night) - ACE maintained the spirit of the original quite well. Does justice where justice is demanded.

(Yoko Shimomura) Fight! - I don't love it, but it does what Shimomura battle themes are good at doing. It's also one of two listenable battle themes on the entire OST.

(ACE) Gaur Plains - yeah, the fan favorite. I mean it does everything right without taking any risks, so there's no surprise it's popular. ACE did not successfully reproduce this methodology much for XB1, which I wrote about in another post. But they did create what is basically Gaur Plains Mk. II in XB2, and it's somehow way better and exemplary game music.

(ACE) Gaur Plains (Night) - yep.

(ACE) One Who Gets in Our Way - and the second of two battle themes which are tolerable. But only because of the melody--I would change the arrangement in many ways.

(Manami Kiyota) Satorl Marsh (Night) - It's hilarious how different this is from the day theme. To this day I can't detect a common motif, and believe me I've tried many times. But she nails it, despite it being about as compositionally sophomoric as all her other contributions to this score. It's the atmosphere that saves this one and rises it above the rest of her work. And her singing.

(ACE, Manami Kiyota) Alcamoth (Night) - ACE somewhat saves this by the quality of the arrangement, even though the composition leaves little to work with. The use of the organ here is really inventive on their part, and improves the atmosphere a lot. And Yamanaka's singing, as well.

(Manami Kiyota) Where the Ancestors Sleep - again it's about the atmosphere. There's nothing to this compositionally, but it operates more on texture and environmental affect than it does melody. It could have fit perfectly on Xenosaga 3's OST (and would have been better than most of it, too).

(ACE) Snowy Mt. Valak - another ACE hit. Picture perfect like Gaur Plains. I think it took some inspiration from how Naoshi Mizuta did his music for FFXI--namely that game's own snowy region Xarcabard!

(ACE) Snowy Mt. Valak (Night) - annnnnnd then they just throw all of the above out and start from scratch. And somehow it's still a perfect match. This is 100% one of those tracks that only one of the two ACE composers did most of, I'm sure of it.

(Manami Kiyota) Great Sword Canyon (Night) - the day version is just as pompously silly as her other orchestral stuff, and this version sort of is too. But I love what she did with the electric violin stuff in the intro. Even though it probably is just a sound library sample... but anyway, the overall melody works better at this incredibly slow-burn, ominous tempo.

(Kenji Hiramatsu?!) Mechonis Field - well I eat my words. He did do the very similar XB2 track so clearly this is confirmation. It's a really standout track, so why doesn't anything else he did sound like it? This track is all about lush, pulpy synths which are expertly arranged and employed. And not a single other Hiramatsu track is like it... the rest are way over the top, overwrought, sappy, melodramatic. This one, though, is none of that.

(Manami Kiyota) - Inside the Giant -Carcass- - Kiyota borrows some of that pulpy synthy sound for what is basically a carbon copy of her previous two cave and mine themes, but this time it takes on the atmospheric mantle that was successful for the other tracks of hers I've singled out. It fits the map it plays on perfectly. That said, this time ACE do not help with their arrangement used in the final stages of this area--they speed it up and kind of destroy the atmosphere and tension that Kiyota legitimately succeeded at.

----------------

A lot of that may sound negative, but it makes it clear why I'm not really underestimating anything. I just don't think it's a good JRPG soundtrack. And it's maddening, because the Xeno series is my favorite of all JRPG series (and games in general for that matter), but somehow they've always screwed up on the music. I count XG, XS1, the in-game BGM part of XS2, and XB2 as the only good OSTs of the whole series, and 50% is not a good success rate. My advice to Mr. Takahashi going farther is in three parts: 1) hire Yasunori Mitsuda again, 2) have Yasunori Mitsuda do all of the town/field/dungeon tracks and make someone else do the event scenes, and 3) if you can't get steps 1 and 2 accomplished, that's fine, but there are a hundred better composers than the ones you've been picking over the years.

I know you didn't ask for all that but this is an appropriate place to list my thoughts after 10 years of listening to this OST.

I do not agree with you on a lot of things you say but you know, there's no arguing about matters of taste!

To me, the Xenoblade OST is very good and I love a lot of its music, but I agree with you at least on one point, the Xenoblade 2 OST is better (it is my favorite game soundtrack of all time).
So I hope they'll keep the same sound team for Xenoblade 3 (perhaps with Shimomura returning back for a few tracks ? I'm a huge fan of her and she did wonders with the Main Theme, Unfinished Business and Colony 9).

Oh, speaking of the Main Theme, did you just forget to include it in your list or was it intentional ? I personally still think it's one of the best videogame music ever made.

[CHz]

I've been checking out Kenji Hiramatsu because Mechonis Field is far and away my favorite song from this game (if I were feeling really spicy, I'd say it's the only song I like haha), and I'd also point out "under the pressure" from Emil Chronicle Online as being similar. Hiramatsu is actually really good at electronic sound design, I wish he did it more because my enjoyment of his music is pretty much directly correlated with how electronic it is.

[Jormungand]

https://twitter.com/NintendoEurope/s...92888794021889

Whelp. Colony 9 is sounding really good.

Can switch between original and remastered OSTs... does that suggest a majority of tracks were redone?

I wonder who all is involved.