I have been a huge Star Ocean fan ever since I first played Star Ocean: The Second Story. Interestingly enough, it was at about this time that I first realized just how important music is to games, especially RPGs. Naturally, when I first heard about Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, I was excited about the game, but I also found myself excited about listening to Motoi Sakuraba’s new works for the game. Having to sit through a year and a half of delays, I got plenty of time to acquaint myself with his works in SO3.
This Star Ocean 3 OST contains nothing but almost completely instrumental tracks: no synth, just completely instrumental tracks. I had first heard a bit of his instrumental tracks from the Star Ocean EX OST, and the ones that I heard were pretty good, so I was expecting something great from Sakuraba on this OST.
I wasn’t too disappointed with the results, either. Considering the tracks were almost completely orchestrated, you’d expect a lot of either moody or epic sounding tracks. This is very much the case with this OST; in fact, with the exception of two, maybe three tracks, the entire OST is configured this way. Both CDs have just about the same amount of dramatic and moody tracks, and that’s not a bad thing: the bad thing is that a lot of these tracks can sound very much the same, which seems to be Sakuraba’s minor flaw as a composer. For the life of me, I still think that the track “Chrysanthemum in Winter” has the same drum line that’s found in his track entitled “Mountain Path” in his SO2 soundtrack. It’s not a completely bad thing with this OST, and Sakuraba is a good composer; he’s just a bit too similar in some of his works.
Anyone that loves to hear dramatic or very emotional music will probably love this OST. I really enjoy it, it is good music to listen to when you are studying, drawing, or writing. Each track conveys the emotion that it is supposed to, and does so well. Sakuraba fans will definitely want to add this to their collection, and those of you who are just avid VG music fans may enjoy this as well.
