First announced in May of 2005, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers was to serve as a console sequel to the original game released on the Gamecube. For a while, many details regarding the game were a mystery, given development hadn’t begun when it was initially announced. From what has been gathered, this game will focus on more of a single player experience in an open world setting. However, the most interesting news is that this score will not be handled by Kumi Tanioka, the composer for the series thus far, but rather Hidenori Iwasaki, composer for the Front Mission series and Ryo Yamazaki, a synthesizer operator who composed a few pieces for Dirge of Cerberus and Front Mission 4.

How does the music for the game sound so far? Check out the preview after the jump! (more…)

PM Studios brought DJ Max Fever to North America, and it marks the first time a console-based DJ Max game is officially released here in the US (the other games have “International Versions” that work on American PSPs, but were technically import products). Korean developer “Pentavision” created a sleeper-hit of a rhythm game that has really started to catch on in East Asia. And Americans who want to jump in on the latest rhythm game have the opportunity with one fantastic collection.

You see, in East Asia (Korea and Japan), multiple DJ Max games were released on PSP. DJ Max Portable and DJ Max Portable 2 each had over 50 songs. The “best” tracks from each of those two games were merged to create the North American DJ Max Fever. The soundtrack features music from a group of fantastic composers, most of whom are Korean. Among the many great composers on here, I have to give props to ESTi and Nauts, the prolific composers whom I (and many other fans) first encountered through Ragnarok Online nearly a decade ago.

In this review, we’ll be analyzing not just the music, but also the gameplay for this unique rhythm game. All of this comes, of course, after the jump. (more…)

The latest of the massive Final Fantasy franchise has finally arrived – well, sort of. As a nice bonus feature of the Blu-ray version of Advent Children that was released in Japan this month, a generous Final Fantasy XIII demo was included, finally giving fans a taste of one of the most anticipated games of 2009 and 2010.

The demo lasts about two hours and is broken up into two sections, featuring 4 pieces of music that appear to be near-final versions. The pieces include music for the menu, the “dungeon” area, battles, and the boss battle. For those who may not be aware (none of you, I hope), Masashi Hamazu is handling the score, finally getting his well-deserved moment in the spotlight.

Read our preview of the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack after the jump. (more…)

While Michael Bross’s name doesn’t come up nearly enough given that he’s busily working on his next game project over at Red 5, his fans have been fortunate that he’s been able to release his personal work on his Deep Lever record label. We’ve reviewed his Nomad EP and his soundtrack for Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath on OSV, and we’ve been looking forward to his next project.

Well here it is, and as the title’s post suggests, it’s a relaxing ambient project with a focus on the subways of San Francisco and Los Angeles. Bross has announced on his official website that Subway Meditations will be available on July 14, 2009 in a physical format from Deep Lever as well as digitally via Amazon.com, iTunes and eMusic. I highly recommend checking out his “Notes on Subway Meditations” post on the site, as it gives some background about the release and offers some thought provoking commentary on subways as a form of public transportation and a means for human migration.

Will you be looking forward to Bross’s Subway Meditations this coming July? Are you with Michael Bross in his belief that subways are not the filthy, clunky, metallic monstrosities that they are portrayed to be on television?

Are you a fan of opening themes for a variety of Japanese video games? Anyone who’s played an RPG from lesser known developers has undoubtedly, and possibly unknowingly, stumbled across an opening theme from a sound team known as Elements Garden. Consisting of five members, Noriyasu Agematsu, Junpei Fujita, Hitoshi Fujima, Daisuke Kikuta, and Nakayama, Elements Garden has contributed opening themes and soundtracks to a variety of popular games and series, such as the opening theme to White Knight Chronicles for the PlayStation 3 or the soundtrack for Wild Arms XF on the PSP.

This single contains the opening theme to a PS2 game entitled Galaxy Angel II Eigou Kaiki no Koku, which never saw release outside Japan, as well as an original piece, both sung by Yui Sakakibara. Yui Sakakibara is a notable singer/songwriter with a multitude of solo albums, as well as voice actor in Japan, who is featured in a variety of anime and games.

So let’s take a jump into the review to see if these angel wings actually work! (more…)

I’m not kidding! We told you a few weeks ago about this high-end headset with built-in 5.1 surround sound and a microphone for online gaming, but we had some other plans in mind. While the set is being marketed to hardcore online gamers and tournament-goers (which I’m admittedly not), that doesn’t mean that they can’t serve other uses, and we’ve tried a variety activities using the headset to give you an idea of what you can expect.

I’ve listened to music, played my DS, talked trash to the kids on Halo 3, and made calls on Skype with this headset, and I’m ready to tell you what I think.

Hit the jump for our review of Tritton’s technological headgear. (more…)

What can I say here? I’m completely blown away. I’ve always been impressed by what people are able to do with Mario Paint, but this video is hands-down the best I’ve seen. Probably helps that Mahito Yokota’s “Wind Garden” is one of my favorite Mario tunes of all time.

I can’t help but be reminded of the amazing interview opportunity I got with composers Koji Kondo and Mahito Yokota when I was writing for Music4Games. Listening to this has me looking forward to Mahito Yokota’s next soundtrack as well as whatever this Mario Paint maestro chooses to arrange next.  He’s also done “Rainbow Road” from Mario Kart, “Darkness of Fear” from Castlevania Judgement (the best song in that game as well!), and even a number of pop tracks.  He definitely has great taste and some amazing Mario Paint talent!

Do you have some favorite Mario Paint music videos? Is this one of the best that you’ve seen?