"gamingforce does NOT approve"

Haha.  Okay, that was a terrible choice of words.  I certainly don't consider them any kind of authority; all I meant was the reaction there was VERY different, and for good reason.  The tracks chosen here are very misleading.

"That's all the composers ask for"

But we have no evidence Sakimoto wanted his soundtrack to sound like this.  Sure, we have no evidence he didn't, besides the strange non-disclosure agreement with the retailers, but it is more likely he approved the original's sound than the reprint's.

I'm pretty sure that he meant that all the composers want you to do is enjoy the music.

I only meant that composers would only really care if you enjoy the music, like Zaggart siad. I mean, you don't see Falcom fans pulling a huge hissy fit at some of the poor instrumental qualities on some of their earlier albums. They just enjoy the catchy tunes.

btw, Sakimoto would've approved this treatment before it happened. But since Square Enix has unlimited power over the score (since Sakimoto owns, what, none of it) they can re-release it as many times as they want, but since it was remastrered, they would’ve had to get Basiscape's permission for altering purposes. How it came out is a risk that composers/arrangers/game companies take everyday. It's unavoidable.

"I mean, you don't see Falcom fans pulling a huge hissy fit at some of the poor instrumental qualities on some of their earlier albums. They just enjoy the catchy tunes."

This argument makes no sense to me.  I had no complaints with the original, though I thought
it could be better in a few areas.  I had no complaints with the idea of a remastering.  I HAVE a complaint with a dramatically different, and mostly worse remastering, that is now the only option.

Yes, and I'm arguing that people should just enjoy the music, and the decision to purchase a disc shouldn't be relied on by comparing MP3s when the music sounds absolutely fine on a CD player. Would you even care if this Vagrant Story was an original release with this mastering? You are judging by, from what it seems, 3 samples of music, and declaring it 'a horrible remastering'.

Not to derail the thread (think of it more as a detour) but someone in the Gamingforce thread mentioned that the Valkyrie Profile re-releases have been remastered as well. Is this confirmed?

The Original Soundtrack and the Arrange Album were both remastered.

"You are judging by, from what it seems, 3 samples of music, and declaring it 'a horrible remastering.'"

I listened to at least a third of the soundtrack with the link there, several times, since I already paid for it anyway.  And would I care if this was the original release?  Not as much, because I don't expect PSX synth to be good unless Ryo whats-his-name is behind the counter.  But since I knew better, it's hard to settle.

I guess we just don't agree here (not that I'm trying to get the last word).  And I'm genuinely glad people like this, because felt I misled everyone by making this topic.:)

The synth sounds much much *much* worse in the remastered version. Reverb is a beautiful thing.

I've listened to and loved the original Digicube release time and time again and upon listening to the vast majority of this new print, comparing it to the original, I can honestly agree with what those individuals here and at Gamingforce have said as being absolutely true:  It's a far inferior release to the Digicube print.  Reverb is an absolutely essential element to the atmosphere this music creates and a side-by-side listening to tracks such as 'Climax of the Greylands Incident' (the big boss cue at the end is no longer dramatic or powerful), 'Wyvern' (Yikes!), 'Limestone Quarry', 'Rosencrantz', 'Sanctum' (Double yikes!  That warbling effect with the choir is annoyingly noticable and the fade-outs aren't clean in the least), and 'Ifrit' is absolutely staggering.  The lack of reverb throughout the soundtrack does help add to the clarity of the overall orchestration of the work, but anyone with a solid ear could hear everything that was going on regardless. 

The last thing this score needed was a crisper, warmer (a style diametrically opposed to the feel of the game's story and style in the first place) mastering job.  It manages to suck away the excitement out of the battle tracks, all foreboding out of the ambient tracks, the sense of mystery and anticipation out of the interlude tracks.  On the whole, it causes the entire score to simply sound whimpy and dry (not to mention the high amounts of audio clipping, not present in the original master), preferring to expose the instrumentation of the work just a little more at the harm of the samples by snatching the life out of them.  It all takes away any conception of real instruments, which the reverb of the original print added to immensely.  Not that I'm criticizing the sampling, but this type of expository mastering sucks the "real-orchestral" feel that Sakimoto generally strives for in his recordings.

The mastering certainly did open up my ears to a few details in the background (here-and-there... not everywhere, by any means) that I hadn't noticed as strikingly before, but they're still plenty audible in the original master and in certain cases the effect of being able to hear some of those inner-lines degrades to the quality of the cue rather than supporting it the way it does so nicely in the background... the way Sakimoto himself originally wrote and mastered it.

So, no... not a good remastering at ALL.  To all those looking to buy it:  Find a Digicube copy, at all costs.

~Jockolantern~

*sigh*

http://tinyurl.com/on69x

It looks like the high bidder and I had the same idea.  Make it so that the maximum bid and shipping costs combined for no more than a total of 40 dollars.  Unfortunately he still took it since he had placed his bid earlier.  It's almost enough to drive me mad since I proceeded to purchase the reprint in an effort to make up for my loss only to find that all this talk about its flawed nature has caused me even more pain.  Now I have to wait two weeks for Play-Asia to ship me an item that I probably won't be able to enjoy very much.  I'll be happy when I finally get it and can stash or resell and then forget about everything surrounding this bitter experience.