SQEX-10491: Re:Birth II -Ren- "SaGa" BATTLE ARRANGE

[Argentis]

So far the website plays original versions of tracks in a Slot machine: Burning Blood from SaGa 2, Battle 4 from SaGa Frontier, Passionate Rhythm and Written Invitation to Death (OMG!) from Minstrel Song.

Very glad they have made a third album though

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/s.../rebirth2_ren/

[Ramza]

Burning Blood is a great choice, and Battle 4 is even better.

I'm glad to see Minstrel Song tracks too, but honestly I just want as much SaGa Frontier as they can pack onto there. Prior to these SaGa Battle Arrange albums, SF1 was criminally under-arranged by SE (the doujin community made up for it back then, but now we're finally getting somewhere with Ito himself).

[KAI]

Kamikura please, be there with your synth.

[Ramza]

April 15 cannot come soon enough. Anyone see anywhere to preorder this yet?

EDIT -- got a CDJ link from Don. <3 I put the link up here.

[Jodo Kast]

Originally Posted by Ramza

April 15 cannot come soon enough. Anyone see anywhere to preorder this yet?

EDIT -- got a CDJ link from Don. <3 I put the link up here.

Of course. AMZ JP has had it up for preorder since at least Feb. 2nd, since that's when I ordered it.

[Ramza]

mmm, look at that tracklist. A surprise SaGa 3 DS arrangement, something from Emperor SaGa (is that even out in Japan yet?), and three new SaGa Frontier arranges! WOO!

[Phonograph]

that romancing saga 3 track isn't a battle track, the heck why it's there
it's a "departure" track, nothing to have with a battle

imperial saga isn't out yet

[Ramza]

Originally Posted by Phonograph

that romancing saga 3 track isn't a battle track, the heck why it's there
it's a "departure" track, nothing to have with a battle

imperial saga isn't out yet

IIRC "The Sewers" from Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song was arranged on one of the prior Re:birth albums, and that was a dungeon theme as opposed to battle. So I guess at this point they're going "loose" on whether or not the music is actually used in combat, and just ... "can we rock out to it"?

I'm kind of okay with that.

[Phonograph]

it's not the saga battle themes that lack regardless
why not simply doing real arrange albums for the saga series instead of those battle arrange

one album for gb/ds saga, one for roma saga and one for saga frontier
like that, you would have 3 arrange albums with more tracks per series in a better order than those re:birth (it's not also used for seiken? weird)

[layzee]

If the 閃 in the previous album refers to the SaGa game series' trademark "to flash (learn) a battle technique", then my guess would be that the 連 in this album refers to 連携（攻撃） or 連続（攻撃）, that is, cooperative or continued/successive attack respectively - another defining SaGa game feature.

As for the music, I'll be looking forward to "SaGa Frontier - Emilia Final Battle". I'm sure they can do something good with the bass on that one. And hopefully they can do to "Invitation to Death" what they did to "Melody of Evil and Divinity": turn an originally guitar-less/non-rock tune into the best track of the album.

[Ramza]

iTunes US link posted. They're selling it stateside without altering the Japanese tracklist. No official English, wee! I'll be putting up a "my best attempt" translation by citing previous translations on OSTs in a bit. Someone is free to fix it.

EDIT -- also doing packaging scans at present.

[Ramza]

scans are done. I'm leaving the "small" front as it is a lot cleaner than my scan of the front cover. Digital perfection, yo. If someone thinks we should switch 'em, I leave that to the other admins.

EDIT -- now that I've had a chance to listen to this album: it's as good as the others! There's an improvement of sorts with the increased performance lineup. Kyoko Kishikawa (famous for her scat-singing on Passionate Rhythm, which is also on here...), her work on tracks 5 and 9 are great. Track 9, with the piano and strings and the still-rocking band ... huge surprise for me. I thought they'd done Minstrel Song to death, but I was wrong. And while the OST version of Passionate Rhythm is still amazing in its own right, this new recording has little decorative changes that make it a worthwhile addition.