@tapevulture#31288 gorgeous!
@arauz#31008 ppf is the absolute best...somehow totally missed that this was a Mitsuda composition despite his name prominently displayed in the video title
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMIr_IF2d04
oh yeah baby
https://twitter.com/chronogame/status/1507032241666416642
Samples of a few of the new arrangements for the upcoming Chrono Cross re-release.
I'm not gonna lie, my reaction to these is a bit tepid...what I hear is pleasant, but somehow has lost much of the texture and immediacy of the original arrangements. I'm definitely going to keep an open mind, though, and I think on balance I am more grateful for some degree of artistic reimagining than by-the-book "HD-ified" punching up of these already incredible tracks. I'm not sure if it's been announced yet, but I can't imagine that they wouldn't allow you to choose the original OST, anyway.
Damn, I really do not care for those at all. It would be really silly if you can't use one of the best videogame soundtracks of all time as-is in this remaster.
@kory I think you‘re probably right about them offering the original soundtrack as an option. This remaster has been surprisingly open with allowing you to play the game completely un-remastered. Being able to play with the original character models, the original portraits, the original aspect ratio - heck, I think they even let you toggle between fonts?? Seems weird to draw the line at the music. I also am not especially huge on these new arrangements, but I don’t think anyone is gonna be forced to put up with them.
The game’s website mentions you can swap the soundtrack with the original one:
[upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/x4dDbNJ.jpeg]
Mitsuda’s favorite cover of Mitsuda’s music.
https://youtu.be/alW3hvc3ViY
so if you're a purist (or just nostalgic)
yet again we are presented with the false premise that preference for an older version of something is based on either an (implicitly unhealthy) obsession with “purity” or judgment-clouding nostalgia, GRUMBLE GRUMBLE!!!
Having said that, those new arrangements are cool!
@captain yeah, for just some fluff text there’s some real strange word choices here…I’m personally a little hung up on what exactly “refined” is supposed to mean. I can see “rearranged” or “reimagined” or something like that, but for anything other than a technical remaster of the original audio, “refined” has some weird implications. Don’t get me wrong, though, I definitely don’t want to come off as one of these grumbling “purists!” I’m just saying, let the new and old tracks stand on their own merit!
Definitely, and if the old ones weren‘t available in the rerelease I’d be grumbling a whole lot louder (for the people who don‘t want to buy a PS1 copy of CC brand new from Square Enix’s website for $10)
@captain Especially when one of the things mentioned is fonts, something Squenix mess up every single time!
New Chrono Cross: RDE song just dropped
https://youtu.be/KL3YsNg9NVU
For all the grumbling I’ve seen about the new arrangements, I’m looking at them as strictly additive rather than any kind of replacement for anything - we all know the original score is GOAT stuff, and it isn’t going anywhere - and after several listens the only song in the sample video I take any real umbrage with is the sailing theme arrangement with that weird slithery accordion. The rest are, as @captain pointed out, reimaginings rather than strict updates so I feel like I can appreciate them for what they are rather than what they aren’t. I dig the Pink Floyd riff on “Scars of Time”, the melancholy “Drowned Valley”, and the fact that they’re arranging multiple tracks from Radical Dreamers.
It‘s hard to make this post without simply making a “me too!” post because I also love Mitsuda’s music in general. I'll tell you a few stories instead.
Back in the late-90s when people had CDs, I had a 5-disc turntable changer. For years, the first 4 spots were occupied by the _Final Fantasy 7_ soundtrack and whatever else I was listening to was in the 5th position. I bought _Chrono Cross_ the day it came out and for years had the pre-order bonus clock in my bathroom. I damaged it in a stupid way washing it (with soft scrub - what was I thinking??) and regret that it's not still in my life.
I bought the _Chrono Cross_ soundtrack when it came out and was one of the first purchases I ever made on Amazon. The _Final Fantasy 7_ soundtrack was displaced and I don't think I really took them out much until that CD carousel died several years later.
I also bought _Brink of Time_ to upgrade my early 00's low-quality pirate mp3 copy when I was living in my college dorm. That involved having to explain what "Anime Nation" was to the cute girl who worked the mail counter when I picked up my package. I like to think I was cool and kept it brief and just said something to the effect of "It's a jazz CD from Japan." C'mon. I don't think I was actually that cool.
@2501 Kind of surprised (maybe I shouldn‘t be) that they’re doing any kind of marketing (beyond the bare minimum) for Chrono Cross. Wondering who spearheaded this particular effort, hiring a director, a drone operator, a costume designer… it‘s drops in the bucket obviously in terms of typical marketing costs—I bet they shot this in a day or two—but it’s not nothing! (But it is cool)
1) If you were cool enough to have the Chrono Cross and FFVII soundtracks on CD I bet you would have been cool enough to smooth-talk your way through that fateful mail counter interaction...
2) Not to be a perpetual complainer ITT but I do declare it is a shame that SE seems to have removed the original CD set from their online store (along with those PS1 copies of the game) in order to make marketplace room for these new Radial Dreamers music and game objects. You can still get it on Bezos dot com, but for how long..............? The supply dwindles. (Also the newly arranged soundtrack is only available on vinyl? And it only includes 8 tracks?? they're probably waiting till later to release the full thing. anyway vinyl is fine etc etc but is not well suited to entire game soundtrack listening)
@2501 ok i‘m on board…still can’t believe this is a real actual squenix produced music video!
@kory Nintendo did an extremely similar thing for Xenoblade 2’s Celtic-band-collab track, so I’m thinking it might have something to do with Mitsuda’s studio? idk
The MV for the new piece kinda drives home how much more it feels like a nu-Enya bit than anything else in Chrono Cross, but whatever, I’m down (more psyched for the Radical Dreamers ending theme with the same vocalist tho)
@2501 I thought it was strange that the Chrono Cross MV used that cold, cloudy, European highlands Lord-of-the-Rings medieval fantasy aesthetic when Chrono Cross is a lot more colorful and tropical (and of course the music matches). Since they‘re doing an identical thing with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 it pretty much confirms in my mind that this is just how Mitsuda’s studio does this kind of thing like you‘re saying. For Xenoblade Chronicles 2 it kinda works, but for Chrono Cross they clearly weren’t thinking much about it and just kinda whipped something together.
@Funbil I think it’s more just that Mitsuda sees his music as being in the Celtic genre/style, regardless of the game it’s attached to, and wants the aesthetics to match. Does it really make sense that Xenogears’ frontier village on an alien planet or Chrono Cross’s colonial port city are scored to Irish jigs? Debatable; but that’s the style Mitsuda’s been starry-eyed for since he saw Titanic, so that’s the style he does.
Also now apparently I’m seeing that the actual CC:RDE game won’t feature the new music arrangements from the preview video, just remastered (as in, sharpened/cleaned up) versions of the original audio tracks? And the video was to promote the soundtrack release? But the game will feature the new song? I am now super confused. SquEnix has kind of bungled their messaging on this.