Due to life’s many demoralizing little complications, I’ve found it very hard to get excited about anything for some time now (Hell, I wasn’t really even that pumped for Brawl by the time it actually came out), and it only gets worse with time. But that’s why this blog post is so important! I’m actually really thrilled today! Why? Because I got a new CD in the mail yesterday, that’s why! Exclamation marks!
So then, how could a single CD make me go from borderline miserable to jumping with joy? Well, for one I’ve been waiting for it for well over a month now, and it’s not often that I’m anticipating a CD release. It’s even rarer that I pre-order a CD, and I got my copy secured almost as soon as I heard Play-Asia had it available for pre-order. But I guess I’ve still forgotten to mention the important part: what exactly this mystifyingly monumental disc is all about.
This, my friends and colleagues, is a best-of CD of my second-most favouritest game music composer ever, Yoko Shimomura, entitled Drammatica – The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura (the first being Motoi Sakuraba, but that’s another story entirely). And it’s not just a regular “slap sixteen tracks on a disc and call it a day” best-of either. Nope, these are all new arrangements of some of Ms. Shimomura’s finest works, and holy God damn, it does not disappoint in any way. Hell, it could even just be a hackjob with the original pieces and I’d still love it to death.
The album takes a handful of tracks from five games from very distinct generations: Live A Live, Front Mission, Legend of Mana, Heroes of Mana, and Kingdom Hearts. Anybody who’s familiar with her work will immediately jump at the thought of new arrangements of tunes from Legend of Mana and Kingdom Hearts, which had such extraordinary soundtracks to begin with. The SNES titles aren’t represented as strongly as the rest, but the tracks seen from them are there for obvious reasons, and it’s no secret that the music in Heroes of Mana is by and large the best part of the game. And for anyone who’s into that kind of thing, there’s also a bonus track in there from the yet-to-be-released Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Normally I don’t care much for FF soundtracks, but since Ms. Shimomura’s going to be the head on this one, I think that I’ll most definitely have to invest in the soundtrack when it’s released. Hell, knowing me, I’ll likely end up buying a PS3 just for the sake of listening to that single game’s soundtrack.
The one thing about the album is that while it says it’s a “best of”, the fact of the matter is that all the material is picked from her work on Square-Enix games. What you may not have realized is that she has worked on a lot of other game soundtracks. Most notably, she’s a member of Alph Lyla, Capcom’s house band. I really wouldn’t have had anything against hearing one or two Street Fighter-related themes on there somewhere. Hey, even some love for the music from the Mario & Luigi games would have been nice. It’s not nearly as epic as anything from Kingdom Hearts, but I would have appreciated the extra bit of diversity all the same. Not that I’m complaining! I love music and all, but it’s not often that a disc comes around that gets me as excited as this one.
If you’re at all interested, but have no idea what to expect, you can check out a preview right here. I personally would recommend “Destati” and “Legend of Mana ~Title Theme~”, but really anything is a winning choice. You can even play with a slider there to hear the difference between the original and arranged versions. Such good stuff. Should that pique your interest, the album sells for about $30 over at Play-Asia plus shipping charges, which may seem expensive for a single-disc album, but that’s a steal compared to the $50 plus shipping that Amazon’s charging. Dear God, they really gouge you on the prices of those imports.
In any case, as far as I’m concerned, it was totally worth whatever the final price came out to, because I absolutely love it. Would have been nice to get a pre-order bonus like I did with the Silent Hill Zero soundtrack (which was just a shitty coin purse, but free shit is free shit), but again, I’m not complaining. It’s an epic CD, and I think anyone who’s a fan of video game music, or even classical/orchestral music will find something to enjoy here. Sure, maybe she isn’t as big a name as Mr. Fancy-Pants Nobuo Uematsu, but Yoko Shimomura is totally on the top tier of game music composers, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear whatever she’s got cooking up for the next Kingdom Hearts games, among others.