Square Enix will commemorate 20 years of the SaGa series with a 20 CD box set. The SaGa Series 20th Anniversary Original Soundtrack Premium Box will feature all 500 pieces of music from the series in an elegantly presented package. It will feature the soundtracks from the SaGa, SaGa 2, SaGa 3, Romancing SaGa, Romancing SaGa 2, Romancing SaGa 3, SaGa Frontier, SaGa Frontier II, Unlimited SaGa, and Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song as taken from their respective soundtrack releases. The box set will also include a bonus DVD and special illustrations.

There isn't that much more information at this stage, but you can check the SEMO News Announcement and the Box's Official Site for a bit more.

I hope the normal battle theme of Romancing Saga 2 will be separately recorded.

By the way, Famitsu says there is the 21st disc (the interview DVD).

Sorry, I should have said 20 CD rather than 20 disc to avoid the ambiguity.

Any news on the 20th CD? My only theory other than the SaGa 2 remake being included is that maybe the original SaGa and SaGa 2 soundtracks were separated on to two discs.

o.O

O.o

The "NAMCO MUSIC WONDER BOX" compiled by Tanomi / Victor would have been 39 discs, but the release was cancelled due to a fog of clearances from rights holders.

http://vgmdb.net/album/13466

I preordered that.

EDIT: Also, this box set is hilarious. As if the world really needed more Ito.

This may be even more unattractive than the Breath of Fire box.

Don't get me wrong, there is some great BOF music but there is also a lot of stuff I can leave to the ages on there.

A bit more info:
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/ … a20th_box/
Release date: August, 26th
Price: 21'000 yen
Albums: 20

Extras:
1. Creators interview DVD.
2. Satoshi Kobayashi 20th anniversary commemoration illustrations
(※ extras may change.)

21'000 is... reasonnable, less than I thought they'd sell it ^^;
Later,

Pic:
http://member.square-enix.com/jp/store/ … 1baf5a.jpg

Alcahest

I've made further amendments to the news post. The soundtracks to SaGa 1-3 are given a disc each taking the total up to 20 CDs. I guess no SaGa 2 remake music after all. Then again, if Square Enix are prepared to make this box set, a stand-alone soundtrack release must be very likely.

I would have liked to have seen the arranged albums included too.  I'll probably still pick it up tho as I don't have all the older CD releases for each entry in the series.

...what?

I'm not sure if the Ito jokes hold as much water as they use to; if anything, I bet he's glad that Takeharu Ishimoto was born and plopped on the scene.

I've often heard that Ito's earlier works are his best (SaGa 2, Seiken Densetsu, Romancing SaGa 1-3), but personally I think he's got better over the years. Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song, Culdcept Saga, and Dawn of Mana were all impressive multi-disc scores in my eyes. Then again, I'm less fond of his Lux-Pain, Chocobo Racing, and Children of Mana contributions. Overall, I'd say he is a pretty average composer in terms of melodies, stylistic range, and musicality. No Uematsu or Sakimoto, but no Ishimoto or Furukawa either.

er, which Furukawa would this be?

Motoaki. More a comment in relation to the versatility statement. He's been producing the same cheesy jazz fusion pieces for 20 years and hardly ever attempts anything new. While the style seems to popular, there is much room for him to experiment or refine his ideas. As a result of his total lack of ambition, he's pretty much bottom of my favourite artists list. If you disagree, feel free to make a thread in response!

Also, this [y] is hilarious. As if the world really needed more [x]. Could be said about anything.

I like this box. I won't buy it, won't listen to it. But some will drool over it. And I want Square Enix to earn money. Not my money, but your money. So they can invest even more in games like FF13, which I will play only for the graphics and pure hedonism.

By the way, in my dream last night, Final Fantasy Mix was the best album ever released. Really beautiful music, it had.

I'm not confronting anyone in this thread, but for what it may be worth, some people seem to hate Ito but but it's a local consensus (unlike the bullying of Ishimoto that is seen everywhere outside of Japan), and indeed, he holds one of the biggest fanbase in Japan despite his prime being in the SNES era. Perhaps #3, after the two obvious guys, and his mixi community has more participants than at least Shimomura, Sugiyama, Sakuraba, or Hamauzu (I know this fact is no less insignificant than how many listeners an artist gets in Last.fm, but still implies something). So I can't see anything wrong with a Japanese company releasing a box set that mostly features Ito's past or recent acclaimed scores.

Not that I'm hyped up for this release. Damned if there is something exclusive to this and damned if there isn't, as my wallet was hurt much when I had to purchase that FFXI box set merely for the two additional discs. Only a limited number of people would benefit from this. I hope the interviews will be long and interesting enough.

For me, Ito offered one of the earliest VGM I got into, but like Uematsu, he couldn't withstand the test of time. I liked Saga Frontier (maybe even more than SFII), but nothing else he's has done since then.

Renamed the topic title to something a bit more informative.

I'm keen to check out the first two SaGa Frontier OSTs, but the lovely Romancing SaGa arranged albums will tide me over just fine for that particular sub-series.  No doubt there are a great number of excellent themes from the other installments but I wonder how many people there are who are interested enough in the SaGa series to spend 21,000 yen on a box set but don't have many of those OSTs already.

It was bugging me what the official site's title music reminded me of till I figured out it's the Superman theme.  Just a bit!

Also this would be an opportune time to mention that my review for Romancing SaGa - La Romance just went up.

Nice review. This arranged album is my favourite of the trilogy too. "Perdu Dans La Forêt" is just sublime!

I LIKE Motoaki Furukawa...at least, the couple of tracks he did for that Metal Gear Solid Snake album were good...but I've really yet to get in touch with ANY of his other works...any recommendations there? Anyone?

*Sigh* More Uematsu & Sakimoto praise, eh? Granted, I do like both composers, but as far as I'm concerned, I haven't heard anything memorable from either artist in about 2-3 years, maybe more.

Odin Sphere (2007/2008) was probably the last Sakimoto/Basiscape score I gave a damn about, and Anata o Yurusunai / I Can't Forgive You wasn't composed entirely by Uematsu, either.

Anyone want to give me any recommendations on those fronts, go right ahead...I've already checked out Blue Dragon (Meh) Lost Odyssey (Ehh...) and Lord of Vermillion (Okay, that last one kicks ass, I'll give you that...)

...

We complain about IShimoto on these forums enough, but is he even still making music...?

Well, I don't want to derail this topic further, but I don't want to not reply and be called arrogant for the wrong reasons again either. But if there is anything you want to discuss further, probably best to do it in a separate thread.

I like his collaborate shooter works, which were all pre-1992. Stuff like Gradius II, Xexex, A-Jax, and Super Contra. I should check out his score to Policenauts some time too. I did a big bio on Furukawa that should tell you most there is to know about his career. He's actually done very little game scoring post-1992.

Well, I kinda agree with you that both composers haven't been that remarkable lately. However, I consider Uematsu a prime example of a master melodist (at least pre-2001) and Sakimoto an example of a more artistically challenging composer (at least pre-2007).

Odin Sphere is a great score, I agree, but not in my opinion because of Sakimoto. These days I follow the major Basiscape collaborative scores closely, but I feel Sakimoto has slipped off. I liked him before as he always did unusual unconventional things with his phrasing, instrumentation, etc. and made sure each of his works were different. These days, though most things just seems like pale imitations of his past works made on limited time. Valkyria Chronicles and his anime scores were certainly "solid" though.

I think you've checked out most there is to find. Guin Saga looks like a promising score though. I'm personally fond of Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey though. The former as a light-hearted retro effort, the latter more as a personal emotional score. The ideas can be sparing in places, some pieces in contrast feel underarranged, and the technology needs work. But I still think these scores capture the essence of Uematsu.

If you check out SEMO's liner notes, you'll see he's actually Tetsuya Nomura's favourite composer and the busiest composer at Square Enix. He's got at least two projects on the go, Denzel's anime and Agito XIII. Add that to Dissidia, Crisis Core, The World Ends With You, Last Order, Monotone, and Before Crisis and he seems pretty unstoppable. I don't think criticising him is bullying him if he is being pioneered as the future of Square Enix. I think it's fair people want to object and he gets enough praise from gamers and SQEX staff anything. And, frankly, everything I've read indicates the guy is arrogant and aggressive anyway, so I have little sympathy.

I'll say this though: The reason Ishimoto's music is so hated among much of the VGM community is probably more that he's never been trained rather than that he is untalented. He's not had a musical education, he's not had musical supervision while at Square Enix. That's very rare for a composer who gets assigned big productions and I think he's really out of his depth. He's just doing his own thing and that's probably why his music comes across so bare or underdeveloped. Maybe he'll get better though and I think some of his original compositions of late have been more promising.

Square Enix really needs to restructure its music team. After so many of their great producers and composers left, I really feel it's lost its direction. Compare this to the quality control of Sega, Capcom or Falcom, and it's very clear to me that SQEX is no longer the best.

It would be nicer if this set was more complete and had ALL of the SaGa series remakes in here and the arranged albums, but everything in here is pretty great, so I'd recommend it.  I already have everything in here, so I'll be skipping this myself.

Aren't you a bit hasty in your opinion here? I mean, Ishimoto really keeps a low profile. But from what I've read in the liner notes on SEMO, he may have a strong personality, but he seems really dedicated to his work and always ready to help. I would really like to know more about him someday.

His comment "I love music more than anyone else" just stuck out to me. It seemed to me really arrogant and I got the sense he had become deluded by his own praise from Nomura and co. In addition, his comments about his previous rejections seemed passive-aggressive to me and the comments from others about his attitude made him seem aggressive and argumentative. SQEX composers in the past always seemed willing to try that bit harder, but I'm not so convinced with Ishimoto. Nice he's willing to help, but isn't that what he's employed to do?

As far as I know, Mitsuda and maybe Kikuta were no angels. It is good to have strong personalities sometimes, in Ishimoto's case I think it was mostly successful. Well, in The World Ends with You, I think it is.

sometimes i think the words 'commemorate' and 'milk' are used too interchangeably...

btw,, here in chicago, milk rhymes with elk,, but we have 11 elk right down the block, so thats even better...

I bought the BoF box. There's a lot of classic music on there, and I don't regret it. Also, it's a pretty good deal being less than 10,000 yen for 11 discs of music. And only 2000 printed worldwide!

I agree, the full release of BoF3 was worth the price alone. But was the BoF really only limited to 2000 copies? I thought that was just for the initial print, and the demand for it caused Capcom to release it again. I see it floating around enough places/shops to make me doubt only 2000 exist.

It's a nice product, don't get me wrong, but the BOF box has several strikes against it in my book:

- Despite the fact people like Yoko Shimomura worked on BOFI, I find it to be a really lack luster score and a bit too twangy. All the important themes ("Breath of Fire") and cues ("Holy") carry over to the second game and sound much better.

- While some will obviously disagree with me - and I'd expect so - BOFII is IMO the strongest soundtrack of the set. Still, there are a few things worth noting here. The original soundtrack has most of the better themes (although the low recording volume on it is a bit of a buzzkill) and cuts out some of the filler. Still, the thing I find just plain odd is why is BOFII split between two discs? Last time I checked all 48 tracks from the game will fit on one disc. Why make the box an odd 11 discs instead of a nice, round even 10? I don't even need to get how this raises questions about the original release (unless they where trying to eliminate filler which does work in its favor.)

- After playing BOFIII in the past quite a few times, I've come to find the score is fundamentally flawed. A big reason (again, this is all IMO) is while the soundtrack is generally considered by most to be jazz influenced, there really is a wide variety of styles at play on it. From a certain standpoint, it seems the composers where more worried about each piece working in context at their given moment where they were used rather than forming a concise whole or experience, something BOFIV improved on. This isn't saying this can't be done - Kenji Ito did this with SaGa Frontier and it worked really well, but that was a result of that game's "world" being comprised of separate and vastly different locations (or “regions” as the game calls them) where as the world of BOFIII is more static with it's surroundings (at least until the end where more technological aspects come into play). With so many one-shot pieces the soundtrack is littered with tracks I completely forgot about and will forget about again. This is not saying they don't deserve to be on disc and preserved, but you have to laugh at how the original one disc version wasn't enough and the three disc version feels like too much even though it still isn't complete (I mean, we really could have used a non-SE littered version of "Battle in the Coming Days"). Additionally, there are tracks on here I honestly can't recall from the game, like "Sprouts Over the Sand" and "Intermission" seems changed from the game and game-rip.

The biggest question I have concerning BOFIII is how "Turning Point" didn't make the cut the first time. Lovely track that oozes with Mega Manish influence.

- Don't really have much to say about BOFIV outside the fact it feels more concise and whole than it's predecessor by containing an overall aura that is it's own. I'm not big on the ambient like numbers as I don't think of ambient when I think about BOF but they work well enough in context.

- While I leave BOFV to its own devices as it pretty much abandoned everything that came before it (sound and game wise) anything where Sakimoto doesn't employ his FFT/FFTA/FFXIII sound is welcome to me.

- And finally, not to start a fight, I really doubt the 2000 print run on the box. It's very unrealistic to me that even such a niche product with a 2000 print run can still be bought three years after its release. Are these serial numbered?

These are just my various ramblings (most of which are nit-picking) and as I said it is a very nice product, but even from someone that's played most of the games justifying the box for the 20% of the music I want isn't going to happen.

For the record, Shimomura composed only 1 track in the first BoF. Not sure that's why you feel it was lackluster though (I personally don't think her involvement guarantees much quality to begin with).

Even more interesting about that BOF box is that Testsuya Shibata had to have a programmer add in a sound test for BOF 1 and 3 because they lost the sound source.  He then recorded directly from the console.

That's not the reason why I think it's lackluster - I do like some of her works like Legend of Mana and Parasite Eve - but considering her work on other Capcom games of that time (like Street Fighter II) I think some people would give it a bit more leway because of that and her name being attached to it. I didn't know she only did one track though and others might not know either.

I find this a bit odd for BOFIII considering there is a robot you can talk to in the one dungeon that will let you play through the game's tunes. However, it's been so long since I've played it I'm not sure if you can access all the tunes this way. I think the tracks even had titles (I'm not sure on this) and I wanted to compare them to the translations on the box but I never got around to it, even when I found the game for $8 for my friend.

Then again, I'm not sure but the fairy village might also have a music job as well like on IV.

I'd rank the Breath of Fire albums in this order from best to worst: V, III, I, IV, II. It seems as though the soundtracks with multiple composers were all stronger. Yasunori Mitsuda assisted on BoF5, so that counts for me. I also love the style of BoF3; it had some awesome tracks. Breath of Fire I has some classic themes (only a couple were reprised on BoF2 and I don't consider them at all improved).

But the topic here is SaGa, so I should divert back to that. What do you guys think of the pre-Frontier albums? I'm not really familiar with anything before SaGa Frontier 1.

Personally I loved all the Game Boy SaGa music.  Since I've never played any of the Romancing SaGa games, not so much strong feelings towards the music, but I really enjoyed the three arranged albums for those, which is why i'm missing them so much for not being included in this set.  SaGa Frontier, the boss themes all kick ass.  just my two cents on the music.

Pre-Frontier: RS3, RS2, RS1, SaGa 2, SaGa, SaGa 3

In my opinion Ito improved with each game during the SNES days. Romancing SaGa 2's soundtrack is actually one of my least favorite discs in my collection because the sound quality is terrible. I'd hope it didn't actually sound as bad in-game as it did on that disc because it is a disservice to the actual music.

I also agree with your BoF soundtrack ordering.