Review by Zanasea

Shadow of the Colossus is one of the greatest games ever. The soundtrack contributes to the power of this amazing adventure. Kow Otani wrote an impressive orchestrated soundtrack, featuring epic, dark, mystical and sad themes, all contributing to the extraordinary atmosphere of the game. From the soft opening to the emotional ending, you will go through many feelings, but they all share one common point: the greatness Otani gave them. What's more, the packaging is beautiful. A must-buy.

"Hako no Niwa" is the soundtrack for PS2 game Rakugaki Kingdom 2 (Graffiti Kingdom). If you are looking for something close to other Yasunori Mitsuda's works such as Xenogears, Chrono Cross or Xenosaga, you will be disappointed! Yet, I truly recommend Hako no Niwa since it is a very refreshing album, full of childish and joyful themes. It is simply another side of Mitsuda's great talent!

Final Fantasy XI's second add-on, Chains of Promathia, has a different soundtrack from the original game and Rise of the Zilart. Naoshi Mizuta is still the composer, but contrary to the previous add-on which had cheerful exotic music, this one is darker. Although the battle themes and some other tunes are really close to what Mizuta did before for FFXI, there are some new atmospheric tracks that really bring a mysterious feel. The last track is a very good arrangement of "Gustaberg" performed by the Star Onions (a band formed by Square Enix composers & sound manipulators).

If you need to buy a Romancing SaGa soundtrack, go for this one. Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- is probably Kenji Ito's greatest work to date: thanks to his orchestral skills and the help of Black Mages' guitarist Tsuyoshi Sekito, he managed to create a diverse and beautiful soundtrack, also featuring arrange versions of original themes from the SNES Romancing SaGa. Character themes, field themes, battle themes, movies themes... Everything is pure bliss. Even Masayoshi Yamazaki's song, "Menuet", is great. The only bad thing about this soundtrack is that disc 4 is a little weak compared to the 3 others.