As of today, we have a new Wii RPG soundtrack for videogame music fans alike to sink their teeth into:  XENOBLADE, composed partially by Yoko Shimomura (with one ending theme song by Yasunori Mitsuda), but with the bulk of its work done by ACE+ and Manami Kiyota.  Listening to it so far, I have to say that this is a contender for one of this year's finest soundtracks ever.  It's that good.

This OST offers four discs worthy of music ranging from  beautiful to powerful and mysterious.  This is on my list of highly recommended titles.  Here's hoping we get a chance to play this game in English soon.

Actually it came out on the 23rd, and I've been listening to it since!  It's pretty freakin' awesome - I want to hear more from some of these relative newcomers.  My only disappointment with the soundtrack is that I HATE when things are broken into "event" and "field" type sections.  I prefer just chronological order for my OSTs.  Star Ocean 3, I'm looking at you, too.

Ahh, you and me are opposed there; when it comes to the context that tracks are used in, different contexts are almost like different genres, and I like tracks of the same context or genre lined up for me; when there's a significant shift in pacing or mood between different tracks, it gets really jarring for me to listen to; I like rather seamless transitions between different kinds of tracks.

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That said, this soundtrack rather actually reminds me of the Chrono Cross soundtrack, mainly because of the acoustic-styled (assumedly) town themes, but probably especially more so since Mitsuda contributed to the compositions.

This's one of THEE BEST full-length soundtracks I've heard in awhile, especially for a game I haven't even played yet...a lot of soundtracks, I get in advance of the game, I play through them once and twice, and they just don't grab my interest until I actually play the game...

Ugh, I hate when things are grouped together. I mean look at the Wild Arms 2 soundtrack. At first they attempt to put them in chronological order and then they ditch that and start lumping them together like they got bored. What makes this worse is it only amplifies that score's problems; putting them in chronological order makes some of the painful tracks easier to swallow.

Normally I'd agree with you. SO3 though is a serendipitous happening, as I really like the first OST but not the second.

All this talk about order of tracks and grouping reminds me of how, when I was a complete nub to the world of game OST's, I thought that an "arrange" album was simply the same disc I bought before, only the tracks were put in a different order or something. I must've been about 16-17.

I do prefer when they just do it sequentially according to appearance in the actual game. In my opinion, it just makes the experience flow a bit more naturally.

As someone who prefers that kind of approach to game soundtracks, too, I am pretty confused about the chronological order that these tunes are supposed to be.  Can anyone here speak up about which track goes where?

Is this the same Manami Kiyota who was the lead vocalist for the Final Fantasy Song Book album?  If so, it'll be interesting to hear how well she fares with musical composition.

This is one soundtrack I plan to sit down and fully listen through.  So far, I will say that Confrontation With The Enemy is absolutely BOSS.  If it's a battle theme, it's one of the finest I've heard in an RPG in a long time.

I thought that "Arrange" albums were essentially "Best Of" compilations; this conception was re-inforced when the first Arrange album I ever got was the Star Ocean 2 Arrange album; it was essentially the same tracks, except with a few instruments added in here-and-there, and maybe some better instrumentation used, maybe some variation added onto the original pieces; it sold me off of Arrange albums, until I decided to sample the FF Arrange albums, and found out what Arrange albums are REALLY supposed to be like.

I'm not quite sure what you want to know exactly, but I've been playing the game for a couple of weeks now (it's fantastic by the way. One of the best JRPGs I've ever played, and rapidly becoming my GotY so far), and judging from the tracklist (don't have the OST myself) the music seems to be in order of appearance in the game, but split between event music (Disc 1 & 2) and Town/Field themes (3 & 4, and by far the best music in the game IMHO).

I agree. And I've only listened to the first disc.

What's the general instrumental makeup of this album?  Is it mostly orchestral synth or is there some live instrumentation in there?

I'm cautiously hopeful that this might be the next FF Crystal Bearers for me (i.e. a fantastic multi-disc, multi-genre adventure soundtrack with top-notch production values).

If my ears don't deceive me, it's mostly synth.
Very good synth though!