A Tales game by another name, but at least it has a very different story setup (although only the setup looks unique; everything else might as well be Tales):

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/713/713699p1.html

Actually it looks more like a Radiata Stories clone, which was a Star Ocean clone.  Which makes sense since I think Tri-Crescendo is part of Tri-Ace, made up of former Tri-aceers, or something.

tri-Crescendo is mainly made up of former Wolfteam programmers, only some of them worked for tri-Ace or on the Tales series before.

Wasn't Wolfteam from like the Star Ocean 1 days?  Or even before that?  What did tri-Crescendo do until Baten Kaitos?

Star Ocean is tri-Ace. tri-Ace doesn't have the rights to anything Wolf Team did; that stuff belongs to Telenet or Namco. So if Star Ocean was a Wolf Team game, tri-Ace wouldn't be making sequels to it.

Sound programming. Check the credits to just about any tri-Ace game. tri-Crescendo was formed by Hiroya Hatsushiba as his sound programming company.

Probably Wolfteam's most well known project was Tales of Phantasia, and was the last game the developer company made before Gotanda split to form tri-Ace (with later, Hatsushiba doing the sound programming under the name tri-Crescendo). Wolfteam existed from 1986 to mid 90's, developing even more Tales of games untill it became 'one with Namco'. Now, basically and to cut down to the chase, it's known as Tales Studios, responsible for developing Namco's famed 'Tales of...' series. Hatsushiba was responsible for dealing with the sound of all tri-Ace games (alongside Sakuraba) as tri-Crescendo. Everything (tri-Ace, tri-Crescendo, Tales Studios) is connected by Wolfteam.

Hopefully that compacts over 20 years of history into one 80 word paragraph.

Thanks.  So how did tri-crescendo acquire game programmers, and are they competing against tri-ace now or still affiliated?

Well, tri-Ace and tri-Crescendo are affiliated with one another, as if they weren't, you wouldn't see tri-Crescendo working on games such as Valkyrie Profile 2 or Star Ocean 3. However, they are both different companies, though the heads of each company go back to Wolfteam.

I would guess that they got a good number of their game programmers from dissatisfaction from either Tales Studio or tri-Ace.

By Wolfteam I refer to the people employed by a more or less independent Telenet Japan subsidiary by the same name which really only existed between 1987 and the end of 1993 (Telenet was restructured around that time when Camelot, Media Vision, Matrix Software and Gau Entertainment/NexTech were formed). The remainder of the staff were mostly younger people who joined rather shortly before that and kept the brand alive through games like Hiouden SFC and Phantasia before tri-Ace was formed by them. tri-Crescendo on the other hand employs plenty further older Wolfteam employees who worked there in the high PC98/Mega CD era, the Baten Kaitos 1 lead programming staff is pretty much monopolized by them. Other familiar faces from earlier Wolfteam/Telenet games also kept reappearing in Tales games' staffs (as they were developed by Telenet Japan after all) and not few kept leaving to tri-Ace, but that tendency seems to have stopped around when the development team was separated by forming Tales Studio and tri-Ace got too big for its own good. Last month Bandai Namco bought the remainder stakes Telenet Japan had in the Tales Studio so this link is cut now. Camelot, tri-Ace and tri-Crescendo on the other hand are all privately owned with no lasting obligatios to their publishers (that how you see them developing for Square Enix, Bandai Namco, Nintendo and Microsoft etc.).

Please refer to http://snesmusic.org/motoisakuraba/ for more details.

This has to be one of the oddest RPG concepts I've heard in awhile. Potentially fun, but still odd. Perhaps one of the most unusual and extensive ways to give props to a classical composer, for sure.

I just hope that if there's a Chopin estate, they don't blow their top over this.

Hmm...I really wish they were making this for the PS2 or Wii instead of the Xbox. It just feels REALLY weird that Sakuraba is composing for an Xbox game.  And I don't have an XBOX and refuse to buy one so I'll probably never even listen to his music for this game.  What a shame!

It seems probable to me that there will be a soundtrack release. No need to purchase the game to listen to the music.

I'm not really sure how that's any weirder than Uematsu scoring two xbox360 games, but... whatever.  For me this game is yet another reason this system looks more interesting than the PS3.

.

I've been thinking about this game for the past couple days, and I'm curious as to what Sakuraba's approach will be. Whatever he comes up with, it would hopefully be such music that can comfortably exist alongside Chopin's work without drawing too much attention to itself.

So what would work best? I find myself thinking that the power of Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, and maybe even Baten Kaitos would be a bit much. On the other hand, I hope it won't end up as treacly as Tales can be sometimes.

And also, if/when the soundtrack is released, how might it be constructed? Will Chopin and Sakuraba's work be interspersed throughout, or separated (Chopin on one CD, Sakuraba on the rest)?

It's still too early to answer these questions, I know...I'm just inviting speculation.

I'd say a whole lot of piano. Maybe not solo, but certainly as a primary focus. Having his own piano compositions sit side by side with Chopin would certainly be a formidable challenge, but I think he could pull it off, and it's something he hasn't done much of before. Then again, maybe piano overkill would be a bad idea and it'd be better to contrast with Chopin's music?

I'm personally hoping for some successor to Sakuraba's style for Weißkreuz Glühen (everyone knowing this soundtrack please raise your hand... =/ ).

/me raises hand

Darn, I forgot  about that! I need to go back and listen to it again...

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/732/732268p1.html

Trusty Bell will be playable at TGS. We'll soon see what tri-Crescendo and Sakuraba have been up to.

Thanks to the fellows over at GameFAQs for pointing out the TGS tailer:
http://www.xboxyde.com/leech_3030_en.html

Just from this little snippet, I'm getting the feeling that Chopin and Sakuraba are going to get along very well. Granted, only a bit of Chopin appears at the beginning or end, but it still seems to fit.

Oh...and the end of the trailer kinda gets to me...and not just because of Chopin.

Looks gorgeous. Could be a treat.

...and already I want to watch it again.

If this game isn't released in English, the heavens will cry. :\
It is so pretty... and the music is perfect.
*huggles Sakuraba-sama plushie* :(

It's probably too soon still, but I do have the OST in mind. If this game is truly coming out before year's end, then I expect December or January will bring joy.

As for the game itself...don't know if an XBox360's in my future. But for those who do...yeah, I really hope y'all get to play it.

...where on earth did you find one of those? :D

Ha ha ha, "tri-Crescendo op. 1". Pretentious? Hatsushiba?

Game about Chopin? Their first own game? Crescendo? Primarily a sound developer? Come on, don't act so surprised, it all fits together. =P

Yeah, let 'em have their glory!

BTW, Dat, what's your take on what you're hearing in the trailer?

That was probably the most irritatingly mannered performance of that particular Chopin etude that I've ever heard.

Aside from that, the Sakuraba stuff was okay (especially when you look past the battle music, composer on autopilot). I wish he would experiment more, perhaps play with dissonance.

Er...you may have to define "irritatingly mannered performance" for me.
And I'm not well-versed in classical music at all...which of Chopin's etudes IS that?

Well, people have different tastes. When I play that piece, I don't go overboard on the rubato. Other performers like to mess with it more. Of course, no one knows truly how Chopin intended his works to be played...

Op. 10 No. 3 in E-Major. Most of Chopin's etudes are very quick and technically challenging. This is one of the slow ones but that doesn't make it any less difficult. The challenge is bringing the melody out when there's so much more going on. It requires EXACT precision of the fingers.

There's some beautiful stuff going on in that trailer both musically and graphically.  The only thing I'm disliking is the female voice that is the stereotypical "I'm jailbait and would like nothing more than otaku to rape me" that I've grown to loathe so much since coming here.  x_x

It's imaginary ;;

...but I would pay a pretty penny for one if they did exist!
Hahah... I am envisioning an  SD-chibi-sakuraba-san plushie, complete with little plush keyboard
oh god make it stop.
Maybe I could go find some plush artist on deviantart or something to commission me one...

Anyway, I am totally psyched about this game, if I didn't mention already.  Tri-whatever has totally got me under its spell.

Even after your later explanation I'm not sure if you are referring to the short piano play at the end or to some possible arrangement of Op. 10 No. 3 in E-Major before that. In case you didn't know yet all "original" Chopin pieces are played by the Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin (not Sakuraba himself) who apparently interpreted plenty Chopin pieces in Japan even before this game according to the official website's description.

Regarding battle tracks, this is intended, and for a (as I tend to admit while playing) good reason.

(Thanks to Lierre.)

Okay, now THIS is interesting...

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php … ad&order=0

So, they're saying it WILL be released in English in 2007, and the international name will be "Eternal Sonata". Which, when I think of it, isn't bad at all.

Has anyone else seen any news confirming this?

Chopin didn't write very many Sonatas   Also, that article only refers to him as "a famous composer" rather than by name. Did they not expect their audience to recognize the name, or is this some indication that the character will be given a generic identity in the US release?

I'm actually a bit concerned about that as well. I hope they don't remove the Chopin element, as that takes away from it's novelty.