I’m a very happy Ryan today, as my copies of the Okami and Kingdom Hearts 2 soundtracks arrived this morning. Both are spectacular soundtracks, and I highly recommend both.
Yoko Shimomura’s Kingdom Hearts soundtracks have been one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed the games so much; as fun as the gameplay is, and as much as I love the grinding/collecting/creating aspect of the synth systems, most of that joy would be moot if there wasn’t a wonderful soundtrack to go with it. A lot of the music is comprised of remixed Disney tunes, but you know what? They’re often so good that that barely matters to me, and the quality of the original work is so high that the soundtrack is worth owning even if you dislike the Disney tunes. This being the soundtrack to the second game, it seems to me that there’s a lot more original stuff to, because there were so many more original environments in Kingdom Hearts 2 than there were in the original. At least, I think so. Taking actual numbers may prove the amounts are equal or at least really close, but I’m going to stick with my assumption. In any case, totally worth owning, and even moreso beause it was on sale when I bought it. Not so much anymore though. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I can’t wait to see what Ms. Shimomura contributes to the Smash Bros Brawl soundtrack. If her work on Kingdom Hearts (not to mention Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi series) is any indication, it’s going to be awesome.
Now the Okami soundtrack, that’s a completely different beast (ha!). I didn’t realize when I bought it (though I really should have, because nearly all Capcom soundtracks have similar “issues”), but it’s five discs long. Why? Because along with the basic themes and BGMs, Capcom likes to add every little jingle and sting in the game on their soundtrack CDs. I’m not complaining or anything, but it makes it a little hard to quickly find the track you’re looking for, especially when everything – even the MP3 tags – are in Japanese. But hey, it’s totally worth it, because Okami has one of the best game soundtracks ever. Maybe you won’t like it because it’s all very medieval Japanesey, but I love it because it’s so enjoyable and relaxing. It’s the kind of soundtrack you can just turn on and do whatever to. Great for ambient music while cleaning, typing, browsing the internet, reading, whatever. Also I like that fact that nothing in my music collection (even the digital half of it) even comes close to resembling it. I can’t really recommend it to everyone, but Okami is my favourite PS2 game, and that should say enough.
Oh, and because it’s way too late to bother now, just consider this the replacement for the Band of the Month.