I agree; it's all buildup and no payoff. The buildup *is* cool and filled with organ music, though.

Let's see:

Dynamite - I'd put this in the "Battle Theme" category; the repetitive bass/percussion and lackluster melody are pretty much hallmarks of that style.
Climax at the Tower - Like a thematic fragment of the "Battle Theme"--the repetition is there in spades, but the bass/percussion is less pronounced.
Tender Spot - Pretty much the same as "Climax at the Tower" with more of a percussion kit; both seem like unfinished parts of the "Battle Theme."
Shiver - More like one of Sakuraba's field-rock themes.
Tangency - Definitely a version of the "Battle Theme."
Beast of prey - Like a slower and more percussion-heavy "Climax."
Mighty Blow - Another clear iteration of the "Battle Theme."
The Incarnation of Devil - More like a field theme.

For me I find a lot of Motoi's stuff sounds very similar, while every so often a soundtrack will come out that stands out above the rest. I thought Baten Katos was one of his best works, followed probably by Valkyrie Profile or Star Ocean 2

I really don't like Sakuraba all that much. The only soundtrack I truly enjoyed from him was Star Ocean 3: Til the End of Time (which I thought was lightyears better than SO2).

Maybe it's just me, but I think Sakuraba's newer music is actually better than his older stuff. I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks that the VP2 promo CD already sounds better than the entire VP1 soundtrack. Tales of Symphonia was head over heels better than the other Tales games, too, and the Baten Kaitos soundtrack was surprisingly good.

I wouldn't call that methodology a good thing, especially in SO3's case. :) That's why the SO3 soundtrack got such negative reviews. It wouldn't have been so bad if he mixed things around; I was playing around with the soundtrack in my playlist editor the other day, and I noticed that the orchestral songs stand out a helluva lot more when mixed together with the rockin' and heavy synth songs.

I´m sure you are NOT the only person who thinks that way, but I couldn´t agree less. I have the impression that the 4 VP2 tracks on the promo CD sound too much like his Baten Kaitos works, which isn´t necessarily a bad thing because I really like the music in BK and its sequel. But on the other side I prefered a different and more distinct approach. I abolutely loved his style in Valkyrie Profile, the heavy use of synth brass in "Confidence in the Domination" or the mellow sounds of "To a World Becoming Impure" - I thought it sounded so much different from any gamemusic I´ve heard so far. But I won´t judge from a selection of 4 songs, I´ll wait for the full soundtrack release, respectively the western launch of the game. The impact of the compositions in conjunction with the actual game sequences is usually different to the impression you get when listening to the plain score.

Somebody might say my point is irrelevant because Sakurabas works usually sound the same all the way, as for me, I don´t think so. Tales Music sounds nothing like Star Ocean, BK is different too, and so was Valkyrie Profile. Sure, there are similarities in terms of instrumentation and sometimes he recycles certain chords and melodies, but I wouldn´t go so far to say he´s overdoing it in a painful way (well, maybe sometimes, but considering how many soundtracks he´s done in the past few years, I wouldn´t blame him). If people listened to his older effords (Arcus for instance) carefully and compared it to his more recent music, they could see he has changed his style more that some of you would have expected.

Not sure how you can rip the genre off if you come from a background of that genre. He's a prog artist, so he has this kind of sound in his soundtracks. Sounds logical to me.

Oh, I don't think it's necessarily good either. Orchestra/rock fusion is tough to do, but it can produce some dynamite tracks (though not "Dynamite" from SO2). Not to mention that putting all the weaker and more repetitive rock songs on a single album totally dissuades me from buying it.

I thought that was pretty funny.


I'm curious. What do you think of Sakuraba's synth instrumentation on the previous songs I asked you to judge? Is it just the bass / percussion that you dislike?

If you don't mind I'm going to review some of the tracks I asked you to.

Shiver - I like the sense of urgency in this track. If you've played the game (Which I'm sure you have) then you'd understand why Sakuraba would do this. I really like the second half of the track (:46-end) which serves as a bit of a bridge / build-up to the track loop.

Tangency - I liked this track up until about 45 seconds. I really like the synthwork he displays in this track. I believe it's the fastest track in the game.

Beast of Prey - My biggest gripe about the track is that the glitter-synth lead is so weak in my opinion. He could've put any other type of sound in it's place and it probably would've sounded better.

Mightly Blow - I really love Sakuraba's synth in this track, especially his freestyle towards the end of the track. The drumwork I like because it was more along the lines of a break-beat which I believe is the only time he used that kind of beat in the soundtrack.

Climax at the Tower - This track stood out to me mostly for the pitch-bending synth he used. Made the song sound very condescending.

After listening to the tracks again I can understand where you are coming from about the bass and percussion. To be honest, I like the drumwork a lot more than I like the bassline. It seems to me that a lot of times the bassline just follows the drums. What do you think?

I don't dislike the bass/percussion per se, but Sakuraba recycles it so much that I'm pretty tired of hearing it.
I'd agree, and I'd also add that the melody tends to follow the drums and basline as well. Of course, I have to allow for variations based on taste; someone who loves synth rock of the type Sakuraba cranks out is clearly going to find more merit than someone like me.

What do you think of his work in Valkyrie Profile? I thought it was rather pointless for him to include several tracks from Star Ocean: The Seoncd Story on the tail end of the second OST disc. Mostly due to that fact that these tracks weren't even in the game.

What about it's battle themes?

- Turn Over A New Leaf
- Fighting The Shadowy Gods
- Confidence in Domination

You never got to the Sepheric Gate, did you?

No, but from the looks of it it resembles a Star Ocean 2 "Cave of Trials".

Regardless though, even if the tracks were used there, it still makes Sakuraba look like he cut corners.

The Seraphic Gate was a kind of bonus treat (and a very nice one, for that matter), so I didn´t consider it a compromise that Sakuraba reused some So2 tracks - just a little reference for die hard gamers who could make it that far.

Motoi Sakuraba's work is outstanding, I must say. His compositions surpass many others and he has proven that he can work with different styles and his piano works are superb! I really like the way he mixes both slow and fast tunes in his game music. And also that he uses all sorts of instruments, from piano and violins to drums and techno.
I think that;
Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy etc.),
Motoi Sakuraba (Star Ocean etc.),
Hitoshi Sakimoto (FF Tactics etc.),
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono-series),
Koichi Sugiyama (Dragon Warrior/Quest),
Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill),
Yoshitaka Hirota (Shadow Hearts),
Michiru Yamane (Castlevania),
Ken Nakagawa (Atelier Iris),
Junichi Nakatsuru (Soul Calibur, Ace Combat),
Keiki Kobayashi (Soul Calibur, Ace Combat),
Miki Higashino (Suikoden) and
Jeremy Soule (Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars) are the best compositors of game music there has ever been!!!

Many thanks for the rip! Currently getting...If anyone needs an alternate source, they'll be up in my VGM Central share. Once it finishes.

Sakuraba to me is all about the rockin'. My opinions pretty much run the exact opposite of orion's...His orchestral works pretty much sound the same (pretty much the entire Star Ocean 3 OST Vol. 1 sounds alike to me, I can't tell one Baten Kaitos non-battle theme from another most of the time...Baten Kaitos 2 basically lost me once it got past disc 1...Star Ocean 2 had probably his most noteworthy orchestral-style work to me...I basically have no interest invested in the style and it comes off flat and downright tedious nearly everytime...And in the case of "So Alone, Be Sorrow", downright offensive), while I find his strongest and most memorable melodies within his dungeon/battle themes. Probably why VP is without question my favorite work of his (and a huge reason I enjoyed playing the actual game) Yeah, they do share a similar style, but they're far from indistinguishable...I would say it's no different than the whole of Uematsu's battle themes: Familiar, yet different (when one comes on, I have to think sometimes to identify it with which game it's from...On the same hand, I'll never mistake one of his for another composer's). There's just a lot more of them, comparing Sakuraba's track record. The only bad thing about them is I have problems picking a favorite, which isn't so bad, as I've found very few "bad" ones. Personally, I'm glad to see him making more use of the electric guitar instead of the guitar synth he used for so many years...I would love to see much of VP redone with live guitar.

So yeah...Keep on rockin' Sakuraba!

It's a shame that his other work just isn't up to the elegance that is the Baten Kaitos soundtrack. I think even he quoted in some interview that he was almost shocked at the beauty of the game, which in turn inspired him to create such beautiful music. My personal favourite would have to be Gentle Wind, which is the town theme when you first start the game. The way it ends with the high flute is just remarkable.

Are you kidding me?! Where on earth is Masashi Hamuzu and Hrioki Kikuta??!

Ah, my bad! Of course there should be room for both of them and many others, but I'm not too familiar with Kikuta's work except for the Seiken Densetsu OST, which is beautiful nevertheless. I haven't listened to Hamauzu at all, I believe (has he worked on the Unlimited Saga soundtrack, I think I saw his name there somewhere. Final Fantasy X as well?).

I MUST add Koji Kondo, Kenji Ito and Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka to the list as well. There is always someone forgotten in the midst of writing, but hey, we all make mistakes =)

Double Post:
Forgive me for this, but I really didn't like Unlimited Saga's soundtrack, it was too quirky, I think that's the word for it =) But some songs were of course great, like the "March in C 2ch Mix Ver.", which is music at it's best. Maybe if I listened to Unlimited Saga's soundtrack outside the game, it would get better.

Bottom line though: Game music rocks!

Sakuraba has definitely been climbing in my personal composer rankings lately. I've been listening to his stuff a lot, in the past week or so especially.
I can't get enough of "Highbrow" from SO3...it's playing right now, actually.

Sakuraba is, quite possibly, the single most repetitive VGM composer ever.

I think I've heard the same echo-y piano song in egvery game he's composed for.

If it wasn't for his arranged stuff (which is a million times better than the original ingame stuff (Star Ocean arrangetracks ftw)) and the Baten Kaitos 2 OST, I'd utterly hate him. Thankfully, someone else composed some Tales music, so I don't have to hear his stuff for every game in that series. I mean, I liked the ToP soundtrack until I heard other music composed by him. Ugh.

Moved an orgy of VP2 posts here:
http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/ge...-game-rip.html

I like Sakuraba when he does original stuff, but I can't deny that he re-uses certain melodic hooks (and even particular instruments) way too damn much, and becomes uber-repetitve in a lot of his work.

Well, I kinda agree with you, that Motoi Sakuraba can be repetetive some times, but that his style with some rock, jazzy influnences and piano is great. Many tunes may sound the same but I wouldn never take as hard words as "hate" anytime in my mouth against any composer or the likes. You can hate politicians (who use the state's money to fund their own personal lives), war, unfairness, people who've been mean to you, criminals or other scum, but you can't seriously hate someone who composes music, honestly.

Anyway, Mr Sakuraba has absolutely done and hopefully will do more considerable amounts of great music in video games. And if you don't have a knack for Sakuraba music, there are many other composers who may speak to you more than he does. But I myself love Sakuraba's work, it rocks!!!

It's kinda funny, I am really neutral with him. I think his COMPOSITION ability is mediocre. The ability to be original, the original to have well thought out compositions, I really never see from him. Most of his stuff, even the stuff I find beautiful, such as The True Mirror, or Supreme Ruler of the Nine Heavens... it's extremely cliched.

But that's where the OTHER hand comes in... While not great at composing original stuff, the man can just flatout write good sounding music. The True Mirror is full of chord progression cliches. The beginning part from :05 to 1:00 in that piece is one of my favorite light battle themes from a game... It's just beautiful. I love the violin, I love the bassline jumping all over, the basic and simple percussion... All of which are playing cliched stuff. I mean seriously, the part starting at :19 begins a chord progression of C-Minor, BFlat Major, AFlat-Major, BFlat-Major... Bob Dylan wrote All Along the Watchtower using the same progression, but starting at A-Minor. I swear, since the extreme popularity of that, especially after Hendrix's version, which moved up one step, that's like "The" progression to use. I hear it all the time... But it's use in The True Mirror within Baten Kaitos really was well.

He's goes for sound only, and because of that, he gets some great stuff, and some horrible stuff. Golden Sun's music is another good example. I think there are quite a few really good songs from that soundtrack... But some, such as the Desert Theme, are laughable. I literally laugh everytime I hear the Desert Theme. It's got a neat SOUND, but the composition and randomness is completely funny to me.

He's an interesting fellow, and I'd much rather have his good music and "live with" his bad music, than have none of his music.

I Think Motoi Sakuraba Best Works Were Golden Sun, Baten Kaitos And The Star Ocean Series I Didnt Really Listen To His Work Before But When Golden Sun Came Out And I Found Out He Composed The Tracks I Started To Listen To More Of His Composed VGM Soundtracks