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Kingdom Hearts II Original Soundtrack :: Review by Shimomura Fan
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Album Title | Kingdom Hearts II Original Soundtrack |
| Record Label: | Toshiba EMI | |
| Catalog No.: | TOCT-25871/2 | |
| Release Date: | January 25, 2006 | |
| Purchase: | Buy at CDJapan |
Overview
When I first heard that there was going to be an original soundtrack for Kingdom Hearts II, I was excited just like a lot of other people. But when I finally got what I waited for, I was very disappointed.
Body
The music in the Kingdom Hearts II Original Soundtrack displays an utter decrease in the quality of Yoko Shimomura's talented pieces. The album is filled to the brim with impossibly short tracks that, when played altogether, gives the entire album a sense of discordancy as it, for example, suddenly jumps from a mournful and beautiful piece to a rapid and harsh tune. Even worse, some of the best pieces of the soundtrack are the shortest. "Tension Rising" is my personal favorite, but it drives me mad that it is only 1:34 long.
On top of the incredible shortness of these tracks, the quality of most of them is frustrating. Either they are "better" arrangements of music from Kingdom Hearts or even Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories or they just don't seem needed at all. Some are very short random pieces that are played only once throughout the entire game, and, when played on the soundtrack itself, it leaves you wondering what the pieces could have replaced the one you just heard. However, the most deplorable aspect of nearly all of the music is the lack of the beautiful orchestral performances that characterized the first Kingdom Hearts soundtrack. The only times I hear any real instruments are at the beginning and end of the soundtrack. The rest is full of horrid synthesizers and horrid vocals.
One thing I found interesting interesting in all of this is the fact that some pieces from the game are actually not in the soundtrack. It's as if the people who made this soundtrack decided to just make this soundtrack as cheap as possible by not only slimming down the music they decided to keep, but also throwing away perfectly acceptable music. Some of the tunes that are not there include "HIKARI - KINGDOM Orchestra Instrumental Version" (also heard in the first game), "Treasured Memories" (again heard in the first game), and the music heard when fighting in the Underworld Coloseum. I still don't know why in the world they did not think to put the myriad of tunes in Kingdom Hearts II on three discs instead of two...
Although there are many negative things weighing down this soundtrack, the gold still shines through in the end. Somewhat. The instrumentals heard at the beginning and the end, like in "Passion - KINGDOM Orchestra Instrumental Version -" and "Fantasia alla marcia for piano, chorus, and orchestra", along with Utada Hikaru's beautiful voice in both versions of the Japanese "Passion", make this soundtrack worthy of at least checking out. The overall emotions brought out by some of the better themes on this soundtrack aren't so bad, too
Summary
In conclusion, there are, unfortunately, more negative things about this soundtrack than positive. Most of the pieces are impossibly short and full of bad synthesizers and vocals. There are even some pieces from the game missing! However, despite the bad, the good includes some very nice orchestral pieces and Utada Hikaru never fails listeners with her vocals. All in all, this soundtrack isn't very good, so it's worth checking out the box set version instead.
