Has anyone else picked this up in one form or another? Haven't heard much buzz about it from other people. I'm a huge fan, personally - the remixes are more enjoyable than the originals, and the new tunes kick some serious ass. Very much worth the bucks I dropped over Y!JA for it.

I did pick this up in "another" form a while ago, and yeah, it's pretty good. "Pagan" is probably my favourite out of the original tracks. And the CD is pricey indeed.

I'm mostly listening to Atelier Iris Eternal Mana 2's arranged tracks at the moment though.

Just picked this up from Ramza. You dig?

General consensus is that AIEM2ATRLR is overall better and more consistent than AIEMATDW, which I agree. I think AIEMATDW had more "stand-out" tracks though.

Thus far, I think I'm enjoying both of them equally...I'm hard pressed to pick a favorite between the two albums, especially since I've grown into "The Tower of No Return" over the past year (that 7 minute playtime seems too short now), in addition to my other favorites from that album. As is, it's setting a good pace for Wild Arms "Rocking Heart" and Black Mages 3 later this year.

Standouts on AIEM2 would be Slasher Blue (as expected), Carmine, Red Lucifer Rising (very much in the same vein as Deceitful Wings, the track not the album), Danger Zone, (strong bassline underneath the melody), Terrestrial and Emperor Fangs (yes, I realize that's more than half the album right there, not counting the Ver. 0 tracks). The other four tracks certainly aren't bad and don't break up the flow of the album, but I didn't find anything overly remarkable about them. I think the mastering in Red Lucifer is a tad better...Percussion and underlying effects aren't as drowned out as in Deceitful Wings, although it still has that unpolished doujin feel to it (I mean that in a good way). And I didn't feel disappointed with any of the arranges, as I did with "Phantom Wings" on DW.

Only minor disappointment is the difference between the Ver-0 tracks were negligible from the originals (again). It'd be cool if SSH would give Hiramatsu or one of his fellow doujin buddies some actual arranging to do...It'd be a much better way to fill up disc space.

My guess: Either Ar Tonelico or AI: Grand Fantasm are next in line for treatment. Which is a good thing, because the battle themes in both are eons ahead of the ones in the AI2 OST (particularly the Grand Fantasm ones).

Sorry for ressurecting this semi-old topic, but I was just wondering which version of the Lost Child game the Z-side bonus CD was attached to? Specifically, what is the box of the game supposed to look like? I have recently found and bought the A, B, and X sides, but the Z one is kind of confusing me. I've seen three different box art for the Lost Child game and I thought it came in the Lost Child game that has a very reddish cover art, but a user image I saw showed a different Lost Child CD coming with that version of the game (I believe the release date of this version is about same as what is given on GMROnline for the Z-side CD's release date). Speaking of which, does anyone know what the other three "Lost Child soundtracks" are about? I'm not talking about Lost Children or Lost Child Infinia, though Infinia seems out of place with the A, B, X, Z ones.

Thanks~

I picked this CD up off Yahoo Japan a few months ago with the help of some friends, but as to what it was originally packaged with I have no clue since the auction was only for the album itself - which was fine as I didn't need the game to enjoy the music. But yeah, I'll admit I'm curious as to what the entire package looks like as well.

The Side-Z music CD comes as a bonus to those who order the game for full retail price from tama-soft's (the developer of the game) online store.

It might also be available from Japanese retail shops but I wouldn't know.

The only box art I'm aware of is the "very reddish" one. Could you show me the other ones?

The three Lost Child CDs you're speaking of are probably the "Laox", "Messe Sanoh", and "Sofmap" CDs. I don't know how these CDs are officially acquired but they're probably free promotional items of some sort.

In any case, all 3 CDs are mostly the same. They are all hybrid audio/data CDs, the audio part has 9 songs and the data section contains various character voice acting files (.wav).

How they differ however is that the 9th audio track on all the CDs are different. The 9th song is a "unique" (well, only one is COMPLETELY unique) S.S.H composition not found anywhere else.

(Thanks to Teioh for ripping the CDs BTW)

Not too special.

The only version of the game (that I know of) is the "First Press Limited Edition" (i.e. There's no standard version).

Comes in a sturdy box and inside is an instruction manual, information sheet, a clear CD case with the dual-layer game DVD, and another clear CD case with the drama CD.

Ahhhh. So that's what this -Softmap Ver- Special Sound CD I have is. From what I can tell, the first eight tracks are kt2 remixes of Soshi Hosoi vocal tracks (four different songs, one version w/vocals and one w/o), and they're... well, let's just say that you're better off finding the SSH stuff online and calling it a day. They're pretty poor, even compared to the first disc of Infinia. Side A/B/X/Z is where it's at.

You were pretty lucky then, I think, but patience is something I never had much of, so playing the wait and see game is not something I want to do. Well, unless I didn't have any other choice.

Yeah, I've been looking for the image shown on the TamaSoft website, which has a white background, but the only ones I can find are the reddish cover version and another one that has a black background (Probably the original version of Lost Child). So, if I'm understanding this correctly, the image shown on the TamaSoft website is actually something that comes inside the "very reddish" Lost Child box, which is the item I'm looking for? If that's the case, then I'm in good shape.

Do you know which one of those three Lost Childs contains that "unique" S.S.H composition?

I found the Sofmap version as well, though I held off on buying it since Infinia wasn't what I thought it would be. Does that mean the other kt2-realted CDs, like Abandoner, are crap as well? Don't know if you have it, but it just seems like you have experience with his music.

Anyway, thanks Ashley Winchester, layzee, and Zane for your input. It's greatly appreciated.

I think kt2 is great, and is one of my favorite composers. Abandoner, LC infinia (disc 2), From here the edge, History Repeats Itself and No Reality are all some of my most-listened-to CDs. They're all pretty relaxed, though, so if you're looking for SSH-style rock you should look elsewhere.

His remixes on the LC special sound CDs aren't that good, but that's mostly because the songs he was remixing were not that good. If you want to check out some of his stuff, I recommend going to his official site and downloading the zip file that he hosts for free. It's a great sampler pack showing what the man can do.

http://kt2unknown.web.fc2.com/

It's at the top right of the "diary" section where it says "download here".

I'm afraid I still don't know what covers nor images you are speaking of.

-Sofmap ver.-

If you set Google on "Images" and search for ロストチャイルド, you'll see both the reddish one and the one with a black background on the first page given. Both images look different from whatever image was used for the Lost Child game on Tamasoft's website.

I think that's just normal artwork/poster art. I've never seen it on Yahoo! Japan auctions either in box art form.

Even though I don't like buying used copies, I  just won a used copy of the Z side on Yahoo! Japan auctions that popped up like a day after I made this topic. I looked over various sites selling the Lost Child game and the prices ranged from around $30 (Mostly for the reddish looking one, which was shown in one image coming with the Sofmap CD) to around $90 (The one shown on Tamasoft and one other site I found). There were some conflicting release dates, so that didn't help much, either. Also, looking at Tamasoft's website again, it does mention Z side as a mail order item, so it's hard for me to tell how limited that first edition Lost Child reprint was. Maybe the Lost Child reprint had a standard edition or something along those lines?