The past few years have been decent for VGM, but 2008 seems to be off to a great start. Hopefully things will continue strong! It may be redundant since most of us have been keeping up, but here are some notable releases (and to-be-releases) of the year so far by my counts...

01/01: Guilty Gear 2 Overture Vol.2 OST
01/23: L.II remixes
01/23: Forest of Glass, Motoi Sakuraba
01/23: Lost Odyssey OST
01/23: Chocobo Mysterious Dungeon ~Labyrinth of Forgotten Time~ OST
01/23: No More Heroes OST
01/24: Super Mario Galaxy  OST
01/25: Silent Hill Zero OST
01/30: Final Fantasy IV DS

02/29: CONCERTO, Hiroki Kikuta

03/19: Omega Five OST
03/19: Space Invaders Extreme -Audio Cluster-
03/19: Black Mages III - Darkness and Starlight
03/25: Hyper Game Music Event 2007 Extra -The Live Album- Vol. 1
03/26: drammatica -The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura-

04/02: Soma Bringer OST
04/16: Technic Beat Soundtrack
04/23: Final Fantasy XI ~Altana no Shinpei~ OST
04/23: Hyper Game Music Event 2007 Extra -The Live Album- Vol. 2

05/02: Star Ocean Second Evolution OST

I may be jumping the gun, but this is one of those years where it'll feel even more awesome than usual to be a VGM fan. I can't wait to see how things shape up later in the year.

Needs more Contra 4 OST.

AC7 on PS3 which is just an upgraded port of AC6 like RR7 but has a new soundtrack would be awesome.

Hellllllllloo,  new Hiroki Kikuta?  Where have I been?

March is already going to be tough on my wallet what with SSBB, Okami Wii edition, and a slew of other game releases.  Indeed 2008 is shaping up to be a great year.

There's also that new Nights set that has shipped. It's on the way to me now but I don't know even what's supposed to be on it.

It really started the end of last year -- Culdcept II Deluxe, FFT A-2, GG2 Overture Vol 1...

-Joshua

Actually, you're quite right. How could I forget...

12/05: 20th Anniversary Rockman 1-6 Rock Arrange Ver.
12/19: Biohazard: The Umbrella Chronicles OST
12/19: LUMINES remixes winter
12/19: 20th Anniversary Rockman 1-6 Techno Arrange Ver.
12/27: Trash 006
12/29: Darius Remix

+

03/27 Phantasy Star 1 - 4

15 years in the making.

Looking forward to:

01/23: Forest of Glass, Motoi Sakuraba (Heard about it...)
01/23: Lost Odyssey OST (Just Purchas'd)
01/23: No More Heroes OST (Heard about it...)
01/24: Super Mario Galaxy  OST (Just Purchas'd)
01/30: Final Fantasy IV DS (MAYBE)

02/29: CONCERTO, Hiroki Kikuta (Heard about this...)

03/19: Black Mages III - Darkness and Starlight
03/26: drammatica -The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura-

04/02: Soma Bringer OST (DO WANT)
04/16: Technic Beat Soundtrack (YES)

05/02: Star Ocean Second Evolution OST (Maybe...if it's as good or better than the original)

I'm not too convinced at the moment unfortunately. December / January had a lot of big releases but I found about as many disappointments as successes. I think my main worry is that there just doesn't seem to be much interesting on the horizon, however. The releases I'm looking forward to (The Black Mages III, Etrian Odyssey 2, Drammatica, Soma Bringer, Extra Live Albums, Devil May Cry 4, Metal Gear Solid 4) should be good but do little to define 2008 as a year of progress for me. Beyond that, I suspect a pile more Basiscape soundtracks, more efforts for Square Enix to force Takeharu Ishimoto on us (those three Kingdom Hearts spinoffs anyone?), and more soundtracks for extensions, remakes, and spinoffs. I think this year has potential to be even less fruitless than 2007.

Fruitless would be zero vgm albums every month, so I don't see how having multiple albums to pick and choose from every month could be viewed as not having any potential....

The only statement I agree with in your appraisal of 2008. 

I think Drammatica alone will make the year worthwhile for me.  The rest of the stuff is just delicious, delicious icing on the cake.

I'm looking forward to the Battle Fantasia and Arcana Heart 2 soundtracks that are coming out this month, I believe. The Street Fighter IV and King of Fighters XII soundtracks, too, if they came out before the year's out.

Re: chris's comment, it's apparently confirmed that KH Birth by Sleep (PSP) and 358/2 Days (DS) will feature all Shimomura music.  BBS's score will be mostly new, while 358/2's music will mostly be recycled from previous KH games.

Exactly as I imagined.

We can assume that 358/2 is some sort of transition game to Birth By Sleep, as Chain of Memories was a transition to KH2.

Those soundtracks for the KH spinoffs could be good, or could be bad. All depends on who the sound programmer is.

So, is anyone else looking forward to the MGS4 soundtrack?

My goodness, yes; though I have some serious reservations as to why they'd release it on May 28th, a full two weeks before its worldwide game release.  The temptation to listen (and therefore spoil) before playing will be relentlessly strong.  I just may go ahead with the cheapest and slowest shipping rate this time around.  ;)

Konami's "Launch Timer" site has clear snippets of three pieces that's presumably going to be featured in the game.  One of them is the now well-known "MGS4 Love Theme."  Another piece, a new one, sounds so remarkably similar to a motif heard in the Bourne film series that you'd swear it was John Powell himself composing rather than Gregson-Williams.  The last piece brings back that oh-so-familiar "zon" voice sound effect from MGS1's Rex's Lair - assuming this is Nobuko Toda's handiwork, perhaps Norihiko Hibino's departure from compositional duties won't quite be so missed.

I made a recording of each of the snippets.  Check them out:

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/angie_liu … +4&.view=l

Is the Brawl version of that track a totally different version from the one that's actually in MGS4?

So yeah...I shouldn't have checked those out. Now I REALLY want this OST. It looks like it might be the best yet. And I absolutely love the Middle Eastern influence found in the Love Theme snippet. Much much different (and better) than the Brawl arrange, which reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean! The others were fantastic as well, but the Love Theme is the one I'm really interested in at the moment.

Where was it confirmed? As far as I know, her participation in these new projects is still unclear. Moreover, she said that the TGS trailers for the three games used already existing music.

It was mentioned in a French gaming magazine of all places (beware minor spoilers):
http://denhurd.wordpress.com/2008/03/11 … ays-coded/

Technically it's not a real confirmation since they only say she'll "most likely" write the music for 358/2 Days.

Well, I know this magazine, I happened to write in it. Trust me, this is no confirmation! They are only guessing.

Ahh, I was fooled and wrote a false news article. The shame. I really hope you're right, Kuja, as I'd hate to see Ishimoto savage another franchise (he should stick to The World Ends With You -- great ridiculous fun).