Official soundtracks are hit and miss. Sometimes they will be missing tracks, sometimes the audio will be poor, sometimes they DON'T EXIST.
This release is almost perfect. It contains all of the gameplay tracks, remastered. By that I mean the original MIDI files were reused, with updated instrument samples, and the final result is a list of identical tracks recreated from slightly better samples. The mixing is great. The tracks use the volume limit to most of its capacity, with just as much dynamic range as was needed. The music is fairly loud, but never is it over-compressed.
Sadly, there are some problems. Firstly, the original japanese opening song (composed for the game, mind you) is missing, and instead you get a re-arranged version, sung by a new singer (the same one who lent her voice to Solatorobo's opening). It's a great new version, but to not have the actual version from the game is insulting, especially considering the original singer wrote the lyrics specifically for the song. This soundtrack is also missing the US-exclusive instrumental opening composed to replace the japanese one. It is understandable why it was done then, and why it was excluded here, but that does not make it less disappointing.
An interesting addition is a brand new song about the game, also sung by the singer from Solatorobo. The title roughly translates to "Floating Island Story", and it is an amazing song.
So, despite the high quality of this release, and the new song, the omissions rob this product from a perfect 5 star rating.
P.S. The cover art is just great, and the brochure would give a lot of interesting information.......... if you speak japanese!
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