Want that official Castlevania Legends OST? Or how about another go at getting the elusive Order of Ecclesia OST? Well, here it is, but you might be in for more than you bargained for...

http://vgmdb.net/album/17063

Hmm.. you know, of all these giant VGM boxes that have been released lately, this is probably the only one I'd actually consider picking up.  Just need to go sell off a body part or two..

That's a neeeeeeat seeeeeeeet.  *sparkly eyes*

Man alive! Maybe they can de-suckify the recordings of the GBA games? Probably not.

Holy sh!t... Gonna have to start saving my pennies.

....yeesh.

ANd yeah, if they could actually make Aria/Minuet in stereo like it's supposed to be...

damn, i don't think i could pass up on this.

i better start counting the pennies....

I'm honestly considering this. Symphony of the Night is still the only Castlevania soundtrack I own (beyond a couple promos), and it should definitely be cheaper than tracking down the separate releases. It's just a shame they didn't use this as an opportunity to reprint some of the insanely expensive arrange albums.

So if they have the complete Ecclesia (2CD), better version of Aria/Minuet (1CD), Saturn SOTN + Legends (about .5CD) new arrangements (lets's say another .5CD), Bloodlines [sold because of new Drac X] (.75CD)....that's a pretty good new amount, especially to sell all the old stuff and save space.
But DAMN is that expensive. Were I to buy it, it'd be my highest single purchase of CD item, topping over the Sailor Moon Music Box and the two big FSM boxes (all around $190 after shipping). Stupid yen rate....

My thoughts on the box: great deal for those who love the music of the series and don't have many of the original releases, but if you already have the OSTs, this set is pretty damn crappy. Basically, the only new stuff is:

*Vampire Killer (MSX2) = Pretty much the same soundtrack as NES Castlevania 1, somewhat different-sounding synth and one or two new tracks.
*Kid Dracula (NES) = Pretty much a joke of a soundtrack, especially for being Castlevania.
*Castlevania Legends (Game Boy) = Crap apart from a few OK tracks.
*Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Sega Saturn) = The extra tracks from the Saturn version are pretty OK, but there's just a few of them.
*Castlevania: The Arcade (Arcade), Akumajo Dracula The Medal (Arcade) = WTF?
*Disc 18: Michiru Yamane's eight arranged tracks = Meh.

Apart from the obvious flaws that there is very little new music on here and that said new music is mostly lukewarm at best, there are some other apparent faults:

*The Lament of Innocence, Curse of Darkness, and Order of Ecclesia soundtracks are given only one disc each, while the complete original versions of those OSTs are two discs, strongly implying that they cut out some stuff, leaving those soundtracks incomplete.
*For all you VGM-completists out there (you know who you are): this set is hardly a complete collection including all Castlevania soundtracks. Apart from the three cropped soundtracks mentioned above, the following are missing: SNES Dracula X, Legacy of Darkness on the N64 (which has a quite big soundtrack, almost 90 tracks), Pachislot (if you want to count that disgrace), probably some more I don't remember right now.

For those who've got none or a few Castlevania soundtracks, I guess this can be worth it, if you really dig the series' music. But, considering that I already have all the original albums and that this box only contains a few new things (most of which suck to begin with) and that they managed to still leave a few soundtracks unreleased, I'm definitely not going to throw out 21000 yen/162 EUR/230 US$ plus a most probably insane price of shipping on this.

Ok, don't need this box. Well, of course I'll DL the 'needed' stuff. Will be nice to have good quality on those Saturn ones at least....

Wasn't this already released as part of this album? Sorry for picking, but I'm surprised at the amount of the attention it has attracted.

I basically felt the same thing when I bought the FFXI box set.

Oh yeah, look at it even more close. Aria also takes up only half a disc....so unless everything is getting single loops (bleh) there's a lot of stuff cut out of this box. Though I'm assuming with Ecclesia and Portrait, they simply don't get the 'arranged' versions.

I think it'd be a really neat project to try and compile a COMPLETE set of music from the series, include this and that never before released (I'm sure there's a few tracks here and there).

Definitely complete my ass like Daniel pointed out. But do Konami care? It probably them took less than a week to come up with the idea and record the unreleased tracks. "Boxsets" are so trendy now... they know people pee in their pants when they see this kind of thing, and it will be out of stock in no time of course.

The title of disc 18 and 19 make me laugh. This is a big joke, people will really end up believing Igarashi invented the franchise, Yamane the music and Kojima the art. They could have put a bit more effort and brains into releasing a really complete soundtrack set as of today.

Oh, I ordered one.

It turns out it doesn't even have all the Saturn SOTN tracks anyway. Yeesh.

Possibly, I bought the BOF box last month - almost four years after it came out from a retailer. It may a nitch product but I don't buy the fact there are 2000 copies.

So basically all of the existing soundtracks in the set are simply ports as opposed to the OST in its true form. For example (aside from Saturn exclusive songs), a few tracks in SOTN were not played to the fullest, most notably Blood Relations. Can someone confirm this?

Aria of Sorrow is still in mono :-(

Track 34 of the SOTN disc is the mysterious sequenced song hidden on the disc (in both PSX and Saturn versions, if I recall correctly). Weird that it's present, even though we still have no idea what it actually is. Yet the truly new (and not remixed) music from the Saturn version isn't on the disc (a shame, I love "Guardian")

I'm never the final word on anything, but everything I've seen and heard indicates that the SOTN disc in the boxset is just an "adjusted" version of the original OST:

Tracks removed:
02 Prologue
34 I Am The Wind

Tracks added:
-Unknown music
-Librarian theme
-Beginning remix 1
-Bloody Tears remix (first version)

Still missing
-Vampire Killer remix 1
-Vampire Killer remix 2
-Beginning remix 2
-Bloody Tears remix (second version)
-Guardian
-Chaconne C Moll
-The droning loop from the confession room

-Same times for all retained tracks

I just noticed that, in addition to Aria still not being in stereo, they cut three tracks (not including the arranges on the original Aria OST):

-Name Entry
-Chaotic Realm
-Final Battle

...that was so they include all the Harmony of Dissonance tracks, right?

I mean, aside from:

-Title Back
-Name Entry 2K2
-Beloved One (Lydie's Theme)
-Sworn Follower of Darkness (Death's Theme)
-Successor of Fate (credits version)
-Night Head

also, even though Circle of Moon was moved from sharing a CD with Harmony (as Aria now does) to sharing a CD with the PS1 Chronicles arrange of the X68000 score, leaving ten minutes of free space, they cut the COTM version of "Prayer" (which was admittedly basically the Dracula X/SOTN version, but what?)

....

maybe in another year or two they'll sell mini-box sets of 3-5 unchanged OSTs for 10,000 yen per set >_<

I don't know why you guys are constantly suprised that boxed sets cut cds and don't include all tracks.

Boxed sets aren't for diehard collectors of <Insert series name here>.  They're for people (like me) who don't own ANY <Insert series name here> soundtracks (or very few thereof).  People like me don't care that they're not 100% complete, I (we) care that we're getting 18 cds worth of music we didn't have before, half of which is either out of print or hard to find (and expensive when you do).

a half-assed product is a half-assed product whether people still want it or not.

So these people aren't into the series enough to have any of its existing soundtracks yet they are willing to drop big money on a massive box set that they will have to dedicate the better part of a week (at least) to even listen all the way through once?  I don't get it.  If anything for the audience you're referring to a more limited best-of set would make a lot more sense would it not?

I would argue that these box sets ARE for die-hard collectors, those that are dedicated (the word I'd prefer to use is considerably less flattering) enough to buy a set consisting of music they mostly already have just to get a few exclusive extras in extravagant packaging.

To me they're a pretty dumb idea in general, unless they ARE complete and are priced extremely attractively, and are just another way for publishers to try and make an easy buck.

I too think that mega-sized box sets are aimed at collectors or huge fans of the music. To me, when I see an 18-disc box set I think "this is gonna have everything, and THEN some!"--and the ones I wind up buying actually do, including beta tracks/unused music/international version tracks. The sets with arbitrary cuts are the ones I skip out on.

Box sets are for die hard collectors but they are not for game/genre collectors, I guess.  I know Castlevania music is good.  It's not good enough to go track down and buy 18 cds worth of music from Yahoo! Japan, eBay or other random places.  For the reasonable price of 300$ for 18 cds I now have a large collection of Castlevania music.  Do I care that it's missing some songs here and there or maybe a series?  Not really.  I have a collection of music I didn't have before, with minimal work and a decent price per cd.

I've bought most of the box sets that have come out in recent years (Breath of Fire, Kingdom Hearts, Wizardry, Saga Frontier, Dragon Quest Symphonic, Dragon Quest Game Music Super Collection) and while for most of these series I've already owned a few soundtracks, it's a relatively low cost-per-cd way for me to enjoy older and harder to find music.  I'm sure all those soundtracks are probably missing stuff too, and Saga Frontier I think still has some track misspellings and mis numberings or something.

I honestly don't expect any company to really spend the time, money or resources required to make a box set to the standards that most people in this thread (and forum) expect.  Box sets are already a niche market, catering to a niche sub-market (perfectionists) of an already niche market doesn't really seem cost effective.  It's pretty easy for them to reorder some tracks, throw the old masterings together on a new cd and package it up in a spiffy box.  I don't ever see this changing, my guess is they won't make their money back from the box sets if they if they start spending extra money to make them better/complete/correct.  I think this is the same way rereleases work of DVDs, Blu-rays, etc.  Throw a special edition collectors edition producer commentary on a movie and for a relatively low cost they make a ton of money.  This is also going to start happening in the movie industry, as the new 3D fad is set to explode with movie companies spending as little as 750,000 to reproduce an old movie in 3D and reap the exorbitant rewards of that movies ticket sales (Imagine if Titanic, Star Wars etc were rereleased in 3d).

The Ghibli ga Ippai soundtrack box (11 studio ghibli soundtracks) is the only box I've bought where I already owned a majority of the soundtracks.  This was simply because I wanted it.  I also had to get it off Y!J for a ridiculous amount.  But even a collector would have a hard time buying a 300$ soundtrack just to have some bonus materials on it, unless they are ABSOLUTELY die hard.  I just think they're not really marketing it that way and they're aiming to get it out to people like me, I guess.

Which also leads me into a second argument, I'd guess mostly the same people here in this thread complaining about the box sets being incomplete are the same people who complain about the lack of track looping on soundtracks.  I've never really understood that complaint either.  Would you like them to double the amount of cds produced just to loop tracks twice?  I don't see the incentive there.  What's the point?  I think I have even heard people complaining about that new Motoi soundtrack and how it didn't loop (EoE I think?).  You want them to take a 5 cd soundtrack and loop the tracks on it, effectively making it 10 cds?  Seriously?  I'll never understand that argument. 

This is just the way things are produced.  I doubt any releases are "perfect".  It's just the way it is

The Breath of Fire box would like to have a word with you. Don't know why you'd buy that if your where a diehard collector. I dislike about as much of the music as I like, so I'm not a good example.

How hard is it to include all music from a game or a series of games? Seriously. Unless it's something like the muted music in Super Mario Brothers 2 (during the pause screen), I don't think expecting all music is out of the question. Frankly, I think it gives people all the more reason to say screw the hard release and resort to downloading what they want off it...Why pay for an inferior product?

Back when Star Ocean: Second Story and Valkyrie Profile were Sakuraba's defining works (at least to incoming fans), I believed looping tracks would have helped the releases a lot. Over the past 5 years or so, I think I've seen this argument largely disappear...It doesn't come up nearly as often as it used to and the usual culprits are the ones that have always been singled out (Seiken 2, FFIV, SO2, VP1, SOTN and Wild Arms 2).