I had the chance to drop by the Square Enix booth for some one-on-one time with a few of their upcoming titles. I loved how they provided headphones for most of the games on the floor, allowing you to fully experience the music and voice acting that they clearly worked hard on.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy featured the newly recorded English voice cast, and sure enough the acting is top notch. Not once did it feel forced or out of place. The music–if you haven’t heard–is absolutely stunning and thankfully the PSP does a wonderful job providing quality sound output.  I thought the controls were definitely interesting. I expected it to be a fighting game but having heard that it actually played like an action RPG, in the same vein as Crisis Core, I didn’t know what to expect. Sure enough, Crisis Core was a great way to describe the game. It’s similar, at least in the freedom of movement, but with the ability to jump, and with a number of different commands available.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers was up next, and the music fits the game perfectly. I had a lot of fun with the mini-games it provides, and the cut scenes are quite beautiful for a Wii game. The exploration gameplay was lacking a tad, but probably only due to the non-implimented text, making conversation with townfolk impossible with the demo on the floor. Still, I can’t wait to get the game as it was quite fun and definitely different than your typical Final Fantasy title.

Is anyone else as excited about these titles as me?

Sony let the cat out of the bag on Square Enix’s new MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. The press sheet released alongside the announcement later that day (Tuesday, June 2), listed Nobuo Uematsu as the composer.

However, many people we spoke to on the show floor were skeptical. “Oh, he probably just wrote the theme song, or a small portion of the soundtrack.” Nope, nope, nope! For the first time since Final Fantasy IX (which came out nearly a decade ago), Uematsu is writing the entire score of a Final Fantasy.

This information was not revealed at Wednesday’s press conference (June 3rd, noon PST). The information came from a reliable source at Square Enix. In a complete coincidence, Mike Tidwell (of RPGamer) and I met up with a member of the FFXI team (now on the FFXIV team), and we picked his brain for information. We asked about the Uematsu listing on the press release. Apparently, Uematsu was offered the opportunity to score the Final Fantasy XIV soundtrack, and he happily agreed to write the full score. No, Uematsu is not back under Square Enix: he’s still an independent artist under his own “SMILEPLEASE” company. And there’s no guarantee that other composers won’t contribute additional music. But at this point, Uematsu is the sole composer, and the plan is for him to score the entirety of Final Fantasy XIV, at least for time of release (as for expansions, that’s too far in the future for anyone to predict).

The only music you can hear from the game presently can be found on the game’s official site, as well as the trailer. We look forward to hearing more Uematsu music as he makes his glorious return to the series that he helped to define so many years ago.

Ever since it was announced that Yoko Shimomura would be working on Little King’s Story, I’ve been following it with some interest. We had the opportunity to check the game out on the E3 show floor today, and had the pleasure of a surprise visit by producer Yoshiro Kimura who not only had something to say about the game’s music, but also turned out to be a very awesome and passionate guy.

Find out who’s involved, what the deal is with the classical music, and if there will be a soundtrack release after the jump. (more…)

Bayonetta has actually been near the top of my must-own games for 2009 since it was announced. Directed by the creator of the Devil May Cry series, Hideki Kamiya, it hopes to provide over-the-top cutscenes and gameplay full of innuendo. Yesterday, I was able to get a small preview of the music via a developer-driven demo. From the trailers, there has definitely been some jazz music, but was there anything else worthy of note?

Check out the small preview after the jump! (more…)

It’s been way too long since I’ve recorded an OSVchannel episode. But with the team here in Los Angeles for E3, I thought it’d be fun to get things rolling again with our impressions of what we’ve seen and heard from the E3 show floor each day. Hopefully we can record an episode all three days, so let us know if you’re digging this.

This time, it’s Patrick Gann, Don Kotowski, and myself talking about a variety of topics. We discuss the Nintendo press conference, the Konami booth, Final Fantasy XIII, SEGA’s Bayonetta, Nostalgia, and some weird Hercules game that Patrick seems to think is cool. And yes, that’s Don saying, “Smokey jazz.”

What are your thoughts of all the news coming out of the first day of E3? Are you as overwhelmed as we are?

Well, here we are again. Another year, a bigger E3, and boy, I’m already pooped. I spent most of the day staring in awe at the Nintendo booth, not knowing what to start with, but eventually made my way over to the Konami booth to check out Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Vandal Hearts. As it turned out, we were in luck, as Shattered Memories producer Tomm Huelett was on hand to talk to us about the game’s music and audio direction.

I’m happy to report that the title will feature a blend of old and new. There are some familiar names involved with the game’s score as well as a few surprises regarding vocal themes and the technology behind the game’s sound, so join us as we learn what’s in store for fans from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories this fall.

Our interview with Tomm Huelett is waiting for you after the jump. (more…)

Ever since I found out that our good friend Jake “virt” Kaufman was working on Red Faction Guerilla (like, a month ago), I’ve been looking forward to the game. I downloaded the demo on XBLA, and was immediately impressed by the opening theme that greeted me, saying to myself, “Wow, Jake has really adapted himself well to the Hollywood orchestral sound.” Well, it turned out this wasn’t his music, but I was still impressed nonetheless.

When I met Timothy Wynn at the Golden State Pops Orchestra’s “Videogame Soundtracks” concert a few weeks ago, I found out that he was actually the man responsible for this theme. Now it all made sense. I loved hearing the theme live at the GSPO performance, and I also enjoyed Wynn’s work with Christopher Lennertz on Warhawk and The Simpsons, so I was hungry to hear more of what Wynn had prepared for Red Faction Guerilla.

What exactly was Timothy Wynn responsible for on Red Faction Guerilla, and what do we think of his music? Find out after the jump. (more…)