A music recording of the trailer Square Enix just released on their website. Granted, the piece will most definitely sound more compressed when playing in-game on the DS, it's insanely beautiful.  Can we assume this is Shiro Hamaguchi's conduction? 

Anyone else get an Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade ending vibe when watching the heroes riding on the Chocobos just before the opening bars of Eternal Wind?

Apparently, it's arranged by Nobuo Uematsu himself. And from where Hamaguchi is right now, it'd be pretty hard to contribute to anything.

Hm, you'll have to enlighten me.  I'm honestly not aware of Hamaguchi's current whereabouts or workings.... not since Advent Children, anyway.

He's currently studying in the US at Berklee University. Drop by and say 'hey' if you live locally!

"And from where Hamaguchi is right now, it'd be pretty hard to contribute to anything."

I was really scared you were gonna say he died.

PHEW. Good. Glad he's still doing well.

You mean... Berklee in Boston? O_o

I'm not a big fan of orchestrated VGM in general, but I like this arrangement (and the accompanying trailer) a lot. Whoever arranged it did a great job.

That makes two of us, hehe.

Yep.

Damn! I should probably go see him, considering that I work about 37 seconds from there. Literally.

.

Well that would certainly explain why One Piece is mostly being handled by Kouhei Tanaka now and not the two of them. I wish I was that lucky

Lovely trailer and music though, Elia's theme is simply a gorgeous piece that doesn't get much credit being an old OLD Generation piece (and mainly due to FFIII's obscurity).

Very lovely. FFIII has one of my favorite soundtracks in the series. It'll be great to hear it updated.

It was about time Hamaguchi actually learning something about orchestration. Maybe he'll be better next time we hear from him.

This FF3 piece (pieces) does not have Hamaguchi written on it, so I take it's probably Sekito.

It is Sekito.

I don't know if this is old, but there's a special page up at S-E's website for FFIII DS's OST.
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/ff3/

I hope that bonus DVD will include a bit more than just an interview. BTW, has anyone heard anything by muZik before? It looks they're a two-man unit that performs techno/pop-style versions of FF music, but are they any good?

Cool, just for future reference, it's actually called Berklee College of Music, and is internationally known as one of the best performance schools.  I could stop by as well, but to be honest I'm not familiar with Hamaguchi...

cheers,

-avatar!

And I hope the bonus DVD won't make it so it changes the pakaging into the thicker kind, like what happened with Soul Calibur III :-(

-Joshua

Hm?  I would have to check again, but I could've sworn SCIII's OST packaging was exactly the same size as a standard three/four disc set box.

Exactly. If it was only two discs, it could have been a normal size jewel case.

-Joshua

Not necessarily.  Xenosaga II (and presumably III) came in a fatter case even with two CDs (yes, even the later reprints with no memory card holder in the back part of the case - I've got one sitting here in the room with me).  I can thing of a LOT of older CDs packaged that way too - anything double disc by Falcom from back in the day, FF5, etc..

Yeah, it seemed like they went from the large boxes until 1993-1994, then for a short while, it was the awkard two disc cases (see Suikoden 1, War-Zard or Dracula Best 2), then finally, the 2-disc single cases we see nowadays so much. I personally prefer the big cases...The single CD cases that hold two discs often break in transit. Fortunately, replacements of them are easy to buy.

This is probably the OST I'm looking forward to the most right now. I'm all for NES chip music, but I'm not so sure it was the best thing for RPG music at the time. That, plus the original FF3 OST didn't loop...Hopefully, this will be remedied. Looking forward to "Cute Little Tozas" and the final battle music most.

I said /could/....geeze. Is redeading comprehension that hard these days?

Look, I just get annoyed when they are larger, because I've already litterally run out of space for my CDs, and every little bit helps matters. I even buy things again (the exact same music) just to save space..

-Joshua

No, the comprehension of those enemies from Ocarina of Time isn't terribly difficult, but apparently not being super defensive and serious is! 

Edit: and for the record, I actually do prefer two CD sets to be in slimmer cases as space is an issue for me too.

Yep, the XS3 OST is in the fat case just as you suspected.

anyone know how old hamaguchi is (never seen a pic myself)? curious how he went to uni at this point of his career.