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Of course this works under the premise that acting is a profession, which some disagree with.

If you like FFIV: Celtic Moon, please consider:

Xenogears Creid by Millennial Fair. This is possibly one of my favorite albums of all time.

http://www.rpgfan.com/soundtracks/xeno-creid/index.html

Kind of to your original point though, I think the music for FFX was pretty much perfect, and not just Nobuo Uematsu's stand-out songs (like the "Zanarkand" themes), but the spice added in by his co-composers (Junya Nakano, Masashi Hamauzu). I love the haunting orchestral and the poppy, upbeat stuff.

You've got to give Nobuo his props!

(And since I'm probably not going to post in this thread again, basically all Castlevania music (ever!) has to be on the list, so it's going to be quite a bit longer than just 12. Let me also give a nod to some hometown heros (well, close enough to play for the UNF crowd): The Neskimos. Enjoy their work whenever you get the chance. I was pretty elated to see they made it to the most recent PAX!)

Have you played a mmorpg before?

I can't tell if your just being sarcastic or not. People aren't modding you funny though, so I'm not the only one who thinks you at least *might* be serious.

The combat system sucks - it actually has a window that says things like "You hit the wolf for two points of damage". It felt like going back in time to the 80's.

Par for the course:

World of Warcraft:
http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/wow/wow3.jpg

"Your Shoot Bow hits Onyxia for 92."
"Onyxia suffers 99 Nature damage from Bryna's Serpent Sting." ...

EQ2
http://www.jeffmaloneshirtlesspvp.com/images/EQ2_0 04330.jpg

"Tynsil's Mark of Nobility heals Doobers for 43 hit points."
"Udaho's Ghastly Shroud regenerates 133 points of absorption." ...

Personally I don't think it is "polished gameplay" if you try, for instance, trying to do something like shoot a sheep with your crossbow only to receive an error message - yes, really! an error message saying something like "disallowed action".

So you aren't allowed to shoot the sheep, big deal. They aren't 'opponents' or 'killable creatures', they're just animated background, like a torch, or tree.

And calling that an "error message"? What is it supposed to say when you perform a disallowed action?
Did you also complain when you tried to lockpick a goblin?

And although the world is big, you can't really explore it - you can't open doors unless they are part of the plot, you can't smash crates or barrels or whatever to see what is inside them, you even can't fight the NPCs or animals unless it is part of the plot.

Go play everquest one. It lets you really explore. Of course, the moment you step into the side room the YOU-hating level 65 shadowknight leader was sitting in he executes you on the spot. Or when you get sent to see so-and-so, you can spend 3 hours checking nearly every room in the city, only to find out after much frustration that so-and-so only comes out at night, and he walks around too, and if you don't catch up to him in time his path takes him right to the level 65 shadowknight -- who kills him. (And you too if you happen to be nearby.)

Modern MMORPGs got rid of all that stuff because a lot of players complained bitterly about how it wasn't fair. All that open 'Exploration' was wasting time when looking for things, perpetually getting them lost, and often getting them killed. They wanted maps, and waypoints so they couldn't get lost. They wanted higher level aggressive mobs to be well marked, and far away. They didn't want to open doors and find BIG THINGS that could and would kill them.

So they got what they wanted.

Its sad really.

A true orchestral rendering of the excellent Eternal Arcadia OST.

Unless there's an orchestral video game music album from 1987 or before, it appears that the somewhat more obscure 'Ys' is the series which holds that honour.

The CD 'Symphony Ys' was originally released in 1988 (with reprintings in 1993 and 1999) - one year before the 'Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite' album (the '02202002' soundtrack) was released.

Either way, though, the BBC article should really have mentioned that orchestral game music performances have been around since the late 1980s and early 1990s - and not just in Japan, either, as 1992's 'Walkuere Story FOR ORCHESTRA' (a performance of arranged music from Namco's 'Valkyrie no Densetsu'/'The Legend of Valkyrie'), performed by the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, demonstrates.

Dragon Quest VIII: Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi will be released in Japan on November 27th for 8,800 yen ($84.45 US).

I saw it coming too... Another sign was Sakaguchi leaving Square to create Mist Walker. Sakaguchi had expressed a desire to work with old pal Yoshitaka Amano, so I figured that a collaboration with Uematsu wouldn't that far behind, as well. Uematsu going freelance would give him the possibility to work with Sakaguchi without him burning bridges with Square. Chances are Mist Walker's first project will have Uematsu onboard.

(and that said, I wouldn't be surprised if Uemeatsu collaborated in Final Fantasy XIII - Square has no problems working with freelance composers).

A word of warning: the album mentioned above sucks. Big time. I wish I had read these reviews before wasting my money... (and yes, it is the same album - "Perform the Music of Nobuo Uematsu" is "A Musical Tribute" repackaged and with one extra and sucky track).

You'd be much better with "The N Generation" and "The S Generation" albums - compilations of songs from several arranged japanese albums. They were domestic releases, so finding them at decent prices through eBay is not too hard. Heck, I've seen new copies of them in my local SamGoodie: look for them in the soundtrack section.

If that doesn't work, then your best shot is going to Animenation.com or some other import store and look for the compilation albums. lav-chan's suggestions are pretty good (I'd go with 20020220).

Orchestral Game Concert, Volume 1.

There were five volumes in the series, and they're all incredibly good; sadly, they're also all out of print and very hard to find.

I think this sumarizes both sides of the argument fairly well. It doesn't look to be a profitable market area; not yet at least. Nintendo's gotten more out of the Link Cable via Pokemon.

I think that's a very good point. The interesting thing is that, despite their track record, they got signed with Microsoft to do a first-party title. It's a little mystifying, considering their background.

Actually, here's a preview of Citizen Zero, which is the former PC title that their Xbox game is likely to be at least partially based on.

Being a diehard video game music fan I tried to find the soundtrack to an old saturn rpg called Albert Odyssey : Legend of Eldean. I wouldn't have even known it existed if I hadn,t stumbled upon this site.

Of corse I did find the Breath of Fire 2 soundtrack and the Dragon Force 2 soundtrack there so maybe it will turn up some day

Actually, with a little hunting around on Google, I found: this series of shots.

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