Shimomura sample from Heroes of Mana
 

I ripped the lone music sample from the newly-launched Heroes of Mana website. It's obviously not what it will sound like on the DS, but it gives us an indication of the style Yoko Shimomura's going for.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/...le%20track.mp3

FYI, HoM is the DS RTS RPG that will be out next year in Japan.

Aw, thank you very much for recording this. I love this track! I hope Square will release a physical soundtrack this time...

Speaking of Mana, the soundtrack of Seiken Densetsu 4 has just been announced:

http://www.gmronline.com/info.asp?Ca...r=SQEX-10083~6

4 discs!

This is sounding good. Parts of it remind me of Seiken Densetsu 3 even.

I'm liking it a lot, can't wait to hear the rest. Though I do have to ask why the synth sounds better than that in Kingdom Hearts II.

Shimomura's always good in a pinch. I'm as excited about her half of FFXIII as I am mortified about Hamauzu's.

EDIT: What's up with the mob of composers on SD4? And...Ryuichi Sakamoto? Isn't he a classical/film composer?

My guess is that Ryuichi Sakamoto is going to compose or perform the main theme of the game, kinda like what happened with what's-his-name on violin in FFXII, or what's-his-name who wrote "Wind Of Phantom" in Suikoden V (sorry, I'm having a massive memory lapse right now).

I'm listening to this track and I'm liking it. It actually does have a sort of Kikuta vibe going on in places with the marimbas, though you can definitely tell that it is Shimomura who composed it. I'll be looking forward to both this and SD4's soundtrack.

Yes, Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote the main theme, entitled "Dawn of Mana". This is a piano and violin solo.

(and this is Taro Hakase who wrote "Hope", the main theme of FFXII)

(and this is Yuji Toriyama who wrote "Wind of Phantom", also note that he co-composed and arranged "Hope")

I like it. Three cheers for Yoko Shimomura.

I don't think it's a bad thing, but it is a very odd thing. Since when does Squeenix call on film/classical composers for themes? I thought their preferred method was to have a high-profile VGM composer write a theme and a no-name flesh it out.

Since they started having collaborative soundtracks for Final Fantasy instead of all Uematsu? For that matter, maybe someone took notice of how well it worked having a professional composer score Shadow of the Colossus.

To answer another question, the synth sounds better than Kingdom Hearts 2 likely because Squeenix reserved all the system resources for the graphics in KH2. The game suffered in several departments because of the overemphasis on visual shine.

Nah. Hamauzu, Nakano, Mizuta, Tanioka, Sakimoto, Matsueda, and Eguchi aren't classical/film composers. At least, that's not where the majority of their work lies and their bread and butter work is done.

I agree; I'm all for more classical and film composers creating video game scores. I just didn't know that Squeenix shared my opinion; it seemed out of character for them. I'm not sure I like calling them "professionals" at the expense of video game composers, though--they're all consummate professional musicians.