So the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack site is up with samples from the first 10 tracks of Disc 1: http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/ … bula/ff13/

AWEXOME. Listening as we speak!

I'm hearing tinges of Dirge of Cerberus and Sigma Harmonics!

...is it just my way of thinking, or is releasing a major franchise title like this, in a month like March, when nothing else is happening, as opposed to during a major buying season, like Christmas...isn't that a bad marketing strategy...?

Probably won't actually be playing the game until next Winter break...

It's unfortunate that most of the tracks sampled have already been released in one form or another (mostly from the demo). Still, it's nice to know where they fit in context.

Well, even Crystal Bearers comes just on the 26th, instead of the prime shopping season before Christmas Day. Actually, Final Fantasy X was the same way in 2001, but it got moved a week earlier just at the last moment.

If Square could release these games earlier, they would, but sometimes time just isn't on your side, and Square has had a lot of delays and long development times lately.

Anyways, I tried the site and it was really buggy, playing the tracks on top of each other, not working with the stop button, etc.

Neither the music nor the presentation on that site give me any inclination to buy the soundtrack.  If they're going to tease the soundtrack to people, offering snippets of the first ten (mediocre) tracks of a four-disc OST via a buggy Flash music player isn't the best way to do it.

There is at least one exceptionally good track (#5 Blaze Edge) within the first ten tracks, but yeah, I don't think a sample this short would attract too many people. The color contrast between 5/8 and 6/8 is just stunning, but I wonder if the rest of the score is as good as this track...

I'll be getting it regardless as I have all the others so why stop now? =p

Yeah, I agree with you. I thought that the battle theme sounded improved, but the rest are definitely "mediocre."

Spoken like a true OCD-driven VGM enthusiast!

The samples really dont matter very much. They could have 10 wonderous songs or 10 mediocre songs and at the end of the day you still wouldnt truly know what the soundtrack sounds like favorable or not. The ost is so massive to try to pick a handful of songs is way too misleading. On that note I already pre-ordered it. I look forward to what Masashi Hamauzu does as the man in the lead. Over the years Uematsu's influence has been waning and he got some help over time. To have composers take over as lead is a bit exciting as I really enjoyed Sakimoto's stuff last time.

I look forward to seeing what he really brings to the table.

Edit: So actually checking out the 10 songs I see that track 1 & 2 are pretty much introductory orchestral trash.

Any of the songs that feature the piano driving the main melody are pretty enjoyable overall. I have to say the out of the samples that track 5 is hands down the best track for me. I died when the low brass boomed in at the end and the song stopped.

With that being said I am no more excited or unexcited than before.

I enjoy most of the tracks. High production values and for the most part, well-written. That boss theme (Track 5) is a killer.

Edit: Where can I pre-order this? I haven't bought a game soundtrack in so long that I don't actually know where to buy one.

Well I like

otaku.com

I buy most of my stuff from there although shipping can be expensive ($10 for the first item and $5 for every item after that but its guaranteed EMS)

or you could go to playasia.com

The only thing I dont like about that is if you preorder something over there they don't take the money right away. Instead they bill you when they send the ost to you and for me they might overdraft me

yesasia.com
vgmworld.com

are both good sites too. Again otaku is my preference.

If you have Paypal, cdjapan.co.jp is a nice place to preorder. They'll take your money when you preorder via paypal. That's the place I usually go to preorder stuff anyway. Usually, if I preorder soon enough, I get it anywhere between 3 days before release in Japan and the day of release in Japan, using EMS.

Hearing the ten samples has not really instilled much confidence in me.  I'm hearing a lot more of the Hamauzu that I've never liked (yay, random bashing on the piano!) and not enough of the one who did some of my favorite tracks in FFX.  I have a feeling I'll be waiting until I've played the game to decide whether or not the soundtrack is worth a purchase.

Funny thing, there's a rumor going around that the same thing may be happening with Crystal Bearers, and some stores already selling copies.

Apparently Gamestops are sending out notices that the game will be in this week (Crystal Bearers).  Forcing myself not to pick it up right away since my backlog is still vast and horrible.

You might want to try renting this first, or prioritizing your backlog until Crystal Bearers becomes cheap, because I certainly wouldn't pay full price for it.

I've played about 4 hours of the game until I lost all interest and never went back.
The crux of the gameplay (picking up and throwing stuff) is simply not enough fun to last the whole game, not to mention it sucks as a battle system in itself, and you can tell Square was on to this because they throw dozens of pointless and random mini-games at you (not optional, I might add) to desperately try and add some variety.

It has some cool boss battles definitely, but that's about it.

I just finished the game, and had such mixed feeling that I'm not sure the soundtrack is worth picking up in my current bad financial state. It basically worked good in the game despite some clearly out-of-place assignments (e.g. a bluegrass track for a serious scene. and the final boss theme was...). Frankly though, neither the soundtrack or the story wasn't the strongest part of the game which otherwise was unexpectedly pretty good. It was the first numbered Final Fantasy with the streamed audio, but I don't think it turned out to be something ground breaking as hyped. But yeah, when it comes down to Hamauzu (the guy who has been just approved by 95 percent of VGM communities for a decade), few people would share my taste.

To his credit, it's sometimes surprisingly experimental and unconventional for such a big title, and at least less lifeless and boring than Dirge of Cerberus. I'm going to revisit the game, and some area themes may grow on me (they were generally so beautiful and just didn't catch my ears when playing). Overall, this is not so bad, and not particularly good, either. The two sloppy J-pop songs were even not worth talking.

I'm actually warming it a bit. Some of the area themes are so good.

Disc 3, track 10.

Chocobo theme with auto-tuned vocals.

Chocobo theme.

AUTO TUNE.

End of game music.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of that one. It's nice, until the vocals come in (second loop). It may grow on me though.

I do think it's awesome, but I guess you guys dislike Subarashiki Kono Sekai.
I'd raher dislike The Sunleth Waterscape.

Funny. I kinda like the Sunleth Waterscape.

Not funny. The regular battle theme (2-01), The Sunleth Waterscape (2-16) and the theme of Oerba (either 4-09 or 4-10 on the soundtrack) are among the most popular tracks according to the mass reception.

Ｉ wonder if Hamauzu are really the arranger of these two Chocobo tracks.

I like most of the tracks, although I'm especially partial to the final battle themes and anything that has to do with the main theme (hence why I like the Waterscape). It's the best video game score I've heard in years.

I think that Hamauzu definitely did Pulse de Chocobo, but I seriously think Suzuki had a hand at the Cocoon Chocobo theme.

So, the FFXIII OST is finally out. I listened to it because I felt that it was my civic duty. Was I blown away? No. Is it bad? No. Am I going to delete all these free MP3s and buy a physical copy? Yes and no, respectively. Do I feel bad about downloading something illegally? At this point, not really. What did I have for dinner tonight? An apple, a pear, and some ginger tea. When was the last time I showered? About thirteen hours ago.

Whoa. THIRTEEN hours. Final Fantasy THIRTEEN. Shit, everything is connected.

Hamauzu is definitely showing everyone that he is still Hamauzu here, but his FFXIII material doesn't grab me the way his Saga Fronter II/Final Fantasy X/Musashiden II stuff does. It's almost like he found a fair medium between Sigma Harmonics and Dirge of Cerberus for this one; he made the Sigma stuff more developed and the Dirge stuff more accessible and then wrote a hundred songs or something and, oh look, here's four discs of music. In all fairness, I only listened to most of the songs once, but I don't feel it resonate with me. The best shit on here in my eyes is the "Game Over" track and the two tunes Nakano arranged. Why isn't Nakano doing MORE with his compositional career? What does he do for a living if he's not making game music? Is he an accountant? Does he work at a shoe store? Does he make cucumber and avocado nori rolls at a sushi restaurant? Someone needs to pull this dude out of whatever funk he's in and get him back on the scene, ASAP. Arranging a few tunes every once in a while is not enough.

Anyway. FFXIII. Sure, I can recognize the fact that it's pretty good game music. This is good if you like violins. Ramza sums it up best in his FFXII review on RPGFan, but I'm making one minor edit to the quote: "Is Hamauzu a masterful writer? Yes, without a doubt. Is this four disc, 100-track soundtrack a marvel and a great achievement? Yes. Does that mean I have to like it? No."

EDIT: For reference, I was listening to Justin Timberlake during the writing of this post.

I love how thematically coherent the soundtrack is. There's a main theme that Hamauzu uses all over the score, a triumphant six-note motif that he loves to attach to things (and also appears to be part of Vanille's theme) and then all of the character themes, which are more than happy to make cameos in other pieces. Just beautifully written, all around. I love his lush, very French impressionist harmonies. Is it going to appeal to everyone? Probably not. The music isn't as accessible as Uematsu's work. The melodies are subtler and everything is much more layered. If people are willing to give the music the time, there's many discoveries to be made here. After two play-throughs, I'm still finding new things to admire and I'm sure that won't stop as I continue listening.

The score uses more synth than I realized. It actually doesn't have much more orchestra than DoC. Hamauzu is smart, though. He layers live instruments on top of synth and often uses the synth to create sounds that acoustic instruments can't attain. It *does* irritate me when he's forced to use synth to replace actual instruments but I suppose there's not much that can be done for that as long as the music budget isn't a top priority.

I'm going to hold off listening to my copy until I've decided whether I'm going to play the game or not. Zane's comment's got me a bit worried though; I didn't care very much for DoC and Sigma.

Oh and regarding Nakano, totally! His tracks on Project Sylpheed were terrific and that Sidewinder stuff (which the_miker put up sometime back) was really cool as well. You know, I didn't see very much praise here for Musashiden II but I still love that OST. In fact I just listened to it last night.

I think it could have been more thematically coherent, mostly because the theme of the first track and the two vocal craps sound deviating far from the rest of the soundtrack. I guess the former is because it was the track Hamauzu salvaged from the recycle bin at the last stage of the development and ended up being only reprised in the last sequence, and the latter is mostly because Hamauzu had to take over the duty from Uematsu who apparently dropped out of this project on June or July of 2009. I also feel, since ever Square Enix was hijacked by Wada, the vocal themes of Final Fantasy have been abused for promoting new J-pop artists (Kouda, Angela and Sugawara) rather than for looking for artistic merits.

Otherwise, I think this turns out to be yet another excellent addition to the Final Fantasy discography. Far less boring and lifeless than Unlimited Saga, Musashi, Dirge or Sigma Harmonics anyway. A numbered FF soundtrack won't let down us so easily. I picked up the LE, after all. Strangely, I like it more outside of the game which I thought had the incredibly well-constructed battle system and the stunning environments but an average story (it's still better than those horrifying VIII and X, or XII where the story ended after we killed one mid-boss...). I still don't get into the filler tracks clustered at the 2nd and 3rd discs though.

Not sure if only the budget contributed. According to his commentaries, he intentionally left the synthesizer/sampler parts to mix them with the real performances for a synergistic effect ("Saber's Edge" or "To Hunt L'Cie", for instance), and there were some tracks that were already so received among staffs he didn't replaced by the real recordings ("The Warpath Home" or "The Pulse Fal'Cie"). I wouldn't be surprised Hamauzu wanted to keep things in hand whenever possible.

The vocal tracks are... not my thing. Neither sound much like Hamauzu and I skip both of them on the soundtrack. I did notice that the engaging theme from the first track was only reprised in "Final Fantasy XIII - Miracles" (aside from the fanfare theme at 2:00-2:06, which pops up a few more times) but wasn't sure why. It does have that creepy L'Cie dirge as an opener, at least.

I haven't found a four-disc soundtrack which doesn't have filler, in some way or another. FFXIII is no exception. And yeah, the first and fourth discs are more consistent.

I'll have to wait to play the game to see how the music really fits. I'm sure that tracking music in for the game engine cinematics doesn't do it any favors.

Yeah, that's probably true. And honestly, it's getting to the point where it's increasingly harder to tell what's synthesized and what's not, especially when they're mixed together (I believed "To Hunt L'Cie" was all orchestra, for instance). My bias is that I'm a professional musician and I hate seeing technology taking away work from my fellow performers. We're starving artists, dammit!

Can you read the composer comments on the main page? I've been hunting weeks for translations of those (to no avail).

Yes!

Yes!

Yes! And I love your use of 'craps'!

Noooooo! Actually, you can have Sigma Harmonics.

Anyway, Zane's thoughts kind of echo mine. I think this is a well-produced soundtrack that works well in the game and features many highlights outside of it. However, it does seem kind of watered-down after the likes of Dirge and Musashiden. I guess this is great for accessibility, but I was expecting I slightly more substantial work. Maybe I was too spoiled by the symphonic masterpiece that was Final Fantasy XII. A solid 8/10 from me regardless.

They're informative and I don't see why Square Enix didn't publish them in the booklet. I myself have no capacity, but I don't think the translation will be available as it isn't copy-pastable and fewer people than we expect are interested in VGM (I actually think the translation of the drama script is more possible). Nobody has taken on Musashiden yet for these 5 years.

On a bright side of things, it appears the EU promo soundtrack will feature the translation of the printed liner notes, or perhaps a newly written ones.

I think it's way too early to judge the FFXIII soundtrack, to be honest.  I've learned in the past that just because your initial reaction to an OST isn't positive, it doesn't mean you won't end up falling in love with it in the end.  For me, I think this is going to be one of those soundtracks where I need to play the game first and then I'll be able to enjoy the music more.  I listened to a dozen or so tracks from the OST so far and none of them really did much for me.  I agree with Tommy that the best tracks I've heard are the ones Nakano arranged, Tension in the Air (also known as FFX's Deep Sea Ruins -Air Ver.-) and Desperate Struggle.  To be fair though, I've never been a big Hamauzu fan.  I agree that the man composes some good music from time to time, but I personally feel a lot of it is just boring.  Who knows though, here's hoping I enjoy it when I play the game.  I'm sure glad I didn't drop 60 bucks on a pre-order of the LE soundtrack, that's for sure.

You rock for bringing that up.  Here's a fresh upload in case anybody missed it.  All tracks composed by the professioinal shoe salesman known as Junya Nakano.  Good news is, now that he left Square Enix, maybe he'll transform into a video game music composer once again!

While I certainly can't say as much as the rest of you have been, after only one listen so far I'm not ready to give a verdict on this soundtrack yet until I've actually played the game and heard it in context.  I don't like judging music without the proper context unless it's meant to be heard on its own (and this isn't IMO) BUT I am looking forward to playing the game...