SQ

• Featured, Game Music

  Square Enix Music 2013 Interview: Remasters, Blu-ray, SQ, And NieR

  August 29, 2013 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on Square Enix Music 2013 Interview: Remasters, Blu-ray, SQ, And NieR Share this Square Enix Music 2013 Interview: Remasters, Blu-ray, SQ, And NieR

  

  Well, it’s that time of year again (can you believe this is the sixth year OSV has done this?). To commemorate Square Enix’s presence at San Diego Comic Con, we’ve scheduled a chat with promotions manager Akio Shiraishi to talk about recent happenings and touch on what’s in store for fans in the future. Read the interviews from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 if you dare!

  This time talk about the remaster versions of the Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI soundtracks, what the plans are for vinyl and the SQ series, what’s with the recent use of the Blu-ray format for music, whether we’ll see anymore FFXI music, and I pitch them on an idea for a new NieR CD.

  All of this and more, after the jump! (more…)

• Game Music, Reviews

  Battle of the Genres? Battle SQ (Review)

  October 16, 2012 | Patrick Gann | 3 Comments Share this Battle of the Genres? Battle SQ (Review)

  

  Purchase Battle SQ (LE): CDJapan | Play-Asia
  Purchase Battle SQ (Standard): CDJapan | Play-Asia

  Though a somewhat lesser “controversial” album than Secret of Mana Genesis, this summer SQ release saw both high praise and heavy criticism thrown upon it.

  What’s the deal? What expectations weren’t met? And to what extent is the encroaching fad of modulated bass (dubstep) dominating this album?

  For answers to those questions and more, I humbly give you my take on the July 2012 release “Battle SQ” from Square Enix. (more…)

• Chip Music, Featured, Game Music, Reviews

  Give It To Me Straight: SQ Chips 2 (Review)

  September 27, 2012 | Patrick Gann | 1 Comment Share this Give It To Me Straight: SQ Chips 2 (Review)

  

  Purchase SQ Chips 2: CDJapan | Play-Asia

  Without question, SQ Chips was a success for Square Enix. Fans loved it, critics loved it, and it apparently sold well enough in Japan and worldwide to not only do a sequel album, but to also dig deep in the chiptunes scene and create separate chip-arrange albums for Final Fantasy VII through XI.

  I’ve probably said this in other reviews, and I’ll say it in this one as well: if you’re going to milk a franchise, and/or you’re going to milk an arrangement style for your franchises, it’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s done right! Look at Falcom, after all. The Ys series took on a life of its own in the world of music; Falcom rewarded eager listeners, and in turn, Falcom was rewarded for providing high-quality music. Win-win, right?

  So, is SQ Chips 2 following in the convention of “win-win,” or do we have a series of phoned-in arrangements to try and hop on a burgeoning fad (the chiptunes scene)? I’ll “give it to you straight” after the jump. (more…)

• Game Music

  Square Enix Music 2012 Interview: Teasers and More from Akio Shiraishi

  August 31, 2012 | Jayson Napolitano | 11 Comments Share this Square Enix Music 2012 Interview: Teasers and More from Akio Shiraishi

  

  Okay, so it’s been tradition since 2008 that we’d sit down with Square Enix Music’s Promotion’s Manager, Akio Shiraishi, and head of the licensing department, Izumi Tsukushi, at San Diego Comic Con to talk about all the latest happenings within their division. Unfortunately since Square Enix’s merchandising team has expanded their action figure line so dramatically, they were unable to bring music to this year’s event. That meant no Akio Shiraishi and no sit-down with the duo.

  We’ve got a fix, however, and have been able to speak with Akio Shiraishi after the fact. As usual, we follow-up on a lot of items brought up in previous years (read 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011‘s interviews). It sounds like they have a lot in store for the Final Fantasy franchise in particular before 2012 (the franchises’s 25th anniversary) is through, so read on. (more…)

• Game Music, Reviews

  More BETTER or More of the Same? More SQ (Review)

  March 9, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this More BETTER or More of the Same? More SQ (Review)

  

  The SQ series from Square Enix has admittedly been pretty hit or miss. The first album, Love SQ featured an eclectic mix of 10 arrangements from a pretty varied list of Squaresoft titles, while Chill SQ tackled the chillout genre to great results. While the “X’mas album” wasn’t an SQ album in name, it was in spirit, and we’re now getting the third official installment of the SQ album, More SQ.

  Have they perfected the formula by now, or is this album just more of the same? With 13 arrangements and the longest run-time of any of previous SQ albums, there’s certainly more to consider.

  Hit the jump for our review of More SQ. (more…)

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