Fav. Arrangement Album
 

I just want to know, what's your favourite arranged/non-OST VGM/Anime music album???

For me, it would be Xenogears Creid. It's really gives me a new feeling without losing th "essence" of Xenoears. Oh yeah, FF8 - Fithos.. (Orchestra) is pretty good...

was really liking the Final Fantasy X & X-2 piano collections arrangements. they're a bit complicated in a few parts but it's worth the time and practice to master them. :)

This is more of a General Game Music Discussion thread. Maybe it's already been done there, in which case the resident mods will certainly let you know and point you towards the right direction. :judge:

Motoi Sakuraba's arranged albums are often at the top of my playlists. Particular favourites are his 2003 concert DVD, Star Ocean The Second Story Arrange Album, Valkyrie Profile 2 -Silmeria- Arrange Album, Shining the Holy Ark Original Soundtrack, and Beyond the Beyond Original Soundtrack. They usually contain an excellent mix of prog. rock action themes, symphonic epics, and emotive gems.

Albums where tonnes of arrangers work together often bring great results. Of particular note are the Rogue Galaxy Premium Arrange, The Starting Over: Hyper Street Fighter II Remix Tracks, Mahou Shoujou Ai 2 "transformation" Full Arrange Album, DoDonPachi Dai-ou-jou and ESPGaluda Perfect Remix, and Pink Sweets Arrange Section.

For piano albums, I'm in agreement about Final Fantasy X & X-2. I have yet to hear a VGM piano album that beats these. I'm also fond of the Dragon Quest Symphonic Suites, some Falcom, some King of Fighters, most of Yoko Kanno's VGM arranged albums, Sword Maniac, Coi Vanni Gialli, ActRaiser Symphonic Suite, and the Romancing SaGa arranged albums. There's a tonne of arranged stuff out there that I've never heard. :(

I agree with Mr. Maul about Sakuraba-san, but right now what has my ear is his Star Ocean: Blue Sphere Arrange & Sound Trax album. He makes such a mix of epic, uplifting, exciting, and utterly solemn music. All of it progressive and in motion, never static in expression.

For arranges done by real orchestra, I highly recommend both Shenmue Orchestra Version and Onimusha 2 Orchesta Album, with Sorcerian and Ys both having wonderful Symphony orchestrations. Also, the soundtrack to The Dig, while mostly synth, is actually arranged (the game's music is nonlinear) and quite orchestral-sounding.

Genso Suikoden 3 ~Rustling of the Wind~ is a great smooth jazz album, as is Rockman X Arranged. The latter would be tough to track down, though, except through MP3.

I honestly can't list all the arrange albums I love, especially with it getting late... so I suppose I'll end it there. Cheerio!

In not having heard half as many albums as most of you people here, I don't think I'm terribly qualified to give a very definite answer to this question, but the album that first comes to mind with this question is most definitely Final Fantasy: Pray. That album is a work of art in music, production, and....oh everything. It's so beautiful that it almost makes ears bleed.

The DQVIII Symphonic arrangements are gorgeous, but those were the background music to the actual U.S. release, so it doesn't entirely count for me. I'm not putting it down in the least though, don't get me wrong haha. The music is still amazing in its own brilliant right and I love it to death.

The Yoko Kanno VGM arranged albums too are also tops on my list, but I find that the FFVI Piano collections are up there with the FFX Piano Collection album (The FFX OST music just transferred particularly well onto piano)...or maybe it's because I love the rendition of "Kids Run Through City Corners" that much hehe.

Recently, I've been completely addicted to the Katamari Damacy Fortissimo Damacy album, but am not entirely sure if that's an OST or not. What does it count as? (<---has never played KD, but really likes the music and concept) Well, whatever it is, that's a really well made album too.

For years, my immediate answer would have been Xenogears: Creid. It is a brilliant masterpiece, quite possibly Mistuda's best work.

More recently, Creid has been joined by the Genso Suikoden Asian collection. That album has some great stuff in it.

"Smashing...Live!" Brilliant, and filled to the brim with amazing music (with additional nostalgia!) and a great orchestra. No Nintendo fan can miss it.

Shining the Holy Ark OST for me. It's awesome. The OST part is a misnomer, of course. It's actually an arranged album and definitely my favorite. Each arranged track often incorporates multiple tracks from the original game. My favorite track is The Uninvited, which incorporates a few of my favorite tracks from the game, namely the boss theme (:45 and 6:15) the South Shrine music (4:00).

I also like the Star Ocean 2 Arrange Album, Creid, and Ogre ~ Grand Repeat a great deal.

Definitely Phantasy Star Sound Collection 1 heads the list. It takes the classic PS melodies and gives them pretty much the perfect arrangement...It's all done with synth (and electric guitar!), but everything clicks moreso than any other sound set-up I've heard. The rock pieces rock, the soft stuff finds its' mark and the bombastic orchestral-style stuff meshes well with everything else. It is literally perfect...I'd love to see every one of my favorite scores arranged the way this one is.

Then there's Falcom...Both the Ys IV Perfect Collections and the Turbo Duo Redbook of Ys 3 (plus Oath in Felghana, a complete modern re-enactment of the score) are flat-out amazing and go so far as to immortalize both scores. Plenty of other Falcom ones I like (the other Perfect Collections for the Ys games, the Sorcerian Perfect Collections, the JDK Bands), but none approach the first ones I said.

And no way I can't mention Konami: Their Perfect Selection (Battle and otherwise) and Tokimeki Memorial Sound Collections made me the diehard fan of them I am today. Ditto for SNK, who outdid themselves through most of the latter 90's with the KoF and Fatal Fury series (most of the arranged stuff was from Neo Geo CD games).

Recently, ZX Tunes and both of the Atelier Iris arranged albums have joined the rank of all-time favorites of mine, not to mention so many of the various doujin arranged albums: Legend of Xanadu -Kleene-, Preludio: For All of You FF Lovers, Raydric (Akineko's Ragnarok Online arranged album), Lukar's Dragon Slayer IV Arrange, Sound Paradise: Power of the Music and Jesus is Dead's Jailbreak...All classics (and that's cutting the list significantly short)

But yeah...If I had to name one single album, Phantasy Star Sound Collection 1 all the way as the undisputed champ. If I had to pick a series of albums, the Ys IV PC's.

Edit: Katamari is definitely an OST. The main theme is arranged on later albums, however...

I really loved Stella Deus ReArranged album. Especially the track Sky Ray which was arranged by Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Also, Secret of Mana+ is a favorite of mine. It really is a love-it or hate-it album, but it tries to be different and IMHO succeeds in what it tries to do.

Let's break it down by genre:

Piano - Final Fantasy X-2 Piano: Even the lesser tracks on the album are winners. And that arrangement of Eternity is one of the greatest pieces of piano work ever.

Rock - F-Zero X Guitar Album: No-frills, straight-ahead melody-driven guitar bliss. F-Zero tracks have never sounded so good (both Perfect Selection Dracula Battle albums are runner-up)

Orchestra - Ogre Battle: Grand Repeat: No let-up in beauty from start to finish. And accessible from the get-go, unlike many orchestra albums.

I guess almost everyone mentioned Xenogears Creid :D

Well aside from that, I like Chrono Trigger - Brink of Time and both Black Mages albums.

Oh, and Guilty Gear X: Heavy Rock Tracks.

Gotta agree with GoldfishX on ZX Tunes. Although the arrangements are nothing to go crazy over (well maybe some of the guest arrangements), the tunes are just so awesome.

Also like Gradius III / Kukeiha Club. Who doesn't like Gradius music?!

Oh yeah and Best of Thunder Force. Rave to the clarcing baby!

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Genso Suikoden Music Collection Produced by Kentaro Haneda.
There are so many Suikoden arrange albums but this is by far the best, featuring arrangements by Kousuke Yamashita (Nobunaga's Ambition), Kenji Yamamoto (DBZ), Rie Akagi (famous flutist) and others.
It starts out with a beautiful (if not the best version) of Into a World of Illusions and then continues with some classical stuff.
Especially nice is Kenji Yamamoto's interpretation of Gothic Neclord.
And an album that has Michiru Oshima wins by default.

I honestly haven't listened to many arranged albums, as I generally like to just listen to the original in-game music. However, I have listened to some.

I really like Atelier Iris ETERNAL MANA Arranged Tracks -DECEITFUL WINGS-. SSH did an awesome job putting his touch on some of the more rockin' tracks from the game, including all (iirc) the battle themes. A fantastic ROCKIN' album. If I had a favorite arranged album, this would be it; listening to these songs just evokes such strong feelings in me. :o

CADENZA is an excellent doujin album of Phoenix Wright music done by Magical Trick Society. They used a number of styles and did some interesting things with the source tunes.

It's not really an arranged album, but the Master of Monsters (Genesis version) OST has arranged versions of all the songs. They're very good.

Can't think of any others right now.

I'm not very well-versed in the arranged albums, unfortunately - I can't keep any of the Ys ones straight, and a lot of the ones for other games I haven't played mix together in my mind. From ones that I have been more exposed to, Xenogears: Creid and FF6: Grand Finale top my list, but FF4: Celtic Moon and FF: Pray are up there, too. One day hopefully I'll make time to give more of the arranged albums a more in-depth listen, but for now I'm stuck with the Square fanboy list. :(

Geez, I can't believe I left out the Immortal albums, especially Immortal 3. Now those are some awesome arrangements. Ones that stick out for me are Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies, Uridium 2, Cardiaxx, and some others that I've forgotten their names, lol.

well for a VGM album my fav is probably smashing live, you gotta love fountain of dreams!!!!
for anime FUKUYAMA FIRE!!!!
Macross 7 in all its glory!!!