23 Mar 2001, 3:10-3:30 PM
The Xenosaga album by Yasunori Mitsuda has been getting quite a bit of flak from fans expecting a followup to Xenogears. The following was a reply I made to a post in the Gamingforce.com forums titled “What is better Xenosaga OST or Xenogears OST?”.
Well in my opinon, I’ve been listening to the Xenosaga soundtrack for the past few days. And as an album, I prefer Xenosaga to Xenogears because the tracks in Xenosaga have more flow than Xenogears. I can say that this is partly due to the fact that Xenosaga was composed for the PS2 which allows for more performed instrumentation rather than sequenced music.
The Xenogears OST had some really fantastic tunes, the opening track, for instance, surpasses the opening track in Xenosaga. The bulk of the standout tunes were in the end of second album in the Id and final boss themes. But the soundtrack on the overall was uneven. In terms of game background music, some of the tracks are perfect, but when it comes down to the purpose of cd music, they are merely filler. However, the reason why I think people love the Xenogears OST (which I do btw) is because the music at the end covers up the deficiencies scattered in the rest of the album. I’m sure a lot of Xenogears fans put the last tracks (“Alpha and Omega”, “One Who Bares Fangs at God” et al.) on repeat mode far more often than the earlier songs in the CD. There could be exceptions I guess, but that’s what I think anyway.
