I’ve listend to a lot of Emil Chronicle Online music over the years. Composer group ACE (known for their work on both Xenoblade Chronicles and Code of Princess) have written a massive score for the game over the close to a decade that its been around. What drew my attention to this album, however, was the involvement of G-Shine, GungHo’s internal band that originally formed to perform music from Ragnarok Online.
There are also arrangements and performances contributed by band Red Soul, which has been providing some music to the game as well, including the track “Arise” which appears on this album. With a track selection picked by fans of the game, is the album worth your time?
This album has been teased for years. It’s appeared on numerous Square Enix sampler CDs and singles from the album have trickled out on iTunes. But what is it?
Now Square Enix has finally released the album, and it’s not quite what anyone was expecting.
A lot of people were surprised to see Motoi Sakuraba take the helm of the Dark Souls series after Shinsuke Kida’s powerful score to Demon’s Souls. Would he take the franchise in a more progressive rock direction that he is known for, or stay true to the epic orchestral stylings that Kida established in Demon’s Souls?
I was personally surprised and delighted to see him take the latter approach. The Dark Souls soundtrack had a lot of standout music, and I was wondering if he could pull off a repeat with Dark Souls II.
