OST Ratings

[Talaysen]

Wild ARMs XF

Best Song Standalone: So Warm and Soft
Worst Song Standalone: Honki no uso

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): A Profession Villain Clad in Sand - Really most of the battle themes could go here anyway.

Final Rating: 10/10


Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: Wings

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): The End of the Beginning - Close second for Ready! Lady Gunner!

Final Rating: 10/10

[Luther Lansfeld]

Shadow Hearts: Covenant

Best Song Standalone:  The Fate ~Cluster Amaryllis

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game):  The Fate ~Cluster Amaryllis

Overall Impression of OST: I'm definitely a fan. It's one of my favs.

Final Rating: 9/10

--


Wild ARMs XF

Best Song Standalone: A Weapon Born in the Womb of Mankind

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): The Twilight of the Anti-Hero

Overall Impression of OST: Fuck yeah!

Final Rating: 10/10.

--

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: There's Only One Family Named Schrodinger

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Black as Sin, Red as Blood

Overall Impression of OST: You know, I'm not really the music analyzey person, I just like to give love to OSTs I enjoy.
Final Rating: 9.5/10

[Tide]

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: The end of the beginning. This track is so good. The only problem is that you'll never hear it fully in-game because the final tends to die too quickly.
Worst Song Standalone:  The Stage is Full of Miscast People or Have you Told Your Beloved Sayonara. They work for what they are but are kind of the weakest tracks. Still decent in context though.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Flying in the Midst of the Storm. The entire track is set up to run together with the opening sequence that shows how the 4 PCs meet and it does its job very well.
Worst Song In Context: Fatebreaker? It's a good track, just used in some weird dungeons IIRC. Way too upbeat in some cases.

Overall Impression of OST: Godlike. This is one of those OSTs where to me, every track is varying degrees of good. If the track isn't good in context, its good standalone or vice versa. Paid 40 bucks for the official copy and haven't regretted it.
Final Rating: 10/10

[NotMiki]

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: There's Only One Family Named Schroedinger

Worst Song Standalone: The Stage is Full of Miscast People.  That intro...the synth is just bad.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): A Person's Warmth (followed closely by The Lance of Palerider because I am a sucker for that intro)

Worst Song In Context: Have you Told Your Beloved Sayonara - just doesn't quite match up to the drama it's trying for.

Overall Impression of OST: A long OST, and a consistently excellent one.  Notably, a ton of exciting dungeon music.  Not a lot of games can boast more than one or two excellent tracks for dungeons, and WA3 has at least 5 top-quality ones: If Tails, Despair if Heads, Hope; Scars of Leftover Memories; Losing One's Way in Darkness, Losing Something in Darkness; Cross this Instant, Now; Fate Breaker; The weight of a Heavy Life, the Meaning of the Meaning of Life.  Just...so much quality.

Final Rating: 9.5/10

[SnowFire]

My, uh, "copy" of the WA3 soundtrack helpfully only included track titles named "Track 1-06" and the like.  So while I suppose I can look up the equivalent online, I in general have no idea what the official track titles are and what pieces others are talking about.

Best Song Standalone: 1-20 ("Flying In the Midst of the Storm").  Best rendition of the main themes, I always thought, and suitably dramatic on its own, tosses in a brief remix of Into the Wilderness for good measure.
Worst Song Standalone: 1-08 ("Death Wire", apparently.)  Bleh.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Leyline Observatory music.  (Checking...  3-3 = "Fate Breaker" apparently.)  As soon as I entered that dungeon, I figured that there had to be some awesome plot twist coming up, and was already hyped for it.
Worst Song In Context: Nothing stands out?  I wasn't a huge fan of the Puzzle music, though.

Overall Impression of OST: A unique Western style with very few meh tracks (unlike WA:XF, to me).  Needs a few more tracks that qualify as "totally awesome" to merit the 10/10 for me; the reason it's still a 9 is more due to the consistently high quality of the random tracks than a few great standouts.
Final Rating: 9/10. 

[Sierra]

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: Losing the Inescapable Nightmare, An Unending Reality. I could say almost anything here, but no one's said that one yet. Beatriiice!
Worst Song Standalone: Millennium Puzzle music. I never want to hear it again after doing Millennium Puzzles.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Advanced Wind. WA3's load-up movie was one of the many little joys of the game.
Worst Song In Context: Death Wire is pretty bleh.

Overall Impression of OST: I had to stop and think, if I'm not handing out a 10/10 here, when am I ever doing it? I love WA3 as a game, and as with most things I love, music contributes heavily to that experience. I can even readily call some of the town themes to memory, which is not a common occurrence with games.
Final Rating: 10/10.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: There's Only One Family Named Schroedinger. All-time favourite track for me.
Worst Song Standalone: Death Wire, sure. It's not even great as far as simple, in-game-only tension musics go, though it is barely passable in context.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Black as Sin, Red as Blood. Captures the weird, otherworldly nature of the prophets so darn well.
Worst Song In Context: I've never fought Ragu, but his theme seems like it might fit here; that is not appropriate for a battle music, let alone the type of battle WA3 tries for.

Other songs worthy of much hype: Losing the Inescapable Nightmare, End of the Beginning, Weight of a Heavy Life, Everyday Scenery, Fallen Shadows of Sinful Trees, Lance of Palerider, etc. I'd much rather spend time hyping good tracks than trying to remember which ones are bad!

Overall Impression of OST: Generally vies with Legend of Mana for my all-time favourite. The difference between it and, say, XF, isn't too pronounced, and can be found in things like how good the town music is.
Final Rating: 10/10.

[Dunefar]

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: Uh....none. Not a good OST.
Worst Song Standalone: More or less all of them.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): First world map. Still not good, but probably the best it has.
Worst Song In Context: Most of them.

Overall Impression of OST: A huge, huge, HUGE step back from WA2.  There's some parts that aren't bad, but overall it's a huge degeneration. It's one of the few games that's kept zero songs from the OST on my playlist.
Final Rating: 1/10. Do not see what other people see in it at all.

[Niu]

WA3

Best Standalone:
Higher than can be Carried by Wings, I was always distressed at the lack of Lombardia fights back then.
Honorable to Puzzel Maniac 2000, so catchy, it is one of those themes that I can loop up to 3 hours or more and won't be grated by it.
Worst Standalone:
Blue Destiny & Lance of Palerider, they are just very loud and broken by themselves. Siegy's theme is really the low time of this OST.

Best In Context: Live with Me Forever, clearly composed to fit the drama there, and its really successful in building up the emotion there.
Worst In Context: Fate Breaker. It sounds too dramatic for what it is. Very very out of place.

Final Rating: 10/10, it is a OST not without faults, but its pro completely outshines the con, making whatever shortcomings in this OST to be negligible. Ah, those dungeon themes, those stupidly good dungeon themes!!

[Cmdr_King]

Wild ARMs XF: 5 raters, 7.9 average rating.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

Best Song Standalone:
Worst Song Standalone:

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game):
Worst Song In Context:

Overall Impression of OST:
Final Rating:

[Cmdr_King]

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: Wings.  Always needs more Wings hype.  Otherwise, probably Blood, Tears and the Dried-up Wasteland.
Worst Song Standalone: Black as Sin, Red as Blood.  The song is effective for what it is, fits the prophets beautifully, but it gets under my skin.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Living, Loving, and Fighting.  It's basically an extended intro added onto An Inescapable Nightmare, and Unending Reality timed to one of the final scenes.  I'm just a complete sucker for that little moment right before it breaks into the boss fight.
Worst Song In Context: Nothing stands out.  I imagine if I replayed the game I'd find some song I really like being wasted in game, but...

Overall Impression of OST: The dedication to the western motiff gives a lot of value to the more fillery tracks, and the core battle themes and so on are pretty excellent.
Final Rating: 10/10.  I waffled a bit, but... yeah.  Just by sheer volume on my playlist, very, VERY few other games compete with WA3.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

Best Song Standalone: Rescue Mission, I think? The synth could be better but the melody is great, love the dramatic flair of this one.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Mound of a Hollow Light, really got me excited about the end of my adventure. This and Rescue Mission are my two favourite tracks in the game and the final dungeon is pretty much nothing but the two of them. I was very happy.

Other notes:
-Honourable mention to the regular battle theme being unusual and working quite well; jazzy fun.
-I've seen a fair amount of hype for Silver Will. I really do hope that is mostly for versions of the track from other games, because in this one I found it... flat, and unimpressive, and it doesn't take too much to impress me with boss themes. Some of the synth issues affect it too, but yeah, was really mystified when I learned this was a hyped track.
-For all that I like this game's settings... I think it does a poor job of music for them. I am really struggling to remember any town or dungeon themes right now.

Overall Impression of OST: *shrug* Just kinda there. Fails to stand out.
Final Rating: 4/10. I really need to actually remember more than like half a dozen tracks if you're a game I just played within the last two years. 4 might seem kinda harsh since I don't dislike the soundtrack, but as usual I am trying to use the entire 1-10 scale, and I do think this game's soundtrack is a notch below SH2's, let alone the soundtracks I am actually a big fan of.

[SnowFire]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

Best Song Standalone: Before I knew anything about the game, Silver Will was the song that popped out, and it's still pretty awesome, so.  (Even if the loop is a tad short.)
Worst Song Standalone: The Madrigal of the White Magnolia pieces, aka "high school pit band time."  They're okay in context, but whatever out of it.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Sure, I'm down for The Fading Light of the Sealed Land (final dungeon) music, it is a pretty dang epic version of the game's musical themes.  All of the variants of "The Whereabouts of Stars" are used very well in-game too, including the ending theme.
Worst Song In Context: The vanilla boss music, inexplicably titled "To be Suggestive".  I'm fairly harsh on boss music because it should be awesome, and this one is just a little too silly.  It'd be fine if it only played for the Capua clan or other comic relief bosses I suppose, but it plays for more than just that.

Overall Impression of OST: Great stuff.  It is definitely comparable to Shadow Hearts: Covenant to me in that both soundtracks work fantastically in-context and sell the mood the game wants to set very well (although like Elf, I think SH:C's OST is a tad better to me).  Having an interesting yet fittingly different regular battle theme definitely helped.  I thought that most of the town music was great, myself - each town sold its own flavor very well, from the steampunk Zeiss to the bustle of the capital to the flow of Ruan.  And a few of the dungeon pieces stood out as both fitting and awesome, like "Secret Green Passage."  The things keeping it out of 9/10 territory is that some of the soundtrack is ultimately a tad bland, and many of the pieces I like still loop a tad too quickly (the aforementioned forest dungeon music, or Silver Will itself.)  But whatever.
Final Rating: 8/10.

[Cmdr_King]

Wild ARMs 3: 10 raters, 8.9 average rating.

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone:
Worst Song Standalone:

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game):
Worst Song In Context:

Overall Impression of OST:
Final Rating:

[superaielman]

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: Light from the Netherworld. Star of Tears is decent too.
Worst Song Standalone: One who bears fangs at God. What a freaking boring track.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Emotions? I guess. It's really chill for a world map theme, one of the few songs I really remember from in game.
Worst Song In Context: Stage of death.

Overall Impression of OST:  Like Xenogears itself, awfully boring and pretentious. A few good pieces doesn't save the overall OST.
Final Rating: 2/10.

[Meeplelard]

I've fallen behind, bah!

Wild ARMs 3

Best Song Standalone: so many to choose from, so today, I'll pick End of the Beginning.  This could easily change by tomorrow.
Worst Song Standalone: Pretty much all of the Abyss themes.  Dull, bland, and uninspired themes...and there's 4 of them -_-

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Like above, this is hard, so...I'll just go with Advanced Wind, because fits the "Anime Opening" really well and gives a sense of starting an episode.
Worst Song In Context: ...same as above; Abyss themes suck.

Overall Impression of OST: Not only are the songs good, but they're extremely thematic, capturing the "Wild West" aspect of the game brilliantly.  The songs that don't feel intentionally out of place (like Black as Sin, Red as Blood, which is intended for characters who are intentionally out of place) just add to this.  One of the best OSTs ever.
Final Rating: 10/10.


Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: Fuse.  Song I remember liking a lot because it's fun and action packed or something.
Worst Song Standalone: One Who Bares Fangs at God.  There's a lot of unmemorable tracks and I might think they're even worse, but ths is the only one I remember disliking.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): The Overworld.  Just to keep things different than above, there are a few I could have picked here, but Overworld feels like it loses more out of context compared to the others, so I'll give it that.
Worst Song In Context: One Who Bares Fangs at God.  So we have a final boss theme that is...bland and uninspired and just a lot of bleeps and bloops with an occasional chant? Sure, this isn't as bad as Chrono Cross legitimately lacking a Final Boss theme at all, but seriously, this is not how I want to end the gameplay portion of a game.

Overall Impression of OST: There's a few good tracks but a lot of forgettable ones too.  So many "Whatever" songs.
Final Rating: 5/10.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: Mm, Xenogears is definitely a context soundtrack to me... most of the things I want to say here, I'd rather say in the category below! Let's copy Meeple and go with Fuse, though - that track is just so much fun. In-game it sells a mood really well, and my only in-game complaint is that it does get used an awful lot... but I can't say I ever got tired of it so whatevs.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Eden of Heaven (Etrenank theme). You've just seen the dark, horrible underbelly of Solaris... and then you get to this joyful little town theme which perfectly reflects the blissful ignorance the Solarian citizens live in.
Worst Song In Context: Stage of Death. I guess it's better than Gale at least.

Other favourites include Flight (generic but good at it), Light from the Netherworld (good atmospheric opening), and The Ancient Dance (more town music hype).

Overall Impression of OST: It's Mitsuda which means you can expect a few really good tracks and for him to drop the ball on the regular battle theme. Still, there's some great setting work here, and some good mood work... a few tracks which I wouldn't really listen to outside the game ever like Omen set a mood very well.

Final Rating: 7/10.

[jsh357]

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: Singing of the Gentle Wind.  This is one of the most peaceful songs in any video game.  Totally fabulous, doesn't fit the game the best, but it's my favorite.

As a general note: I think the more emotional tracks are better than the 'epic' songs in this game, which is probably not everyone's cup of tea but it's something I dig a lot.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): The Wounded Shall Advance into the Light.  All the church-sounding music in the game is great and scenic.
Worst Song In Context: One Who Bares Fangs at God - Echoing everyone else here.  Sooo boring.

Overall Impression of OST: A fantastic soundtrack that, like Chrono Cross's, is far better than the game it's in.  Not 90s Mitsuda's best work, but that's like saying Reeses are worse than Kit Kats.

Final Rating: 8/10.

[Cmdr_King]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

Best Song Standalone:  Silver Will.
Worst Song Standalone:  Moooost of the main theme remixes (Harmonica, Lute, Humming, etc).  They're... just really simple tracks without enough meat to hold up in isolation.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game):  How they walk in Liberl.  Such great map music, been a while since I found one I liked this much.
Worst Song In Context:  To be Suggestive.  Way weaker than the standard battle theme, about the only game I can think of that's true of.

Overall Impression of OST:  Very few true standouts I think, but the incidental music is universally really good.  Hard to rate as such- I mean, I'm listening to the whole OST to actually remember songs for this, and really liking it, but at the same time I should probably remember something that's not Silver Will without the prod...
Final Rating: 6/10.


Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: oooh.  Um.  Into the Sky?  The Blue Traveller?  Two Small of Pieces?  Something in there.
Worst Song Standalone:  Solaris, Eden of the Skies.  Loses all value without context to me.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game):  All of it?  No?  Triple then.  The Treasure Which Cannot Be Stolen, October Mermaid, and One Who Bares Fangs At God.
Worst Song In Context:  Stage of Death.  Yeah not a song that I want to hear every ~3 minutes in a dungeon.

Overall Impression of OST: Mmm.  Raises an interesting question for me; am I rating these as OSTs, and lending more weight to context, or rating these as music, and lending more weight to stand alone?  I lean towards the latter, and thus...
Final Rating: 9/10

[Sierra]

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: June Mermaid. Mitsuda does sad very well.
Worst Song Standalone: Solaris, Eden of Heaven. Absolutely does not work without context.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): The One Who Is Torn Apart. Nicely understated for a psychic manifestation of violence.
Worst Song In Context: Flight. I mention this one because I heard the OST before playing the game and rather liked this track. Then I played the game and found that this song is first used for giant pink hamster transformation sequence. Dammit, Chu-chu!

Overall Impression of OST: The synth quality, while not bad, does make the OST sound like a relic for its dominance over all other instrumentation. Fortunately, the composition is routinely solid. A few tracks get beaten into your head in-game, and they're not necessarily the best ones either, but the soundtrack is very emotive when it needs to be. Apparently I'm alone in not actually minding One Who Bares Fangs at God? It starts out sounding like it's going to go somewhere, at least. It just needed to, you know, actually do that. Still beats the pants off of blaring noise like the regular battle theme, though.
Final Rating: 7/10.

[Niu]

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: Within the Fence of Regret and Peacefulness. Among one of the best video game track I've heard. It is this track that elevated my opinion on Mitsuda into a brand new high. The despair and faith are delivered together in a bundle of bitterness. This track still sends goosebumps over my spine whenever I listen to it.
BTW, to me this is also a sign on Mitsuda's decline in his composition skill. The way he destroyed this masterpiece with his own hand in the -Myth- album is simply intolerable. I was wailing in agony at how soulless it sounds.
Also, honorable mention to October Mermaid, another track that I can loop over 3 hours without getting grated by it.
Worst Song Standalone: Solaris, Eden of Heaven. Yeah, it simply does not work as a stand alone.

Best Song In Context : Within the Fence of Regret and Peacefulness. I blame the failure of Disc2. The way the downfall of Nissan was rushed absolutely does not justice to this track.
Worst Song In Context: Knight of Lotus. Using this track on every gear boss fight is among the most stupid decision made in the game. A couple of fight was made really dumb and awkward thanks to it.

Overall Impression of OST: Solid composition, used fittingly in game. But the tend to shove the less inspiring ones into the player's face. But really no flaws that I truly want to complain about, but just lack something that can make feel this is amazing. (It could have if justice was done to Within the Fence of Regret and Peacefulness)
Final Rating: 8/10.

[SnowFire]

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: Small Two of Pieces.  Awakening (Deus battle music), Emotions (world map), & June Mermaid all get hype as well.
Worst Song Standalone: Steel Giant?  It's just generic.

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Light from the Netherworld & Omen (both variations on the same tune) both do "foreboding" incredibly well.  Unsettling can be a hard theme to hit perfectly, and those nail it.
Worst Song In Context: Invasion.  One of the weakest pieces on the soundtrack + overused like crazy.  (Lots of stuff ends up overused due to XG's length, but most notable here.)

Overall Impression of OST: Xenogears & FF8 were the two soundtracks that got me into listening VG soundtracks outside of the game.  It's weird because I went into XG as antihyped for its soundtrack - a friend of mine called it super-overrated, hated the saxophone solo in Small Two of Pieces, etc., but it grew on me anyway, and holds up very well upon some repeat listenings.  There's a reason so many of the tracks got remixed a bunch; plenty of stuff like Flight, Grahf Emperor of Darkness, & Faraway Promise are all great too, and even the middle pieces of the soundtrack can be kinda catchy (I rather liked Knight of Fire, the boss theme, at least).  And XG plot gets the demerit for having the Chuansformation interrupt the Seibzhen / Acthzen showdown, not Mitsuda.  Anyway, this is a soundtrack that works great as just a soundtrack to me and doesn't need the in-context hype so much anyway.  Probably Mitsuda's best.
Final Rating: 9/10

[Talaysen]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

Best Song Standalone: Sophisticated Fight

Final Rating: 8/10

Xenogears

Best Song Standalone: Small Two of Pieces

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Flight.  Emotions is good too.

Final Rating: 6/10

[Cmdr_King]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky- 4 raters, 6.5 average.

Valkyria Chronicles


Best Song Standalone:
Worst Song Standalone:

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game):
Worst Song In Context:

Overall Impression of OST:
Final Rating:

[Cmdr_King]

Valkyria Chronicles

Best Song Standalone: Beautiful Gallia
Worst Song Standalone:

Best Song In Context (ie, song used the best in-game): Hard Fight
Worst Song In Context:

Overall Impression of OST:  More or less stock Sakimoto really.  Nothing super memorable in it: had to pull up an OST to find much really, but I guess I didn't find anything objectionable either.
Final Rating: 5/10