I recently found myself enchanted with some of the tunes on the Wild Arms XF soundtrack and to a certain degree I think it's the most interesting release the series has seen in a long time - I'd hardly call it a home run but it offers a few new takes on the Wild Arms formula. From it's somewhat Sakuraba-e like battle themes to main theme that is reprised in a few of the other tracks, I really enjoy what I like.

The problem is I really don't care for the other 3/4 of the soundtrack - roughly one out of four discs worth of material is gold to my ears. Because of this I began to think about the like/dislike ratio when it comes to albums. To a certain extent don't we all play this game when we buy something? I find it uncommon to find a "solid gold" disc where everything is worthwhile; this is especially true when it comes to multidisc sets.

I can think of some lot older soundtracks (FFVI, Xenogears) that are multidisc that I can easily digest as they come but this isn't the case with most newer soundtracks.

What are your "ratios" when it comes to a given "type" of soundtrack? What soundtracks would you rate the highest?

This is one of the reasons I love mp3players. It's so easy to make a playlist that suits me. Some of my favourite OSTs, like Suikoden for example, have tracks that I absolutely loathe and just can't listen to.

So complete CDs often used to have tracks that just got in the way for me. But then, if they cut tracks, they won't please everyone. Nights (which is just fresh in my head because I'm listening to the new release) had originally cut huge amounts of the level mixes, which I loved, but left the boss music in its entirety, which did nothing for me.

So now, in the days of mp3 playlists, I like good ol' complete CDs and then I do a serious cull on the tracks I don't like. But in terms of ratios, I don't know. I'll often buy an OST just for a few tracks I adore. The Mario Galaxy OST, I can listen to in its entirety. I think I've only cut one track from the SH0 OST. But I've cut quite a bit from the Nights: Journey of Dreams OST.

Good point Ashley.

Rarely have I seen a 4-disc release where I like more than enough for just one CD.  I love listening to my favourite tracks, but it doesn't seem right to not skip the tracks I dislike.  Custom playlists seem to ruin some of the magic.  At least for myself anyways.

3-disc releases seem to strike a chord with me, as there's enough A+ material to warrant its purchase, but with just enough filler to not have to skip over 2 hours of noise.  The few "Classics" that come to mind are Saga Frontier II, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. 

It's funny that you mention this topic:  I've had more joy listening to the 4-disc FFXII OST than I have any other soundtrack for all of 2007 and so far this year.  It has a much better best good/bad ratio than any of Uematsu's 4-disc epics.  Didn't Wild Arms 3 have a 4-disc release?  I only remember 3 tracks that I enjoyed.  Not a good ratio at all. edit:  Those that I like, I really like, though.l

I think this is why I find myself listening to one and two-disc soundtracks alot more than I used to.  Maybe it's just that alot of my favourite composers have been letting me down as of lately (that is, until FFXIII comes out).  Soundtracks like Sakuraba's Trusy Bell just look intimidating to try and sit down and absorb it all.  Completing the circle, I ususally find that I have to play the game to really get into the soundtrack.  I know I'm not the only one too.  Those that I can get into by themselves are truly masterpieces (Soukaigi, Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3, Senko no Ronde -Carpe Diem-, Salamander 2, Megaman Network Transmission, Tokemeki Memorial Piano Collection 1... just to name a few

Let's see... out of the albums I currently own that are more than two discs, most of them are pretty enjoyable for me most of the way through. I don't have too many of those anymore for the reasons that Ashley hinted at... I can't keep a soundtrack if more than half of it is unpleasant to listen to. What's the point? Would you hang out with someone if they pissed you off more than half of the time you were together? (Girlfriends excluded, because that's natural relationship behavior.)

Anyway. Due in part to nostalgia, I can sit through most of the 3+ FF boxsets, excluding XII. No More Heroes is solid for most of its three discs (I only dislike several songs on the whole), and Granado Espada is an amazing, filler-free four disc epic journey. That OST never ceases to amaze me. Other than those, I really don't have any 3+ sets because I sold them all. Ace Combat 5 is a great example of an album I sold off because of this - there are some absolutely killer tracks on there, but four discs of very similar sounding material is overkill.

One exception to the rule is Viewtiful Joe & VJ2 OST. There's only two discs (one for each game), but there's a ton of filler. I'd say that I only actually listen to 1/3 of the set, but between those songs being so damn good and the nostalgia factor, I have to keep that set around.

My ACE COMBAT ratio = Kobayashi's tracks/every thing else

I do like a couple of AC2 and Nakatsuru though.

Totally agreed with you on this.

Unless we're talking about a handful of classic soundtracks or something I'm greatly nostalgic towards (and even then...), I find 2 discs to be just about the breaking point. Discs aren't even a factor anymore...I just tend to find the sweet, gooey gel that makes up what I like about the soundtrack and either throw what I don't want out or I keep it for the sake of keeping (say, for unique sounds and such).

Really, subconsciously and before I collected VGM, every SNES or NES game was like that. I wouldn't record every track (for RPG's, I never did much more than the battle themes...lo and behold, they're still the most important part of most RPG's whose music I listen to) If I pull 6 excellent tracks out of a 4 disc soundtrack, that's cool. That's 6 more tracks for my 5-star playlist.

*shrug* I guess I'm just too far removed from the concept of an album now. Being able to pull quality from a random selection of VGM and everything else is much more important now than a "solid" disc from start to finish, especially past the warming up period for an album. Keeps me on my toes a bit more when I know I can get hit with just about anything now. In a way, it's cool because now I get all the "great" tracks from a whole bunch of different OST's with none of the leftovers to sod through. Just in the same way I can remove all those pesky power ballads...

Someone just had to mention this, lol I had this and sold it for the same reason... just had to have it because it had Naruke's name on it even though I didn't like the majority what I heard in game.

I recently bought Chrono Trigger and to be honest it's not as concrete as I remember... it's still a great soundtrack but I think nostalgia plays more of a factor in its appeal than I previously believed.

I remember I had problems finding tracks to keep on Wild Arms 3. I remember listening to it straight through a lot awhile back, but when it came time to pick out certain songs and which ones to 5-star...Got a little trickier than I thought. Probably because I've grown to hate music that doesn't make itself stand out (which fits a lot disc 4) and nostalgia was absolutely zero because I grew to absolutely HATE the game and its cardboard cutout cast. I did gut some of it, but it's one of the few larger sets that's largely stayed intact (along with Code F). Vth Vanguard though...Think I kept about 8 tracks out of all 6 discs. Nothing was really making a compelling case for itself, a few themes aside. But in any case, 6 discs for a standard RPG is massive overkill.

Think the last massive OST where I can painstakingly place every theme is Suikoden II. Despite only playing through the game twice (and starting up a few games here and there), every single track on that one gets the whole nostalgia vibe down perfectly. That's one I'm fine just leaving perfectly intact, Victor's fort rehashes aside. Even though musically, I prefer Suikoden 1, I feel a much stronger connection with II's score, length, faults and all (too bad about the synth). Too bad Higashino basically retired after that.

I keep thinking about my Jikkyou Osheberi Parodius soundtrack...I really only listen to maybe 10 tracks off the thing regularly (out of about 40), but those 10 tracks are exactly what I want from VGM and getting them away from the rest of the muck on the album just makes them shine. Or then there's just Sorcerian or Ys 1-4, which just makes everything WAY too easy (though I take pleasure in removing Feena, Styx: A Premonition or the Sorcerian Endings every chance I get...;p)

I don't know about that.  I recently listened through the whole thing again and it sounded surprisingly refreshing.  Maybe it's because I haven't heard it in awhile, but it still one of the best VGM releases in a long time.  Also, I finally got the tracklist right (respective artists) and come to find out Uematsu composed a good portion of my favourite tracks.  What happened to him?

I think general consensus is his hectic schedule for FFIX just sucked the life out of him compositionally.

To be honest I really think Wild Arms 3 (the game) affected my opinion of the score... for the first PS2 RPG I played the whole game felt like rinse, later repeat. The funny thing is it didn't do anything different from the last two for the most part and I was expecting more. I think it's a well constructed game but at the end of the day, considering what other games were/are out there, that doesn't mean much. Out of the cast I liked Clive the most.

Alter Code:F was a lackluster remake, give me the original. The soundtrack best moments IMHO were the new tracks without any history. Stuff like "Determination, and then...," "Sense of Solidarity," "Game," "G's Roar" are great. "The Power that Supports the World" is awesome though. However, I hated how "Power fighter" became a third rate dungeon theme...

Feel the same way about the Vth Vangard though... I can pick out about 5-6 tracks from the first volume that rock, Vol.2 fairing worse.

I remember reading Virginia's backstory and thinking, "Great, a half-decent female lead for a change" and by about 10 hours in, it was like..."Buh?". She's definitely Valkyrie's bitch. Lilka and Kanon were both much more interesting and developed characters.

I generally agree with this, although FFVIII was probably the first time I thought the length of the whole OST took away from killer individual tracks.

I find that I don't crack open my 3+ disc soundtracks very often (I have around 20+ of these). I don't know if I'm just scared of them or what. I think when there's too much filler to skip through it just lessens my enjoyment of the good tracks. It's like when you watch a movie you liked for the second time and realize the freshness is gone, and your favorite scenes can't quite hold up the rest like you remembered. Sort of. Anyway, a number of those biguns are still inviting to me as a whole--FFs, Grandia, Saga Frontiers, Suiko 2+5, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Tales of the Abyss (yeah I likes me some of that thar dreaded Tales music :0)

A long while back I used to write all the track name translations on a piece of paper and slip it into the case of any soundtrack that had only Japanese titles, so I could follow along with place/event names and find my favorite songs easier. But that became too much work. So whenever I do get the itch to listen to some of those monster OSTs I have to do some mad cycling to get to my fave songs. I don't have an mp3 player because I'm content to stay one step behind the times.

I don't have any problem with 2-disc soundtracks; they're usually just right for me.

This is why I pre-sample my soundtracks first before buying, especially the 3-4 monster ones. The only huge ones I own are: Front Mission 5 - Scars of the War, Ace Combat 5, and Final Fantasy XII LE. Out of those three, FM5 is more dependable, as out of three discs, I only dislike one song. (Soken, why did you?) AC5, on the other hand: I skip Disc 4 completely and while I can listen from Disc 1-3, I gravitate towards a few select tracks that I like in each. FFXII LE, I can pop in Disc 1, 3, and 4 but I tend to skip 2 entirely because the music on that one's less stellar than the others. I find that the smaller the OSTs are, the more meat there is in each track, so most of my collection is either 1 or 2 disc sets.

Final Fantasy VI and Vagrant Story kind of sit alone at the top for me in terms of my appreciation for the albums in their entirety.  Otherwise I have a boatload of individual tracks that I like from various scores and I don't really listen to whole soundtracks from beginning to end anymore.  I remember that Xenogears held up well from beginning to end though.  Chrono Cross does unfortunately have some songs that annoy me, and so everytime I start thinking that maybe the soundtrack is as good as people say, I get reminded of why it doesn't quite hit that sweet spot for me.  FFXII works very well for disc by disc listening but I agree with RinoaDestiny that the second disc is probably weaker than the rest, which is made more noticeable by the fact that it's sandwiched between my two favorite discs, the first and the third.  Still a great package on the whole though.  I think that most anything I own was good enough to be worth buying in the first place, except maybe for a few that I got as part of a lot or partly because they were very good deals.  I've got a collection page at VGMdb if you want to see what those are.

Guess I'm not alone on that.  It's still a good score, but after having listened to more score music from both games and movies, my opinion on it changed as well.  I started to like the music of Xenogears a little more and like the music of Chrono Trigger a little less. (despite the fact that I regard Chrono Trigger the game to be one of the best and Xenogears the game to be one of the most overrated; go figure)  Chrono Trigger and Battle with Magus sure are fantastic individual themes though.  Chrono Trigger is probably still the most memorable theme Mitsuda has ever composed and definitely one of the most memorable in all of gaming.

Yeah.

About the only multi-disc score (larger than 2 discs) that I listen to is FFXII and even then, as everyone has pointed out, the second disc is weaker than the others (although not so much that I'm forced to skip tracks on a regular basis).

FFVI has also held up *very* well and deserves an honorable mention.

There are still several 2-disc soundtracks that I listen to in their entirety, Vagrant Story topping the list. Also, Dirge of Cerberus, Xenogears, Unlimited SaGa, FFIV, FFV (every so often).

I can see that. Some stuff on FFVIII just drags, but some of Uematsu's other (slightly) experimental stuff really shines.

YES!  If FFIV was done properly and would have got a 2-CD release, it probably would end up number 1 on my list.  I do suppose that I could rip the .spc's myself, but .... you know....

Vagrant Story is currently the soundtrack I'm listening to. It's two discs of magic - what else can I say? It holds up over time, along with Final Fantasy Tactics. (I'm waiting to see if Lost Odyssey can make it up there; although, it is the best of Uematsu I've heard in a long time). The other albums that are one-disc and that I find great still are: Einhander, Creid, and the hypothetical never-will-be-produced-yet Ikaruga. Final Fantasy IV is also a favorite.

As an aside: As a Sakimoto fan - can someone give him a bigger budget for an orchestra? His Romeo x Juliet soundtrack is wonderful and if that same treatment can be given to some of his game OSTs, it'll make a huge difference. 'Staff Roll' from Vagrant Story is still one of my Top 10 tracks of all time, due to how the orchestra brings that composition to life.

Suikoden
Suikoden II
Suikoden V
Final Fantasy Tactics
Azel - Panzer Dragoon Saga
Xenogears

work for me pretty well. these multi soundtracks stayed with me over the years and i can keep coming back without being bored or skip anything. besides the quality music on them, playing the games might have had some impact of course. too bad theres so much filler on newer albums. i wonder why? has the overall quality dropped because of a more hectic schedule? it seems its better if they hire multiple composers for a bigger task these days.