Blue Dragon Original Soundtrack [SVWC-7428~9]
 

That's a nice listen so far. Typical Uematsu melodies and atmosphere, but nothing sensational either. Well, that's my first listen ...

Wait, that was Ian Gillan doing the boss theme?! MY god! He sounds like some poor japanese man trying to sing in engrish.

Must be the lyrics. Oh, Sakaguchi ;)

Denicalis, it's clear you don't like the game and will never like it, so I don't see the point of continuing to drive that home. Topic's about the music anyways.

Downloading now. Mad props to meistro seanne :)

Too bad the awful lyric made the last battle theme more Hanjuku Hero-esque... Overall, disc2 is better.

Wow, really? True, there's a good number of recognizable Uematsu RPG cliches here, but I don't think he's ever quite rocked out to this extent before and he seems to have gotten over his filler fetish from his later works. I feel like I'm listening to a more elaborate Final Fantasy Mystic Quest here than anything he's done before. I've had "Nene's Paradise" on for most of the morning.

I'm not blown away, but I am extremely impressed and pleased and can say without hesitation this is my favorite Uematsu work besides FFVI (na, it's not even close to surpassing that one.)

Good shit. Bring on Lost Odyssey!

I wasnt even done with Disc 1 when I wrote that. Just done with Dics 2 now, and I do agree with you. Release the Seal is fucking awesome, btw. <3

Agreed. Wow. Im impressed with this whole soundtrack. There is a lot more rockin themes here than any other soundtrack ive heard him do. My favs are:

Dragon Fight - Better than most of the early FF battle themes, and kicks FFX's normal battle themes ASS imo.

Smiling Face - Beautiful....

Mechat takes off! - Some sort of flying theme maybe? Its short, but killer. Uematsu's songs seem to hit me emotionally, and he is the ONLY composer thats done that to me. This song does that for me.

State of Emergency - One of the latter boss themes? Very rockin, very awesome.

Release the Seal - KILLER final battle right here. Wow........wow....

Blue Dragon Main Theme - This kinda reminds me of that original song he did for PLAY!. Greatness.

Waterside ~for piano and orchestra~ - THIS is that beauty that plays on the mistwalker site. Another one that hits me emotionally. I dont know what it is, but it seems to rip the hidden memories in my mind back out. *sniff*


Thats my take, im interested in hearing more from you all!

First listen I was dissapointed. Release the Seal is good (but I swear I can hear some cheesy english lyrics half way through the song - "destroy life, destroy men, destroy you!?" Kinda kills it) The Dragon Fight theme...starts off bad, gets good, then starts to loop and fades out...he could have done better.

Eternity is CHEESY! Lose the vocals and i might like it ><
State of Emergency is pretty good as well. Still have to have a proper listen to restore my faith in the legend

I hope Lost Odessey is a more mature game than Blue Dragon, I look forward to a more mature soundtrack by Uematsu. BTW Black Mages 3 plz!

Giant Mechat is by far the best track on the whole thing.
What a fucking kick ass tune.... very simple yet amazing at the same time...

Overall I'm very pleased with this, and quite surprised actually. I didn't think Uematsu 'had it in him' anymore. It's way better than most of his recent stuff (FFXI main theme is the exception) if you ask me.

The only trouble I have with Uematsu is his use of electrical guitar. The Black Mages was fun as a sideproject, but I really can't stand a lot of his tracks that use electrical guitar. I think Release the seal is a huge disappointment because of that damn guitar. I'm so tired of the "hi, I'm the rock band lead guitar player" type of leads in the background, squeeeeeeealing away. It's to bad since this track had loads of potential. I also thought it was poorly mixed, but I've only had one listen so far so my opinion on that might change.
I also wish they'd just stop including the cheesy vocal tracks.

That said, I very much enjoy the guitar in Dragon Fight which is short but sweet. One of the immediate highlights if you ask me.

Like I said, overall I'm very impressed with this, and it feels a whole lot more inspired than the stuff Uematsu contributed to FFX for example. Can't wait to hear his next release now!

And er, I don't quite understand what's so very mature about the Final Fantasy series. Most people seem to have gotten into them in their early teens or even earlier than that, and like someone pointed out... If one were to play VI for example for the first time right now, then I think I'd be quite disappointed with the plot and the presentation.

But yeah, this is a great soundtrack. Maybe I'll get an Xbox360 if the game turns out well also.

Wow, this soundtrack has it all. I found the Waterside theme very disappointing when I first heard it in trailers, but now it's grown on me. Nobuo Uematsu wrote a new, memorable main title again that resembles nothing I've experienced before :D

I've heard a lot of disc 1 in gameplay videos already, and while the Lamenting Bell Toll and Land Shark is Coming are great themes, the next highlight is Mysterious Village for me. This reminds me so of Final Fantasy IX, but in a good way. It's the proof Uematsu is still able to come up with some oldschool tunes.

Dragon Fight just rocks. I've made it my new ringtone the second I got the OST. Starts out great, but as it advances it's more and more boring: perfect ringtone :D I love the melody, typical Uematsu, but the second part is kinda chaotic. It could have at least looped for more coolness.

Exceed the Land is the worldmap theme, and it sounds as if he's tried to copy Sakimoto's FF12. I think he failed, yet the instruments will still blow you away.

Disc 2 is even better in my opinion. Zola's Theme is an excellent character theme, Cavern is an excellent cavern (?) theme, but what's the highlight of 2006: State of Emergency and The Seal is Broken
Just wonderful. I'm not a fan of big choirs, but in the Seal is Broken it just feels right (just like in FFXI Main Theme, but nowherere else). I hope this is gonna be the new One Winged Angel.

To sum it up, I'm highly pleased with the soundtrack, I didn't find a bad track and enough new classics that returned my faith in Uematsu.

I just finished my first playthrough, and I have to say I'm extremely disappointed. There were some good tracks, and some good thematic material, but many, many mediocre pieces as well.

I was especially disappointed with "Take Back the Shadow," which some of you will recall was one of the pre-released tracks. The pre-release version is excellent, a great blend of rhythm and synthy melody. The final version dispenses with the rhythmic intro entirely and introduces far shriller synth.

This is just an initial impression, of course, and subject to revision, but I have to wonder what OST everyone else is listening to. While I wouldn't say it's "bad" per se, it strikes me as a workmanlike effort on the whole, merely average. Maybe I was so convinced that the music would be a home run that I was bound to be disappointed no matter what.

Yes. :plant:

Double Post:
I've listened to this OST a couple times so far and I have to say that it's very good. Even though it's not up to par with Uematsu's SNES/PS1 works, Uematsu has some new tricks up his sleeve and creates some very fresh sounding tracks, proving that he has not become too redundant in his compositions. I like a lot of the tracks mentioned in this thread, but another one I need to give a nod to is "Knock It Down", which is a really neat synthy piece.

The only thing that sliiiightly bugs me about Uematsu's recent efforts, is that he's used the exact same chord progression for every single villain theme since FF8 :o Random nitpick haha.

Yeah, that's irritating. It's also in FF6 (although not as the villain theme).

I'm lukewarm on this soundtrack. While it's nice to see he's finally got his hands on some decent synth (and live instruments), a lot of the compositions sound like Uematsu on autopilot (then again, he's sounded that way since FFIX).

Unlike his best soundtracks, there's nothing that stuck with me and since melody is pretty much the only thing Uematsu has going for him, that's a big disappointment.

Too much Rockin' for ya? :edgarrock: The sheer amount of electric guitar usage caught me by surprise and I think it carries the OST far more than the "traditional" FF-style tracks do. I think this OST would have been very average otherwise without the synth-rock tracks that appear, although this is one of the better main themes I've heard.

I don't really expect this OST to end up in the same breath as FFVI or FFVII for most people and I expect a number of people will be disappointed with it...I think it's more of a fun listen than an "epic" listen. Which, considering the game, isn't an unfair claim. And really, it just sounds to me like Uematsu's having "fun" again...There's only 2 tracks overall I dislike (Land of Happiness = Melodies of Life and "Bad But Bat"'s singer needs to be shot) and a couple I'm slightly disappointed in (the castle theme and a couple of the dungeon themes - Ruin and Cave, which are about as exciting as their names imply). Much better than all of the PS1-era tracks he sounded like he composed with a gun to his head.

My favorites thus far: "Nene's Paradise", "In Search of the Ruins", "City Lights", "Eternity" (no question it's the best vocal Uematsu's written to date for me...I love everything about this song), anything with "mechat" in the title, "Advancing Drill Machine", "Cavern", "Ancient Stronghold", the "Revival of the Ancients/Release the Seal" combo and the rest of the various battle themes scattered around the album, an area Uematsu has never been hurting in.

I give it 5/5.

I thought "Cave" was one of the strongest tracks on the first disc, actually. Very lush and melodic. Then again, the live instruments *really* help. "Eternity" would have been okay if it weren't for the singer wailing his lights out. I just can't take the piece seriously (and watching clips of it in the game always makes me laugh because it doesn't fit at all).

I do agree that Uematsu finally sounds like he's having fun again. It's just not to my taste (although I'm glad other people are enjoying it).

Not really, no. I actually liked the rock tracks better than most of the others. Most songs just didn't have the melodic and thematic content I expect, nay, demand from Uematsu.

I see by your rating that he managed to appeal to your ROCKIN' bias, though. I'd give it a 3/5 at best, maybe even a 2/5.

Am I the only one who thinks Crisis on Disc 1 sounds a HECK of a lot like The Unforgiven from FFVI?

I think I need to give the soundtrack another listen, but I wasn't that impressed with it. It was decent, but not much better than that. Like I said, maybe I need to give it another listen.

The Seal is Broken, however, I adore and cannot stop listening to. It's a fantastic piece and a great last boss theme.

I really dislike this soundtrack. I can't seem to find any track that I particularly like or even remotely enjoy. And Eternity is utter rubbish.

I was expecting a lot more from this...a few tracks were okay, but only mediocre. Maybe another listen would change my mind, but I really can't bring myself to slog through the songs once more.

I guess I should probably also add to it. I think this track doesn't live up to the amount of fame that Uematsu gets. But come to think of it, I'm kind of biased against Uematsu because of the amount of fame he has. His tracks aren't always that excellent, and not all of the tracks are really that great.

There's a few good tracks such as Giant Mechat, Mechat Takes Off, Advance! Drill Machine, but besides that, it could have been better.

Oh, come to think of it, my speakers probably make this OST sound better.

On Eternity...hehe, I thought it was Scott Mcneel trying to sing...and not succeding very well...

That said, on hearing the off vocal version (my basis on this is the Eternity single) it works as a boss theme.

completely middling for me. The structures aren't anything special, and it isn't exactly inspired. It's whimsical, but the whole thing seems like it's trying for a Mystic Quest sort of feel, but it just doesn't quite work. Still, a high middling. I'd give it 3 stars.

An Ancient Fortress sounds VERY GOOD!!! Lead guitar sounds very magic and soft, and rythm guitar sounds hard and deep. Is this TBM work?!

No, it is actually the same thing if you ask me.

After some listening, I recognised some plagiarism of Uematsu to its own work. Not only that instance but listen also to :

The Land Shark is coming which has the famous "F-E" notes from the old classic FF battle themes.

Dragon Fight has the same pattern as "Still More Fighting" from FFVII

Mystery of the Ancient Machine actually sounds awfully inspired by Musica Machina from FFV.

Challenge sounds exactly like Hunter's Chance from FFIX

An Omen sounds like the music at Oeilvert in FFIX

Nene's Paradise uses the same chords as Kuja's Theme and as Tyrano Castle (which is From Chrono Trigger) and uses some "Maybe I'm A Lion" elements.

Other than that, it's overall a good soundtrack. It is not the best Uematsu I heard but it does the job. The theme for the game might be one of the best tracks of the CD.

Upon further listening, An Ancient Fortress incorporates the entire main melody of the oppressed town theme from FFVI.

An Uneasy Night sounds eerily similar to Steiner's Theme from FFIX... I like the OST. It's very good, aside from a couple of tracks.

Which is an arrangment of the Empires theme :D lots of old uematsu references here, but still somewhat.....fresh sounding.

Since it hasn't been mentioned, I'll give a shout out for track 213 Mecha-Robo Corps Charge, which is quite enjoyable. (start at 20 seconds in)