Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles X - OT

Some songs just sound better when complementing a battle. Beyoneta's music for example.

You wouldn't really think it would fit battling enemies so perfectly.

I just hope that awesome song from the E3 2013 trailer is somewhere in there.

The battle theme is... different. Not sure how I feel about knowing that the TV is going to be blasting rap music at me intermittently through the majority of the time I play the game. At least it's not too hard on the ears.

Still, every time I see this game, it just looks utterly fantastic..

Not sure how I feel about the battle theme. The music is great, but the rapping is... decent. It's leagues better than a lot of the rap we hear today. Reminds me of the early 2000s rock/rap. It gives me a Linkin Park vibe honestly. I think it'll grow on me eventually.

The other track is incredible.

The rapping in the battle theme reminds me of some music from Persona, and that's a good and bad thing... It's a good thing because fits the flow of the battle theme, and it's a bad thing because some of the lyrics are cheesy...

Have to say I don't really like either of these pieces. The battle theme sounds very bland and generic to me, and the rapping is pretty cringe-worthy. People in the comments keep citing Persona/TWEWY as examples of where rapping has been implemented well, and they are correct in that respect, but that doesn't mean this is any good. Its not that rap is inherently bad, but this is just... ugh. Track 4 sounds alright; I like the bass intro and it really begins to improve when the strings are introduced, but I can't say I care much for the recurring choral accompaniment which Sawano seems to forcefully and distastefully shove into practically every single one of his compositions nowadays.

TL;DR - I miss Yoko Shimomura/ ACE+

interesting. Turning a Bart howard written song originally sung by Frank Sinatra into a battle theme......I could dig it....sorta.

@Blaze I feel as though ACE+ would have struggled to make a OST that fits this game. Xenoblade's music honestly wouldn't fit Xenoblade X at all. One's fantasy, the other is sci fi.

You didn't think Xenoblade Chronicles was Sci Fi?

It was to an extent, but it still had a very strong fantasy element to it. Xenoblade X is evidently far more sci fi than Xenoblade was.

I think music in the style of Attack on Titan's soundtracks fits pretty well. I mean, that blend of acoustic and techno sound worked in basically a straight fantasy setting, so it'll surely work for XCX, which seems to be straight sci fi.

The battle theme isn't even bad. The rapper's flow is terrible, but aside from how corny they are the lyrics aren't too bad, and the instrumentation is great. The singer's decent too. Also, this isn't directed at anyone in particular, but I see the "I miss Yoko Shimomura" line a lot, and I don't really get it. She did like ten tracks out of a 90-odd track OST, and Time to Fight is worse to me than this.

I will say that nearly everything in the anime this person's done is way better in context than outside. DON'T LOSE YOUR WAAAAAAAAY is not actually that great on its own but while watching Kill la Kill it is the best thing.

These are obviously very loosely defined genres but I would strongly place Xenoblade Chronicles in the fantasy genre. Of course, I'd also place Star Wars in the fantasy genre. Which people tend to react against because they're used to thinking space=sci-fi.

My general kind of catch-all definition of whether something counts as sci-fi or fantasy is whether this concept could plausibly exist within our own universe (either elsewhere in the universe or in the past or future of humanity). Star Trek could conceivably exist in a hypothetical future as it's largely based on speculative ideas in current science. Star Wars is very unlikely to exist in our universe because the concept of "the force" is essentially made-up magic. I haven't finished Xenoblade Chronicles yet so I couldn't say for certain, but based on what I'd played it didn't seem like this was being proposed as something that could ever really happen. There's magic and robot gods and sentient swords that can cut metal but not skin etc etc.

Most of Aldnoah Zero's music is pretty great on its own, imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Apdfz4HNrY Isn't terrible, (it isn't great, either) but unless there are 10 more battle themes this song will become the worst song in existence, if you play XCX for more than 10 hours, that is. Sustained repetition makes all decent music awful; that's what happened to 'Dog Days are Over' for me. I just hate that song now because some idiot disc jockey (or in this case, music director) decided that it would be cool to have the same song play every 20 minutes for weeks and weeks.

I feel as though the battle theme will sound a lot better when actually playing the game.

Edit: There's also a chance there's a purely instrumental version of the song.

She doesn't have to have composed the vast majority of the soundtrack in order for people to miss her; its about the quality of the tracks she composed, not the quantity. Shimomura composed most of the pieces I really loved in XC (the main theme, unfinished battle, both Colony 9 themes, etc) alongside ACE+, who composed a lot of my personal favourites too. I think it's a reasonable thing to say.

Also, in response to the difficulties in composing for XCX's sci-do setting, I can see why you may think that, but in all honesty I think the composers of XC's soundtrack have demonstrated a sufficient enough degree of versatility to compose for a different setting - I couldn't really see them having huge amounts of trouble. I also think that reasoning is slightly fallacial because - in my own experience - it's hard to imagine any game with a different soundtrack, because you become accustomed to the original tracks and thus can't really see it any other way since the music itself often inflicts heavily upon how you view the in-game world.

But at the end of the day, Sawano is composing the OST, so I'll just keep holding out hope that he composes some better battle themes in the future. Some more real instrumentation would be a good starting point in my opinion~

I hope a Link amiibo activates a Link costume!

What a great idea! I think it'd look like this;

"Why so serious..."

Hahahaha. I would like to see Cross in a Link costume just for fun. Even a Samus costume and Captain Falcon costume would be epic for me.