Right on.  To this day I can still listen to the Xenogears soundtrack all the way through, and enjoy every second of it.  The formula of strong thematic compositions, rich sound programming, and an emphasis on quality over quantity is a winning one.

Angela and Joe: Did you play Xenogears when it was released? Or at all? I find that a lot of people that love that OST have played the game in its entirety.

I also consider Xenogears' music to be some of Mitsuda's best work (along with Chrono Trigger, Crono Cross and Hako no niwa). I did play the game in its entirety when it came out, and considering the impact the music had on my experience of the game it's hard for me to judge it entirely separately. I can surely see why someone would consider some of the tracks to be bland; even I don't think all of the tracks are equally great (the standard battle theme, for instance, comes to mind). Most of it is really good though, and some of it is simply awesome. As RPG soundtracks go this one ranks among the best for me; it has great variety, emotion, style and sound programming.

For me 90% of disc 1 and 75% of disc 2 of Gears is filler.  It sounds like standard, uninspired Rpg-fare.  You've got absolutely every cliche track imaginable included, I wouldn't have been surprised if you told me Nobs was the composer and not Mitsuda.  At least the arrange album was a lot better.

I liked Moonlit Shadow best of all his latest, vibrant forays into musical styles in games. The biggest problem with Moonlit Shadow was that they looped the tracks, making them seem artificial for an album with live performances. The instrument diversity on that was impressive though. The other overlaying problem with Moonlit Shadow was likely the marketing; who the hell knew what game this was from. Critically, the game was a huge bomb anyway so to disassociate was probably a fine move but still...

As much as I like the music myself, I can kind of see why people would think it is bland. While Xenogears' music does sound like traditional RPG music to me, I think Mitsuda brings a style and nuance to it that makes it unique nonetheless. he is actually one of the few composers who (still) does more traditional sounding VGM I like.

I did.  I played it after having listened to the soundtrack, and to be honest, it worked a little weaker in-game than as a stand-alone.  With just 43 tracks for such a long quest (I don't recall "Stars of Tears" being featured in the game proper), the music became overly repetitious because of its excessive use of the songs.

The score proves to be a better experience than the game itself.  Loved the battle system, but the jumping peeved me off to no end, and the speed text cheat code wasn't readily available at the time.

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the idea of "traditional" RPG music, as long as the execution is fine. I think Xenogears was one of the better "traditional" RPG OST's out there...Melodically, it's the most impressive Mitsuda work I've heard and even some of moodier tracks are some of the more listenable ones I've heard from an RPG (Forest of the Black Moon, Premonition, Invasion). Only a couple themes irritate me: the ones near the end (inbetween Awakening and Small Two of Pieces), the main battle theme (I grew to hate this ingame) and some of the more sappy, sentimental pieces and the two "church" songs. I thought the arrange album was sufficient, though it didn't blow me away: Only "Dajil", "Balto" and "Spring Lullaby" really amazed me. Having "OMFG! Different language!" for two of the 10 tracks is really cheap and annoying.

Xenosaga though...Bash away on that one. I've never had any inclination towards anything I've heard from that one.

Edit: And yes, I played Xenogears all the way through before getting the soundtrack. I suspected I was getting it once I got out to the overworld and hearing "Awakening" and especially "Flight" at the end merely confirmed it as a no-brainer. I do agree that there wasn't enough music for the massive length of the quest and some themes ended up being grotesquely overused.

I agree completely on all counts.

I played it when it was released and I think the game is possibly the most overrated RPG in existence but I've always dug the music.

I agree on all counts here as well.  Xenogears the music actually works better in album form than it does in the game.  I think the game helps one to grasp the nature and power of each of track, but as a few have said already, the game was too long for the shorter soundtrack provided.  It's almost like Mitsuda composed music just for the first disc and suddenly Square rushed the second disc while splicing in some previously used songs where they might've seemed appropriate.

I love "Flight" from Xenogears, it always reminds me of Maria's fight with her... thankfully it wasn't overused as much as some of the other songs where. 40-some tracks was pretty slim for a game of Xenogears length but I rather have it that way than having a four disc set like most RPGs now where I care about 1 or 2 discs worth of the music and could take or leave the rest (I mean when I heard the WA5 score was six discs... yeash!).

What really grated on my nerves about Xenosaga was there were only two battle themes, and you had to wait till the last battle in the game to hear the second one... seriously, I was so freaking sick of normal battle theme by the end of the game. At least Xenogears had a few boss themes to break up the monotony.

Breath of Fire II and IV did a nice job of mending this, BOFII's battle theme changed about halfway through the game and BOFIV's was different depending which continent/territory you were in.

Edit:

Xenogears is one soundtrack I think one could appreciate without having to play the game, it's just a good listen.

Yeah, for an RPG as massive as Xenogears you'd expect at least three discs worth of music, though you'd probably just end up with more filler. I agree some of the music was overused, though I never really got irritated with any of it, aside from the standard battle music maybe. Incidentally, I had the same problem with Chrono Cross' standard battle music, which I had expected to be the 'The Brink of Death' before I played the game.

Whew, that's a whole other issue...  I'm starting to think myself that OST albums should be limited to two or three discs.  Somehow having more discs means more filler tracks which equals a less potent score in album form.  I like the FFXII soundtrack, but I can't help but wonder if reducing the amount of music would've resulted in a tighter score more akin to FFTactics and Vagrant Story.  Yet with a longer game there's no getting around that you need more music, so I guess it's a two-edged sword that a longer game has a hard time avoiding.

I haven't played BOFIV, but I do recall the changes in BOFII, which mirror the changes in the original BOF.  Both games had three different world map themes and some different combat themes.  I'm all for extra versions of a type of music in RPGs, which is something I realized I truly liked in Earthbound, thanks to the many different battle themes in that one.

I would like to think so too.  It doesn't have the disgustingly good sound quality thing going for it like Chrono Cross does, but hopefully people can still detect the emotional content of the music without the context association.

Hey All,
Since Xenogears is referred to quite a lot in this thread, i thought i'd paste this:
http://alcahest.club.fr/XG2.0/xg2.0.html
Later,

Alcahest

Thanks to the peeps who made me aware of Hako no Niwa.

It's excellent.

About all the XG stuff: I listened to the XG soundtrack many times before ever playing through the game, and I think the soundtrack is fantasic.  Mitsuda's best?  I don't know.  I put CT, XG, and CC all on about the same level of massive greatness.  Concerning the game itself: far and away of the best RPG since its release in 1998 (there were better RPGs before it, but I've yet to see anything better since then).