Play! is heading to Oslo in October!

I am thrilled to see the Play! A Video Game Symphony continue it's world tour. The tour stops in Oslo, Norway on October 26th, at 8:30 PM. You can visit the following sites for more information:

Play-Symphony.no

Play! A Video Game Symphony

As always, I'll report any new Play! news ASAP.

Good News for Odin Sphere fans

The release date for the Odin Sphere soundtrack is Oct. 24th in Japan! I checked a number of sites, and Play-Asia is the only one I have seen so far that has pre-orders available. I am expecting that Cocoebiz will have them available to order soon as well. You can check out the Play-Asia page here:

Pre-order Odin Sphere OST at Play-Asia

Until Next Time!

Drawing Aeris!!

I just got a bunch of cool Final Fantasy arranged tunes, and got really inspired to do a FF sketch video. Here is me drawing Aeris, showcasing some excellent game music in the process.

Great new upcoming game soundtrack releases

A few of the upcoming game soundtrack releases caught my eye, I'm looking forward to these. These are in no particular order.

10/10
Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack
Chances are I won't play the game, but I may check out this soundtrack.


09/27
**More New Music by Yuzo Koshiro!!!!**
Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 Original Soundtrack (First Press Available)
So looking forward to this. Koshiro is my favorite, and I love his work for the first two Wangan Midnight games. They are incredible!!

09/19
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fate / Original Soundtrack
Still haven't played the first FF Crystal Chronicles, but I really enjoyed it's music.

10/10
Ar tonelico 2 Sekai ni Hibiku Shojo tachi no Sozoshi Original Soundtrack
Currently playing Ar Tonelico, and I think this, like the first one, will feature a great soundtrack.

08/22
Dragon Quest Sword Original Soundtrack
I really liked the screenshots for this game. I usually always check out a new Dragon Quest title. No doubt this game will have great music.

The Legend of Xanadu Help Page!

If you've never heard of it, the Legend of Xanadu is one of very few games Falcom released for a console system. In this case, the Japanese PC Engine Duo. Of course you can still play it on a U.S. Turbo Duo as well, without any sort of converter. Later they made it available for PC as an added bonus with Xanadu Next.
I've had an old but great game guide for the Falcom masterpiece Legend of Xanadu for a while now. I found it years ago, and since then it has seemingly disappeared off the internet. Fortunately I saved the guide. Believe me, if you've played Legend of Xanadu, and don't understand Japanese, the guide contains valuable information. For a long time now I've wanted to bring this guide back. The good news is after contacting the author I can indeed bring this guide back for those who want to play this great game. Thank you Ara Shirinian! I have already begun a blog site for the Legend of Xanadu guide. If you haven't played the game, but wanted to, now's your opportunity!

The Legend of Xanadu Help Page

I'm also adding a banner for it in the links section here!

Cap'n Crunch to debut soon...

Not willing to let Cap'n Crunch: Intergalactic Bounty Hunter become just a series of sketches, I've decided to create comics for it! As soon as I finish the first page I will post it here. More than likely I'll have a new page every week. Of course if I'm able to create more pages in a week I'll put them up. I didn't want to start off with an origin tale, so the first story begins in the middle of a battle. I am surprised that it is a lot of fun developing this. Hopefully one day I'll have completed a bunch of different stories with the Cap'n.

I am in the midst of creating a preview trailer for it to put on youtube, so here is a quick look at a sketch for it. You may have to click to enlarge.

Who's that on the lower left there? You'll have to wait and see!

I have another game music delivery on the way soon, and I can't wait to report on all the new music!

Until Next Time...

Yuzo Koshiro Best Collection 2 Titles

Good news! Cocoebiz is listing the following titles will appear in the Yuzo Koshiro Best Collection 2. Super Shinobi and the Bare Knuckle (Streets of Rage) trilogy. Should be quite a treat for those unfamiliar with the music.

The FF Tactics Advance 2 site has some wonderful music when you enter the site. I hope it is in the game.

FF Tactics "A2" Site

My latest sketch video features Adol Christin from the Ys series. I used three different versions of Adol's theme for it:

THANKS FOR 3,000 HITS!!

Thank you for visiting my page again!
In keeping with the tradition of posting a special drawing every thousand page views I get, here is Cap'n Crunch, Intergalactic Bounty Hunter! Maybe I'll do a comic with him one day...

Drawing Mega Man part 2!!

As someone who draws very fast, I made this effort to slow down my approach to Drawing MegaMan. The goal is make it easier to see it come together, so I also cut out a lot of my normal sketch lines, keeping it cleaner to see it better. I practice every day and love to draw constantly.
My personal preference for drawing the Blue Bomber is to make him short, like in the original series. In future videos I will include different characters, and also do the taller version MegaMan as featured in MegaMan 8.
I'm no expert of course, and everyone's approach is different. I always start out with simple shapes and build upon them. MegaMan is like a bunch of circles and ovals thrown together. Don't be afraid to draw your lines light and draw through them until you're comfortable with how the shape turns out. You can always go back and erase the guidelines you don't need anymore.

The Music is one of my favorites from MegaMan 8. Hope you enjoy!

YUZO'S BACK

It's great to see Mr. Yuzo Koshiro making waves in game music once again. He recently contributed a number of awesome tracks alongside Michiru Yamane for the Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin soundtrack and now they are re-releasing his classic works along with some fantastic new ones! As a huge fan, I had to pick them up right away.

YUZO KOSHIRO BEST COLLECTION COVER

Volume 1 is out now, and Volume 2 is slated for release on 8/10/2007. It is unknown what will be contained in it as of this post. Don't miss out on the chance to pick up these rare classics without having to pay a fortune for them.

DISC 1: ACTRAISER


DISC 2: MISTY BLUE AND ACTRAISER SOUND BOARD II VERSION


DISC 3: THE STORY OF THOR



The soundtrack to the new Nintendo DS RPG Etrian Odyssey is another of Koshiro's new works. It's Japanese title is Sekaiju no Meikyu. I was so excited when I heard this soundtrack for a couple of reasons. 1. The soundtrack consists entirely of chip music. 2. It's two discs, the first one being the DS Version, and disc 2 is the PC-88 version, which is not only fantastic, but remarkable for someone in this day and age to release new PC-88 music.
That's one reason I am such a huge fan of Yuzo Koshiro, he is not afraid to go back to the roots of game music and make something new from something old. It's really good to see him coming back so strong.
Cocoebiz is currently selling these wonderful soundtracks:

Yuzo Koshiro Best Collection at Cocoebiz

AND

Etrian Odyssey at Cocoebiz

Pictures below!


ETRIAN ODYSSEY FRONT


ETRIAN ODYSSEY FRONT WITH DISCS


ETRIAN ODYSSEY DISC 1: NINTENDO DS VERSION


ETRIAN ODYSSEY DISC 2: PC-88 VERSION


ETRIAN ODYSSEY BACK

YS ORIGIN SUPER ARRANGE VERSION!!

A new video I made of the Silent Desert area of Ys Origin, except this time you get to hear Falcom's Super Arrange Version of Silent Desert. The CD is brand new, just released on June 29th. Enjoy!
FRONT COVER

BACK COVER

ON JULY 4TH

Today I want to thank our troops who are fighting for us. They are at risk daily, often giving their lives in the ultimate sacrifice. Many of us will be busy today, but don't forget to reflect on all those who make it possible for us to live in freedom. Thank you, you all are real heroes!!

NEW SKETCH VIDEO, DRAWING MILON!!

Drawing Milon, one of the most underrated game heroes. If you like this, please check back for more, I am just getting started with this character.

Small Collection update

Just updated my collection list, I still need to finish posting the autographed CD pictures. The link is below if you would like to check it out:

My Game Music Collection List

More Soon!

PLAY! STOCKHOLM REPORT

Last Saturday, June 2nd I had the pleasure of attending not one, but two more concerts in the fantastic Play! A Video Game Symphony world tour. The shows were held at 3:00pm and 7:30pm in beautiful Stockholm Sweden. That brings me up to 12 game concerts attended so far, and I won't stop now!

What a day it was! Before the show started I found Mr. Akira Yamaoka, composer for Silent Hill walking around outside taking pictures and he was quite a gentleman for granting me a photo with him (see below). I also got to meet a lot of other great people (you know who you are) and even spoke with a journalist from Australia about video game music, it's growing popularity, and the history of orchestral concert performances of video game music. It was a great opportunity to shed some light on my passion for game music and promote some well deserved respect for the very gifted composers of video game music and their hard work.

The concert was yet again conducted by the amazing Mr. Arnie Roth, who was indeed pleased to be working with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus once more. Surprises and special guests are a trademark of Play! and this show was no exception. Sweden's own Gustaf Grefberg was there, and some of his work from "The Darkness" was performed. Konami's Akira Yamaoka was there as I mentioned above, and even Machine Supremacy was there! When you have that much talent in one building you know amazing things are gonna happen. The entire show was a whopping two and a half hours, and the place was packed!!

Here's the Set List:

Play! Fanfare by Nobuo Uematsu
It's becoming an old favorite. It showcases the playful side of "Mr. Final Fantasy."

ANNO 1701
I hadn't heard a lot about this RPG, but the footage shown really looked cool. This piece was great, and reminded me of a village.

Commodore 64 medley
This was just fantastic! I wasn't a hardcore C64 player back then, but a couple of the games I was definitely familiar with. Some titles included in this medley were Last Ninja, International Karate, Great Giana Sisters (loved this), Wizball, Forbidden Forest, and Ancestors. It was great to see the old games in action.

The Darkness
From the new game based on Marc Silvestri's Top Cow Comic. Great work by the choir here, very dark. The video shown from the game looked promising.

Castlevania
Simply awesome. If you're familiar with the Perfect Selection Dracula New Classic CD, you'll love this, especially the second part, which includes a fantastic organ performance. Let's face it, organs are a trademark of the series. I would be surprised if there wasn't one. Gotta love it. Cinemas from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness were provided and worked great here.

Lost Odyssey
The latest from Nobuo Uematsu and Hironobu Sakaguchi. This looks incredible! Not only was the music stirring, the cinemas shown were not typical from what we're used to seeing from Mr. Sakaguchi either. But then again this isn't Final Fantasy. Really looking forward to it.

Super Shinobi
If you know me, you know I am a diehard fan of Yuzo Koshiro. He's the best. His arrangement for this was amazing! Though it was orchestrated, the energy was from Mr. Koshiro was still there. Great footage from the Genesis game was shown.

Silent Hill 2: Theme of Laura (guitar performance by Mr. Akira Yamaoka)
Akira Yamaoka rules! This was my second time seeing this performed by him, and he does it the best. He definitely has a great stage presence, and on the outside he seems like quite a dark fellow, but I found him very approachable when I saw him outside before the show.

Metal Gear Solid
One of gaming's great themes, I think. It's instantly recognizable.

Super Mario Bros.
The old classic. Everyone always cheers for this. I am still amazed at how many Mario games are featured in this medley.

Intermission

Mars, from "The Planets" by Gustav Holst
I was certainly surprised to see a non game piece here, but I wasn't disappointed! Mr. Roth explained how the work of Holst was a big influence on so many of the great composers of our time, including composers for games. It certainly felt like it could be in a game. Great job!

Commodore Amiga Medley
I was a lot more familiar with these pieces, especially Turrican 2. Games included in this medley were Turrican 2, Alien Breed, James Pond 2, Pinball Fantasies, Lionheart, and Lemmings. It should be noted that both the C64 and the Amiga Medley were exclusive to this concert.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
This game is becoming quite huge, and Jeremy Soule's music for it has me listening to the soundtrack quite often.

Shadow of the Colossus
One of the best games I've ever played. The opening is featured here, and again, the choir was amazing. I would love it if Play! were to feature some of the battle music from Colossus one day.

Legend of Zelda Medley
Video featuring Mr. Koji Kondo announced this piece, and of course everyone loves it.
It's so classic, you can't go wrong.

Time For The Finale!

Dancing Mad
The last battle from Final Fantasy VI, my favorite Final Fantasy. I have waited years and years to see this performed live. I was speechless, Machine Supremacy came out and they had to play from another platform, with the orchestra and the choir taking up so much room already. It was flawless, and complete. Ha! The only thing missing was Kefka's famous laugh. Everyone went insane for this. I mean, I traveled to Sweden all the way from America to see this. The choir was amazing, and the organ soloist must have worked extra hard, because he did an incredible job. So you have the orchesrta, the choir, a real pipe organ and hardcore speed rock. All the necessary ingredients were there. At the end of the piece Machine Supremacy played the extended ending melody you may know if you've heard the Black Mages CD. It was a complete success, and very loud, amazing.

What a concert! Several standing ovations were given by the audience, and everone was happy! This was the loudest crowd I've ever seen at a game concert. Everyone had a geat time. At the 7:30 show, we even got an encore of the last part from Dancing Mad.

After the event there was a meeting session with Gustaf Grefberg, Arnie Roth, Akira Yamaoka, and Machine Supremacy. It was fantastic. With my old Program book filled with autographs, I bought a new one and was delighted to get some new signatures on it. I spoke to Machine Supremacy for a few minutes and they were just great, and they were really surprised at how far I traveled.

This was defintely one of the best days of my life ever, and I even got to meet two friends from the Ancient Land of Ys Message Board.

It was so worth it, I would never miss it. THIS is what I mean when I say don't forget to live.

A Fantastic example of the wonder of Stockholm, Sweden. Lots of beautiful structures everywhere. I'll surely return one day.


The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic prepares to dazzle all of us:


Fans take their seats as showtime draws near. Check out the gorgeous architecture!


Konserthuset! Think of it as "concert house". Inside is where all the magic happened:


The electronic sign outside the concert hall:


The Banner hanging from the center of the "Konserthuset" Concert Hall was enormous, and was the largest I've ever seen for Play!


One of many framed posters hanging about the Concert Hall promoting the event:


The NES video game cover band Powerplay performed several classics for those waiting to enter! Here they are playing music from Super Mario Bros. 2!


Here they are playing "FlashMan" from MegaMan 2!


For more videos of Powerplay feel free to check my channel on youtube:

Game Music Freak on youtube

Thanks for watching!

I hope you enjoyed this writeup, and please visit the official Play! site for more information on upcoming shows, and don't forget to sign up for their free e-mail newsletter!

Play! A Video Game Symphony

Thanks again to Jason Michael Paul Productions for making this event possible, and for bringing game music to the forefront with Play!

Additional credits:

Alien Breed by Allister Brimble
James Pond 2 by Richard Joseph
Pinball Fantasies by Olof Gustafsson
Lionheart by Matthias Steinwachs
Lemmings by Brian Johnston and Tim Wright
Turrican 2 by Chris Huelsbeck

International Karate by Rob Hubbard
Great Giana Sisters by Chris Huelsbeck
The Last Ninja by Ben Daglish
Wizball by Martin Galway
Forbidden Forest by Paul Norman
Ancestors (Zoids Desert Battle) by Larry Fast

My Play! Program Books, the new one is on the bottom:

BACK FROM STOCKHOLM!!

It was a quite a journey! To say the concerts were a complete success is an understatement. The energy in Stockholm was amazing, and the fans there are by far the most diehard I've ever seen at any concert. I'm preparing a full report. In the meantime there's a new picture below with Akira Yamaoka! Please check back soon, I will have a lot of cool things to share!

OFF TO STOCKHOLM!!

Going off on another adventure today! I'm heading to Stockholm Sweden to attend two more shows in the Play! A Video Game Symphony concert series. It's going to be great, both shows are going to be on Saturday, June 2nd, and could possibly be the biggest shows yet for Play! Expect plenty of details of all the events when I return.

See you later!

MORE INFORMATION ON PIRATE CD SELLERS AND MAKERS

First of all, please don't get me wrong, you have every right to buy and enjoy any CD you want, but since I believe in supporting the original CD composers and creators, this information is intended to help and not to hinder. Also, as many others know, most of these discs originate out of Taiwan, and not Japan.

Click

Did you notice anything? That Dragon Quest V CD set is from SM, and is a surefire pirate CD. I can't knock gamemusic.com. Really, I love them. They put a major effort into stopping the sale of these things on their site, and they make it so much easier to get imports from Japan without having to pay a hefty sum to import it yourself. No doubt that Dragon Quest V soundtrack is from the old stock. Still helps to know though, doesn't it?

Five major Pirate CD makers are SM or sonmay (See Ys II Sample below), Alion, Ever Anime, Miya Records and something with a wierd symbol I am unable to make out. These are the big ones I run into more than anything. One comic shop in my area literally has dozens of game music CDs for sale all the time, but every one of them is a pirate bootleg CD. It's a shame, too, because otherwise it's a great place.
Here is what the Ever Anime logo looks like:

If you see this symbol on any CD, beware, it is a pirate:

Ys II OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL DISCS PROFILED

Here is a profile of an official and an unofficial Ys II soundtrack CD, with the official King Records release above the fake SM "Sonmay" one. This is a good example of a very decpetive fake for many reasons. For one, the ACTUAL Falcom logo appears on the bottom. I can't believe they got away with this. On later fake CDs you will not find the official company logo anywhere. Look also at the black spine. Many fake CDs have a different colored spine from the real ones. In this example, since both spines are black, you'll need to look further to distinguish the real from the pirate, but you won't need to look too much further. Look at the fake again and you'll see "SM-040" in the upper left corner. This is just one of many fake catalog numbers that pirate CD companies use.

So, Why an Ys CD? Well, it's one of the few bootlegs I own. And, as the series garners more fame, there will be demand for soundtracks of the earlier Ys titles. Hopefully this will help you steer from making a purchase you won't be proud of.

The following picture shows the back cover of both CDs with the official one above the fake one. Taking a look at the bottom lower right corner of both covers reveals something more sinister. The pirate CD maker SM actually uses the correct catalog number (K32X 7704) here! If you didn't know that SM was a maker of pirate CDs, you could be deceived into thinking it was official! However, it's nothing to worry over, there are still plenty other ways to detect it's a fake.


You'll want to be careful on ebay, just because a correct catalog number is given, doesn't mean you're getting an official CD. If the seller can not provide a picture, request the record label be given. Ebay is rampant with fake game CDs, as well as fake soundtrack sets for such series as Catlevania and Final Fantasy.

The picture below shows the spine of both Ys II discs, with the official one on top. (click to enlarge)

Now the fake catalog number of SM-040 finally appears. Look closely how the pirate CD makers made an effort to create a spine that looks almost exactly like the official CD release. Take note, Falcom no longer uses King Records to produce it's soundtracks, so on any new Falcom discs you will see a catalog numer beginning with "NW". The King Records catalog number here on Ys II (K32X 7704) is also an early version of it's numbering system. On later releases King Records began using KICA-"Number" on most or all of their CDs.

Here is an image of both discs. Once again, the official disc is on top, the fake on the bottom.
Check out how similar they are, and yet at the same time they are very different. You can clearly tell which one is fake by the absence of the King Records logo on the bottom one. When I bought this CD the first time, I had no idea whatsoever that it was a fake. Even though this CD is quite old, it is evident that even back then SM or Sonmay was making fake CDs that look almost exactly like the originals.

Personally, I can not tell a difference in sound quality, but after years of going to conventions and seeing tons of these fake being sold, they get annoying, and they get you angry. I've seen too many of these now and it just ticks me off when I see them still being sold. Now, for this Ys II, all the tracks are the same on both discs, but I've seen a pirate release of Final Fantasy VIII that comes in a real nice case, but if you look at disc three it is actually missing "Eyes on Me," one of the most important songs in the game!
Until other countries get serious about importing game music into retail stores, these fakes are going to continue to have a market, for they sell for at least half the price of official ones. It is happening, but at a snail's pace. Common prices for fake CDs are anywhere from $6.95 to $14.95 USD.
Gamemusic.com deserves a big thank you for not only putting a stop to selling fake CDs on their own site, but for also making it possible to get many of the latest game music releases without having to pay so much to import.

SO, IS THIS FINAL FANTASY IV CD A PIRATE CD?

No, this is a fine example of what you may hear commonly referred to as a Douin CD. It's pretty much like someone doing fan art in Japan, or, thanks to many fans all over the world, they are becoming much more common in other areas. As game music continues to grow in popularity, you can expect the number of fan made remixes to increase as well.
The artwork may look somewhat unofficial on the above CD, but don't let that take you. The makers of Pirate game and anime CDs from what I've seen always strive to create something that looks similar if not exactly like it's official counterpart. Doujin CDs are one of my favorite things to collect. Many times you'll get some refreshing all new versions of your favorite game tracks. Doujin CDs are fan made remixes, most of which are of professional quality. Project Majestic Mix and The One Ups are examples of fantastic artits who are turning their passion for game music into incredible CDs. In the case of the Final Fantasy IV above, JM Midi not only re-created the complete FF IV soundtrack, but they also included the unused tracks, previously only available on the FF Mix CD and Final Fantasy IV Minimum album. This truly is a work of art.
So, while it may not look like this:

The JM Midi FF IV and other Doujin CDs definitely are not bootlegs.

While I'm at it, here is the site of my personal favorite Doujin arranger and one of my favorite game composers Atsushi Fukai:

Mushi.net

Here you'll find examples of more Doujin soundtracks inspired by Ys, Dragon Quest, and even Dragon Spirit. One of Mr. Fukai's trademarks is creating imaginary game soundtracks, featuring all new music based on the style of a certain game or series.

Another important note:
While it is true that some Doujin CDs may be sold at a similar price as some bootlegs, they will be instantly distinguishable by their content. There are sellers on ebay though, who sell copies of douin Mangas on CD. So even Doujins have bootleggers. *Sigh*

I truly hope this has been helpful so far, and it's by no means the end of my coverage of pirate CDs.