Oh, totally, man. I'm definitely going to spin this one several more times to see if it grows on me, but as of right now I'm not anywhere near as excited as I was. It's like I enjoyed the idea of FFXIII more than the actual music. However, I will say that when I first heard FFXII I wasn't super blown away, but after playing the game I was like, OK, shit, this really works. And life without "Eruyt Village" is a life not worth living. However, I am not going to ever play FFXIII, so my experience with the music is strictly on-disc... and there's a good chance that, out of context, it's just not worth it for me.

While I might prefer VI, VII and IX, I personally think XIII is definitely one of the better alongside of IV and XII so I'd rather encourage fans of the series try the game. Avoid it if you're a fan of outdated JRPGs. Don't think my opinion is shared by the majority, though (I honestly can't fathom why X has been rated so highly while much much much better XII and XIII are heavily criticized, but that's a mass consensus). I know we shouldn't make this place a generic FF rating thread, though

I think playing the game as well as sitting up and listening to this with headphones definitely helps us to disgust this score. I'm liking lots of details I didn't initially notice, and it's really impressive that Hamauzu incorporates industrial elements such as drum loops into the classical body (it could be Kawamori's credit, but I guess it's Hamauzu, because this kind of elaboration has previously been totally attributed to Ryo Yamazaki who has the limited involvement this time) to fit the series's most futuristic world. There are some typical Hamauzian I don't like and even doesn't fit the game ("The Yaschas Massif" quickly comes to my head, even if the misassignments of tracks would be generally Toriyama's fault), but overall, Hamauzu was the best choice to score this well-presented world (the art directer was actually the same as XII, but I feel XIII embodied his visions far better).

I'm looking forward to XIII. I was personally disappointed by XII (too much grinding, too little story) and aside from Tales of Vesperia, there really hasn't been a decent JRPG this generation. XIII looks pretty melodramatic but that's at least entertaining if it's done relatively well (see Star Ocean 4 for an example of it NOT done well). People (fanboys) have been whining non-stop about how linear XIII is and how towns are largely gone. Linear doesn't bother me as long as it services the story (like it did for X) and towns haven't been interesting in a JRPG for over a decade.

I'm a little confused with the Nakano tracks. The credits suggest he "arranged" them but arranged them from what? Did Hamauzu write the originals?

That appears to be the case. It shows, too: Hamauzu has a lot of the most boring tracks on the soundtrack, especially on the droning discs 2 and 3, while the arranged tracks stand out with the personal touch of the arranger.

For Hamauzu's stuff, this has about the same amount of good tracks as FFVII Dirge of Cerberus or Unlimited SaGa, but spread out on 4 discs instead of 2.

All of that is fair. I've been talking with a few people here and there and I've heard mixed opinions. The release of a new FF game is always something to look forward to, and if the game doesn't "get" to me, then I'm sure at least the music will.

Having finished it recently, I can confidently says this is the least enjoyable FF I've played...well...ever.
Seriously X-2 was done by the same team, and it was better.
The eye candy is phenomenal, and the battle system is very good, but man, everything else....

I don't know what's NOT to like about FFX though. They did so many things right there.
XII was good, but felt too much like Vagrant Story with an FF title slapped on.

FFX was the last FF game where I felt like I was actually playing a FF game so I have to go with you on this one. IMO its linear quality wasn't as big of vice as some people make it out to be - the idea of freedom in RPGs is somewhat of a misnomer, isn't it? You're never that free...

Still, I think Final Fantasy XI being a part of the numbered series helped do the series in for me. If it was merely called "Final Fantasy Online" there would be less of a reason to reflect on (a game I have no interest in) when reflecting on the series as a whole. As it stands now, it merely feels like an anomaly.

During my first listen I was rather horribly disappointed.  I gave it a day and listened again, after watching the trailer.  It got better.  Now after 4 listens I rather enjoy it.  Sure some tracks don't do it for me and I rather dislike the pop songs (save the ending theme).   Think it will only get better once I play the game.

David

I've only subjected myself to the first two discs so far (two or three times each) but am finding it hard to motivate myself to go through the rest.  It reminds me of Dirge of Cerberus in that we've got solid production values over uninteresting compositions.  Except this time it looks to be twice as many of them.

The funny thing is I almost prefer the nondescript tracks, as the themes that do stand out (the character themes among them) sound mostly trite or predictable.  Same goes for the instrumentation, the staple live/sampled orchestral instrumental set is at the very least unobtrusive but the occasional electric guitars, electronic beats and vocals sound pretty hokey.

Most any soundtrack will grow on you if you listen to it enough but I'm not finding enough to like in FFXIII so far to bother, which will be a first in the main FF series since I started following it with FFVI.  I'm hoping things will pick up a bit in discs 3 and 4.

The promo soundtrack has the translation of the selected ten tracks.

On a side note, the translation is much more elegant than the literal direction I'd normally prefer, but I'm not sure some parts are correct. Do "8 minute string" and "16 minutes piano piece" mean the same thing as "eighth note strings" and  "sixteenth note piano"? I'm not really strong in English, much less the musical terminology, so sorry if this is fine.

No, they do not. "8 minute string" and "16 minutes piano piece" both refer to lengths of time. They mean that the piece of music in question was 8 minutes long and written for strings and the second piece was 16 minutes long and written for piano.

"Eighth note strings" and "sixteenth note piano" refer to the type of notes being played (eighth notes and sixteenth notes). I'm not too sure about the context, but if the two translations came from the same source then one is incorrect. I'm afraid I don't know enough about Japanese or the source to be of any help.

Thanks, so I'm afraid the promo soundtrack has some mistranslated part (the scan I linked was replaced by this).

It's obvious the track in question couldn't ever have a 8 minute part of anything as the track length as a whole is 3:26.

I'm glad I said that back in January, because it's exactly how I'm feeling after day two (12 hours in) of playing the game.  I've heard all of disc 1 and most of disc 2 in-game and holy crap it's good.  So glad I didn't knock this soundtrack back when it came out.  Hell, even if I had, I would happily be eating my words right now.

Wrong answer Mike.  I can see your future. Today is March 11th and you're going to order it very very soon while the LE is still available, because it's amazing and you love it.

(Don't you wish you could actually travel back in time and talk to your past self?)

I think it's one of the best FF scores. I can't even begin to emphasize how much character and life it brings to the game.

It's way early to say for sure and even with such heavy hitters as Heavy Rain, Mega Man 10, Valkyria Chronicles 2, and Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles already out, I'm gonna go ahead and make the call that the FFXIII OST will be album of the year for me.  I finally heard the Cocoon de Chocobo theme in-game last night and that's when I came to this realization, haha.

The only possible contenders I see in the near future are FFXIV and Super Mario Galaxy 2, oh and the Castlevania box but it doesn't count because that's cheating.

I'll give it a listen too sometimes in the future, even though the only FF album I've listened to in full is Final Fantasy VII.

I recently learned in an interview that all the tracks with Japanese vocals were localized into English and all the tracks that originally featured English vocals were re-recorded for the English release of the game.  You can read the full interview here.  It's the last question on the page.  Kitase: All the vocal songs have been localized. Not only were Japanese vocals localized, but the English vocals have been brushed up and rerecorded as well.

With some help from the awesome people at Halley's Comet Software, I was able to rip all of the streamed music from the game disc.  To be safe, the link below contains every track in the game with any sort of vocal performance in them as I don't feel like going through each one and meticulously comparing them to their OST counterparts.  The only song I didn't include was "My Hands" as we know that one's new to the English release.

I'm not sure why there are three variations of Ragnarok but I'm fairly certain the vocals didn't change in that one.  The one major difference is Cocoon de Chocobo, fully recorded in English, and it rules.  The only other one I noticed was Serah's Theme.  The performance sounds a little different in our version, I guess it's less "Engrish" sounding.  Note that I did not listen to the last five tracks in this set since I haven't gotten that far in the game yet (music spoilers?  yes I'm weird).  If anybody spots any other changes with these tracks, be sure to let us know!

Oh and not only are these just English rips, but I looped them two full times with a 10 second fade out.  Seven wonderful minutes of The Sunleth Waterscape. <3

FFXIII_Vocals_English_Version.zip (132MB, 13 files, encoded with LAME3.98r VBR V0)

Dang, that file has close to 20 downloads so far and not one person responded.  Buncha leeches I tell ya.

In addition to Cocoon de Chocobo and Serah's Theme, I just discovered that the lyrics for The Sunleth Waterscape changed pretty drastically for the English release of the game.  I can't make out many of the new lyrics, which is pretty ironic since I can understand most of the "Japanese" version just fine.

Ok so I need a helping hand here.
Playing the game thru and the first track ive really really liked and its not on the ost!?
its driving me crazy, so any helps on where i can get it?
They give you a god damn drama disc in the ost, but not all the tracks..... Great.
It's first heard in chapter 9, just before the first Barthandelus fight.
Its a battle theme, with a slightly techno drum n bass feel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ool6qhckQ - Listen from 7 mins to hear what I'm talking about.
Any help would be appreciated. Kinda hoping for a rip of this track

Defiers of Fate (Long Version)

At almost 9 minutes, that is definitely the looong version.  I have no idea why they cut this track short on the OST, right when the cool part kicks in too.  The disc it appears on, disc 1, is only 49 minutes long so they had more than enough room for the full track. *shrug*

Thanks ever so much, really appreciated.
It's such a shame that the full version isn't included on the OST.
From a personal level, I'd happily say the full version for me is one of the best vgm pieces I've heard for a long long time, if not ever.
That's just an opinion

http://tweetphoto.com/37942409

Finally getting around to converting these vinyls to mp3 for my own enjoyment (since I don't own a turntable =p)