Now that I've had a chance to listen to nearly the entire album, I have to say that there are definitely a lot more gems on discs 2-4, so if you're turned off by disc 1, be sure to check out the others. "Hydrophone Breakdown (Secret of the Deep Sea)" is a glorious remake of another rather simple song (submarine) if I do say so myself.

I really like the last track, The Golden Ivories of Gaia. Great piano track. I think I'll go hunt stuff by the dude who arranged it. This is an awesome album, great job guys!

Pretty good all around, i wasn't real impressed with the techno stuff but I'll keep listening to it and maybe it will grow and me. :)

First, a general comment to justify the thread's continued presence in General Game Music Discussion without creative a review thread: I'm both surprised and not surprised that FFVII was given a remix of this magnitude. Surprised that there hasn't been more backlash over what is considered a significant fulcrum for many in their game music listening interest (it's the soundtrack that got me into it). Everyone knows FFVII. But is everyone sick of FFVII? I thought so, but the lack of negative reaction, coupled with the general indifference to FF tracks doing well in the Best VGM Song Contest, shows that the vitriol isn't what it was. And frankly, people still like it.

Now, like you, I'm through the first disc, which is uneven. My favorite is Every Story (Opening - Bombing Mission), which smartly recycles an underrated favorite of mine with excellent samples but (more importantly) smart rearrangement to stray just far enough from the original. None of the rest are incredible, but they're all decent enough (Son of Chaos, Materia Junkie and Damn Those Turks are the best of the rest). It feels like a lot of the first disc songs sound the same, agressive metal/techno fusion with very few straight genre pieces. We'll see what the other discs bring.