Motoi Sakuraba
 

I create this thread for people who listen to Sakuraba's works. I would like to discuss how and why you guys enjoy his works.

To be honest, I couldnt stand the music of Sakuraba, and I rarely enjoy his compositions on any game (Tales of Destiny, Valkyrie Profile, etc). Maybe the main reason is because his style doesnt suit me at all. He's described of using progressive rock and cinematic score which is my least favorite genre in music. We could talk about matter of personal taste here.

So tell me guys, what do you think about Motoi Sakuraba? What makes you enjoy the music? Hope this could lead good discussion.

I haven't tried a whole lot of his music, but his compositions for Tales of Symphonia are marvelous. There's also a couple of tracks from Mario Tennis 64 that I enjoy quite a bit.

Which really makes me want to try the music from Baten Kaitos and the other Tales of games sometimes. But I'm too caught in other projects at the moment... including a Mario Tennis Power Tour GBA conversion, which he composes as well.

I couldn't stand Sakuraba until Baten Kaitos came along...which pulled me in with quite a few of its songs. And it's really still the only OST of all of his works that I enjoy. I haven't got the soundtrack for #2 but I'll get the game eventually, I hope the music is just as good.

I own a copy of Gikyoku Onsou. It is an excellent work especially with the clever and colorful combination of jazz and progressive rock. All of the tracks are worth listening to and every second of a track is enjoyable and memorable.

He's actually one of my favorite VGM composers. I like the ethereal and mystical quality that many of his softer tracks have as well as the energy of his dungeon and battle themes. I guess he isn't for everyone, but I find that his music tends to work very well in context, and that suits me just fine. My top favorites of his would have to be Valkyrie Profile (don't much like the arrange album though and I haven't heard the voice mix album), Star Ocean 2 (arrange album is good too and the megamix is...different; I know he didn't arrange the latter), and Shining the Holy Ark (arrange album is fantastic), but I'm usually at least okay with whatever he does, even if it's your standard Tales soundtrack that doesn't stand out much.

We need a Sakuraba FTP. With EVERYTHING he did in it. Also I love Sakuraba, I just hate his Voice Mix albums. They seem like wastes of good music.

My thoughts exactly. :)
Sakuraba is one of my favourite VGM composers, and I rank his Star Ocean 2 OST very high, it's one of the best OSTs I've ever heard. Too bad that it costs so much these days, I would really like to own it.

I prefer Baten Kaitos to his work in the Tales series. Naturally, the battle themes are the highlights- though there never seems to be enough tracks. BK had half a game's worth of music, and then proceeded to spread it out to monotomy.

I first heard Star Ocean 2 (while I was playing the game) and I remember quite a few tracks being memorable, however I thought the score (at the time) was 'immature' I didn't like his style back then.

Then I heard Star Ocean 3 (when I downloaded the soundtrack) - I listened to a few tracks and didn't listen to it again for two years until I played the game.

It was then when Baten Kaitos and Tales of Symphonia OSTs came out. I thought Tales of Symphonia had terrible sound quality so disregarded it. Then I gave Baten Kaitos a good listen then LOVED the style, though I had to play Star Ocean 3 and Tales of Symphonia to appreciate the music, they are now some of my top soundtracks

There isn't one track of Sakuraba's I do not like, though I want to play Valkyrie Profile as I find it difficult to listen to its soundtrack (though I like the Arrange Album) - I think that's the only way I could appreciate that OST.

Baten Kaitos Battle themes rule! SO2 & 3, ToS rules - Everything rules! (or rocks)

He one of my top fav composers - *chants Motoi*

Honestly I've never been to familiar with the technical aspects of music. So stuff like his use of "reverb" and "symphonic progressive rock" don't really make things clear for me (granted, they give me an *idea* but thats about as far as it goes). Megavolt nails it down to a "T" for me.

Star Ocean 2 goes down as one of my top 5 games of all time, and its because of playing through that game so many times that I developed an appreciation for his music (granted, I have only listened to his SO2 and VP soundtracks so far). It also might have to do with how his style is so different from that of the other RPG game composers, and seem to fit the mood of the environment perfectly.

Currently, he is the most popular composer next to Uematsu and Sugiyama in Japan.:)
I know the popularity of composers is proportional to how many big RPGs they could have been involved in, though.
(Btw, if Mitsuda had kept working on more famous games, he definitely would be the third...)

I confess I also didn't like him so much.
As far as I played some of Tales of..., SO2 and VP1, his music was always sort of blatting and cheesy.
I always could find some diggity pieces for battles at the same time, but those were in cheap sound samples and simple composition.
Moreover, I couldn't understand why he always used so many percussions, and composed music in monotone.
Of course it's simply because I'm the sort of person who prefer ambience to other components and love the composers such as Sakimoto, Keiki Kobayashi, Hamauzu and Mizuta.

However, I can dig VP2.
I don't buy the game yet and heard less than 10 tracks, though.
This time, his music is like orchestra and trad, which fit in game so much and not blatting, rather than progressive rock.
Also, sound quality is quite good, contrary to his usual works. I wonder if he uses not synth live but instruments.

Now I have to offer a sincere apology for underrating him.
He is an able composer and could make such a music if he wanted to try.
Still, he hasn't maybe because not so many VGM fans would need ambience as film score for game music.
Actually, I have seen many criticize VP2 music and say "too ambient" lol

EDIT:As for Tales of..., I often hear he has no drive at all. Tales of the Abyss has streaming music, but that music was quite far from VP2.

It honestly depends on the game. I find his "Tales" work to be dull, dull, dull. Through all of them, you can't find anything that makes them distinctive. Any track from ToR could fit easily into ToS's soundtrack (and so on). It's like the developers went to him and said, "Okay, Sakuraba. Write 10 town themes, 5 battle themes, several map themes and make them as undistinguised and generic as you can. Oh, and have them done by next week!"

Bleah.

On the other hand, his more epic stuff (SO2, VP, Baten Kaitos) is generally quite good. I like "Golden Sun" as well.

I heart Sakuraba, and I'm really looking forward to his next non-game related work. I've also been playing VP2 lately and I'm loving the music so much...

By the way, the music of most Tales games after Phantasia have a certain "sound" to them that if you must blame anyone, blame Shinji Tamura. I thought Tales of Symphonia had a horrid soundtrack, but then again I never could get into the game itself. (Tales games usually have music that works better after having heard in context of the game, IMO)

Has it ever been proven how much of the music Tamura writes? Out of the Tales games, I say Eternia has the best soundtrack (at least in-game) but I still can't listen to the soundtrack all the way through. Symphonia is even worse. The music just goes on and on and on and on...

The Tales of the Abyss gamemp3s release is tagged correctly, with all of Tamura's works correctly labeled. Looks like he contributes to the more "silly" and "peaceful" works. He does his own compositions, seperate from Sakuraba, which i always thought Tamura played in as an arranger of some sort. So check that out.

On thread topic, i love Sakuraba. The Tales soundtracks can get a little boring, but his solo works are awesome. SO3, BK1 and 2, and its starting to look like VP2 are my favs. Finally in VP2 Sakuraba's "battle theme" that seems to follow to every game he works for isnt there, total shocker there. I cant wait to see more contributions from him in the future.

I agree, when I first played Star Ocean 2, I was hooked at "The Venerable Forest" and "Pure A Stream". I enjoy both his progressive rock and baroque-style melodies, although I prefer the latter. I really think it's awesome how the music he makes really personifies the areas you are playing through.

Speaking of the soundtrack, it is the only soundtrack to date that I have ever paid to have imported. It was around 50 dollars including shipping, but extremely worth it. :)

Sakuraba is a superior orchestral composer who, like many of the best VGM composers, is capable of working across many different genres and mixing influences in his work.

Unlike some (Uematsu and Mitsuda come to mind), Sakuraba tends to segregate his compositions; a track will either be orchestral in style, or will feature rock and heavy synth, with few exceptions. The dual album release for Star Ocean 3 is a good example of this methodology.

Sakuraba's orchestral writing tends to be extremely lush, with sweeping melodies and grand scope. His theme for Rena in Star Ocean 2 is probably the most famous example of this style, but there are plenty of lesser-known gems in the composer's work. His synth quality tends to be good, though perhaps not up to the gold standard of Mitsuda.

The unfortunate thing about Sakuraba is that while he consistently produces high-quality and original music, he is also mired in repetition and unoriginality when it comes to his more rockish tunes. While his rockin' field themes tend to work well enough, Sakuraba's battle themes are almost uniformly tedious. I often refer to "Sakuraba's Battle Theme," because the various tunes are so similar in construction and instrumentation.

Still, on balance, Sakuraba has produced many solid four-star scores, as well as a good number of stellar five-star tunes, even if his endlessly repeated Battle Theme now earns an automatic one-star rating from me :)

I find Sakuraba's orchestral pieces very weak compared to those of Hamauzu, Sakimoto and (let alone) Sugiyama. Oddly enough, I think prog-rock battle themes are his bread and butter, although they sometimes are not too original. I also enjoy some of his ambience themes.

That's not being entirely fair. In the Baten Kaitos I & II soundtracks alone are examples of the five different styles of battle themes he uses. While each song of a style tends to be pretty similar to others of its style, and a handful share similar melodies cross-style, not all of his battle themes are of the exact same construction and instrumentation. Examples:

-Rockin' (e.g. Vitriolic a Stroke, Violent Storm, Iconoclasm, Shogyo-Mujo)
-Rockin'/Orchestral Hybrid (while fairly similar to his rockin' style, I think they're different enough to be noted) (e.g. The True Mirror, The Valedictory Elegy)
-Orchestral (e.g. Dark Conviction, Rumbling of the Earth, Supreme Ruler of the Nine Heavens, Poacher, Bitter Enemies in the Same Boat)
-Jazz Organ (e.g. Glowing Cloud, Powerful Voice of an Old Soul)
-I don't know what the hell to call them/rap/techno? (e.g. Chaotic Dance, Chaotic Dance 2) (and while not particularly good on their own, at least they fit their in-game battles reasonably. That and I find them hilarious for some reason.)

If you haven't heard them, I want to know if you still automatic one-star-rate his orchestral battle themes (I'd suggest Bitter Enemies in the Same Boat of BKII out of them). Come on, they're at least 2-3 stars. BKII also has a pretty nifty orchestral version of The True Mirror, but then again, it still is the same song as The True Mirror.

Anyways, personally, while I'm not particularly fond of most of his work for the Star Ocean and Tales series, the Baten Kaitos and Golden Sun soundtracks are some of my all-time favorites.

While modern Sakuraba just doesnt appeal to me, I love some of his Wolfteam and other early chiptune works. He was one of those composers who knew how to take full advantage of the early VGM chiptune systems, building melodies and musical effects in a kinda baroque fashion.

His more recent stuff just sound all the same to me. Abusive use of echoes and obcessive synths on most of the time poor melodies, in my opinion. I find his chiptune works, like it's often the case with me, to be much more sensible and inspired.

I think you misunderstood me. I said that most of Sakuraba's battle themes are very similar, and that most of them are examples of his rock, rather than orchestral, style. Of course there are exceptions, and those tend to be among his better efforts, even though I think that the best is still weaker than most of his field themes.

For example, "Integral Body and Imperfect Soul" from Star Ocean 2 is not what I would consider an iteration of Sakuraba's "Battle Theme" in that it is orchestral and doesn't feature bass guitar and drum kit work. I'd probably rate it in the two to three star range. "Stab the Sword of Justice" from the same game, however, is very much in that niche, and would recieve the automatic one star from me.

Motoi Sakuraba's progressive sound background is what always brings me back to listening to him and anicipating his upcoming works. Being a fan of groups like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, King Crimson, Porcupine Tree, etc., his works really speak to me.

I'm loving "Celestial Troupe" and "Never Surrender" off that VP sampler disc.

I've always found "Integral Body and Imperfect Soul" to be one of the best SO2 tracks. Sakuraba is usually pretty good with final battle themes.

I can't say I care for 99% of all of Sakuraba's works (the other 1% is Baten Kaitos OST's True Mirror), especially the Star Ocean and Tales of whatever OSTs, but I'm a big fan of ELP and King Crimson. Yes they might be in similar genres but only because Sakuraba can't seem to stop ripping the genre off. Most of his works sound like he is trying to stereotype progressive rock, similar to how a composer would create a stereotypical asian theme with the pentatonic scale and various asian instruments. I don't like his solos either, but i've heard worse. I don't think he's a bad composer, just one of the most overrated. This thread needs more hate anyway.

Edit: I forgot to say, Supreme Ruler of the Nine Heavens has one of the best titles ever, like something Joe Stump would have written.

I understand where you would say that "Integral Body and Imperfect Soul" would not be considered a standard battle theme. However, do you think it is complimentary as the final boss battle theme? I found it to be a rather disappointing attempt at being a climactic piece. Have you heard the arranged version of this track? What are your thoughts on it?

Speaking of Sakuraba's battle themes, what is your take on the rest of the themes from SO2?

Dynamite
Climax at the Tower
Tender Spot
Shiver
Tangency
Beast of prey
Mighty Blow
The Incarnation of Devil

I really loved the battle themes he created for taking on the Ten Wise Men. Those themes are fast, relentless, and carry a sense of urgency as well. I like Sakuraba's little synth-freestyle in Mighty Blow as well. What do you think?