@@buttertoast1146 bro probably saw the sky turning white while fishing and went like "Well shit, maybe i shouldn't have gone for the bro fist after al-"
That's gonna full on destroy me, as if the rejection didn't tug at enough heartstrings. But, given the fact that Van is the one who reacts strongest, it makes you wonder if in actuality, it was Van who didn't know the answer at the time
Falcom has A LOT of questions to answer. The word "reset" is gonna scar me for a little while. I admit after watching the ending, I couldn't sleep well because of all the uncertainty bombarding in my mind.
@@chauvikien Septerrion of Time says "0, Grand Reset starting" Agnes says "0, Grand Reset rebuilding" so youre right. Instead of resetting all the way back to Year 0 she hacked it with the Geneses to only go back a year or so to around Daybreak 1 time in 1208.
WHY FALCOM, JUST WHY?! In all honesty, I have a feeling they are already working on the next game and that it may only take them a year to finish like what happened with Cold Steel IV after Cold Steel III.
Apparently they are planning on releasing a DLC episode focusing on Van that they teased after the credits for the game that's supposed to tie both it and the next game together. We just have to wait until they finish it, and the Sky Remake too.
I don't know where you're getting this misinformation, but DLC was deconfirmed a long time ago and Kondo stated more than once that they're working on a sequel, not a DLC
Okay the shiroi sekai literally meant we are going to make you cry like babies just like when 2b died Falcom wtf Kondo san feeling is something but, then this song damn.... 😢
So, I have just finished Kai no Kiseki. I have a lot of thoughts about the soundtrack and the game itself which I’ll write below. Since I’ll be discussing the context of certain tracks, there will be SPOILERS for the entire game below, so do not read this if you want to experience it for yourself. (EDIT: MASSIVE TWO-PART COMMENT INCOMING!) First off, my feelings about the soundtrack. When I listened to the OST mini preview, I was disappointed, and thought this would end up being terrible. Well, I’m happy to say this is easily the best Calvard game OST. It’s not on the level of Falcom soundtracks a decade ago, but this is one of the better ones in the post-Singa era. Before I break down the composers below, I want to express just how much of a fucking travesty the OST mini preview is. They either hand-picked the worst sections you could possibly extract from the tracks to give a “sampler” of (Battle Junction, Kevin Graham), or picked themes that have barely any relevance in-game whatsoever (Scorching Sand Dance, Anchor in the Dark). Battle Junction and especially Kevin Graham have phenomenal intros that you don’t get to hear on the preview, and the choruses of these tracks are not interesting enough to stand alone, imo. They also barely play in-game, tragically. Scorching Sand Dance is an incidental dance theme, and Anchor in the Dark plays once during a dungeon. They don’t even stand out much in-game; what were they thinking? The rest of the tracks on the mini preview were decent though, especially Farewell, My Dear. But enough about those themes, you’re here to hear me talk about the rest of the soundtrack, aren’t you? Let’s break it down by composer. Before I begin, I have not looked at the spreadsheet since the final Dengeki stream, and have not visited the Falcom Music Channel or even listened to Falcom music since last Monday, when I was preparing to play the game. This was to ensure that I could get an unclouded, clear vision of the soundtrack, without knowing the composer ratios, who is credited in-game, that my knowledge of other soundtracks would not interfere with this one, etc. I am currently writing this in Word as well, and will probably post this on either the opening theme or credits theme video. Now, let’s begin! So, Hayato Sonoda. He honestly did an amazing job here, special mentions to that Enforcers remix. He continues to have the greatest sense of contextuality in his music. Even his re-used tracks from the previous Kuro games fit well within the story events they play for here. His music accurately portrays the tension that the writers are trying to convey with the Calvard games, something that I believe, was what the Cold Steel games failed to. He understands the importance of this game and does his absolute best to do it justice. His electric guitar mixing is significantly improved from the previous games, noticeable in things like the Garden boss theme, and a certain endgame event theme. It becomes even more transparent when his pinch theme from Kuro 2 (I think? Not too familiar with Kuro 2’s OST…) plays for certain events, such as the raid on the dark town (Modern F-Corp music assignment; using a pinch theme for a significant raid instead of something like Omen in Azure lmfao). Overall, Sonoda continues to be soul. Far better showing here than his previous works. Other favourite works include the nighttime theme (which actually made me tear up when it first played), and the one where he uses the White World motif (first Singa track reference in an internal member’s track???). Next is Shuntaro Koguchi. He continues to bring some very fresh tunes. It seemed as though new music of his was popping up constantly early on, but towards the end his contributions fizzled out. Regardless, his music, both old and new, has a constant presence in the game. Along with Sonoda, he continues to represent Calvard well. His music here is also really emotional; it’s like he knows what was going to happen at the end of the game, and crafted his music specifically to set the tone for the game as a whole. This is best exemplified with his title theme; when you first boot-up the game, it’s a familiar and warm, yet slightly sad feeling track. When you return back to the title after the finale, you now see and understand why that sad feeling exists. Furthermore, the quality of his tracks are much higher than what the OST mini preview would lead you to believe; Kevin Graham has a phenomenal opening that isn’t heard there. And although it doesn’t play much in game, when it does play it hits very well, such as the boss fight against Kevin/when he uses both of his Stigmas, and as the normal battle theme for the second part of the Creil Ruins; Kevin’s final dungeon. Other standouts include the new Downtown Edith theme (which feels like a culmination of the previous themes that stays relevant to the game’s tone), the theme commonly used at the end of bonding events, the Garden battle theme, and of course, Farewell, My Dear. Now for Yukihiro Jindo. I can summarise his work here in just one simple word; great. It doesn’t reach the heights of his Kuro 1 works imo, but they are still awesome pieces that accompany the dramatic moments well enough. Unfortunately, likely due to his nature as an outsourcer, his themes here don’t really feel like they were “meant” for the specific, dramatic setpieces they play for; instead going for an easily digestible, “wide-applicability” approach. As a result, they don’t really stand out in-game as much as they should. Although this is nothing new for Falcom outsourcers, I felt it was more apparent here than in previous games. Fortunately, though I have not checked the spreadsheet for the composer ratio, he certainly does more new tracks here than Ys X; I would not be surprised if he has more than twice the amount of works here than he does in that game. My favourite tracks of his here include And Then, to Space, The Nagano track the plays for Rean’s finale in the Longlai Mountains, the final dungeon theme (as per usual), and the pre-final boss battle theme, the track that plays for the 4v4 against Kincaid, Kasim, Alexandre, and Viola. As an aside though, I have a question; do Nagano and Teramae not work together anymore or something? The last game they were featured together in was in Reverie, and as far as I remember there wasn’t a track where they performed together. Maybe they did in Ys 35th? I honestly don’t remember that well, correct me if I’m wrong. Finally, the one we’ve all been waiting for; Mitsuo Singa. I am very surprised to say that this is probably the most positive I’ve been about his music, where his works as a whole here are simply unremarkable. There isn’t anything here that is completely abysmal like in the previous two Kuro games, but again, nothing that I could call “good”. This game features probably the best sound/arrangement quality he’s ever had, but the compositions themselves don’t do anything interesting, are constantly meandering and either loop far too quickly or end before reaching any sort of satisfying conclusion; essentially the standard Singa fare. It’s clear that because he composes at least 3 tracks a week, his compositions never really receive the care necessary to truly become anything phenomenal or even inspiring. Undoubtedly because of this, he has the most tracks in the game, I don’t even need to check the spreadsheet to discern this to be true. And I must give Singa praise; I only received a headache from only a couple of his songs here, instead of literally every other track like previous works of his. I know I sound cheeky here, but I’m being genuine; anything impressive (for him) sound/arrangement-wise he does here is undone by the fact that his compositions are barebones and boring. It doesn’t matter what kind of fancy tricks you use in a track; if the underlying composition sucks, then it can never be salvaged, because there is no substance to it whatsoever; regardless of how sophisticated the sound quality is, or how many fancy tricks you want to use, or whether it uses live instrumentation or not... (cont. in comment because of how fucking long this is RUclips wouldn't let me post lmfao)
...Why do you think Unisuga tended to consistently have less tracks per-game than his co-workers? It’s because he gives his tracks the time and care needed to make them truly flourish; he cares about “quality” over “quantity”. What I’m getting with this, is that Singa will _never_, _EVER_ get better, unless he starts composing less tracks. Sonoda did far, far too much work on the soundtracks of CS3/CS4, and it really shows there with how much lower the quality is compared to his usual. We would have better soundtracks if Falcom either stopped dunking a significant portion of the tracks on one person, simply had more composers, distributed their workload better, and/or just didn’t pad out soundtracks with needless filler. Sonoda easily does the largest chunk of the soundtrack for Zero no Kiseki, but what makes him better there than in CS3/CS4? There are three reasons; a) he worked with a great _TEAM_ that collaborates very well together. b) though the composer ratio isn’t perfectly even, each composer is able to fulfill their “role” well, with Sonoda and Momiyama doing a higher quantity of simpler tracks and Unisuga and Osaki doing the more complex, higher quality composition and/or arrangement tracks. This ensures all tracks are at least of good quality, even the incidental ones. c) although there are many tracks on the album, about 75, there’s no filler, or tracks that were made simply to pad out the album. Each song has a “reason” to exist, whether that be all-purpose incidental themes or a one-time dramatic event theme. This approach led to great results all around. I’m bringing this up because the way composers are utilized in modern soundtracks are that Falcom expects them to be able to do everything all in the same soundtrack, the internal team is not nearly as cohesive as back then, and you can outright remove tracks from some modern albums without negatively affecting its quality. Besides, having one composer do a significant portion of the soundtrack worked back in the days of Brandish 3, where FM tracks were simple enough to compose that the sound team had _hundreds_ of unused music for stuff like Brandish 2 and The Legend of Xanadu, but it doesn’t now with modern day synth. Basically, Kato, Ishikawa and co. need to get their shit together and stop spitting upon their sound team who’s responsible for creating such wonderful music that brought so many people to discover Falcom to begin with, in favour of cheap outsourcing. Now, before I move on to the next point, there were some Singa tracks I thought were standouts; the rainy day theme, although sounded kinda weird (especially in-game), is decent enough. There are two battle themes of his that stood out to me; there’s this “Destruction Impulse at home” kinda track with female choir at the beginning. It plays during some of the demonic battles, and I thought was interesting, despite the track never really going anywhere. The Remnant battle theme with Yoshida on guitar, though, was pretty okay. Yoshida gives the track a lot of extra oomph the Singa’s tracks usually lack; I do get the feeling that it’s a vitally important track, and fit decently with the epic battles it accompanies. There’s also the Shizuna/Yun Ka-fai boss theme, which has a good intro, but again fails to go anywhere interesting, even though it does fit somewhat. His vocal ending theme is also probably my favourite vocal theme of his. Now, aren’t we forgetting someone? That’s right, I believe Takahiro Unisuga has a small role to play here. First is his “route selection” theme, the one that some were confused if it was him or Koguchi. Well, now that I’ve played the game, I am sure it is Unisuga. It calls back to his route selection theme from Hajimari, Crossing Causal Lines with its in-game usage. It is also used as an event theme, despite its short loop. It doesn’t really bother me though, since it’s more of an ambient track with less of a focus on melody, and more on feeling. Fits pretty well with the events it plays in. But there’s another track I believe is him, one that completely shocked me when I first played. I only say it's him because I cannot believe any other composer did this: it’s the final boss theme. I was absolutely fucking floored when this first played, both from the shock of the in-game reveals, but also how it’s like Unisuga came back to compose this sole track. I don’t believe this is a leftover, even considering that it’s less sophisticated than say, Majestic Roar or The Decisive Collision. But the overall composition/arrangement still is representative of him, and his Friedlander violin is easily recognisable. This track gives me just the slightest bit of hope he’ll be back in full force someday, and is one of my favourites in the soundtrack; the entire final battle itself is outright insane, and this track gives it the weight it deserves. Once again, Unisuga brings extremely high-quality work to the soundtrack, even if it is only two tracks. But like I said, quality over quantity, and that is Unisuga’s MO. Next, let’s talk about the in-game music assignments. It’s honestly really weird. Remember when I mentioned Sonoda’s Kuro II pinch theme being used for a city raid, a la Chapter 4 of Ao? I don’t think I need to tell you how strange that sounds on paper, and in execution it’s even worse. I legitimately don’t know if this raid is meant to be some truly earth-shattering event, because the music makes it seem like just some generic monster attack instead of, you know, people becoming crazy cultists and burning the city down. Imagine if, instead of Omen in Ao Chapter 4, Stand Up Battle Formation! played instead. Not fitting at all. And then there are tracks that either play way too much, or barely at all. Did Battle Junction even play past the Prologue? I think maybe once? Whilst you get generic Singa mid-boss theme every other battle. Also, I was under the impression that the Shizuna/Yun Ka-fai battle theme was for them specifically, but it plays in unrelated scenarios at the end. The music assignments are decent most of the time, but you have some really bad, stand-out situations like these. Can’t think of more right now, so I’ll stop here. Overall, despite Singa and some strange placement decisions, my feelings of this soundtrack lean towards positive. Koguchi and Sonoda synchronise far better together here than in the previous Kuro games as well as turn in some high quality work, Jindo does a good amount of music and they always enhance important scenes, and Singa as a whole performs better here than his other recent Kiseki works. However, compared to the first seven Kiseki games, this soundtrack is still far inferior than them, but ever since CS3 I’ve come to expect that. I just wish Falcom cared enough to give us another soundtrack on the level of those games. Since this is already a massive comment, I’ll only quickly go over my thoughts on the game itself. It’s a great game, and my biggest issue with it isn’t even about the game itself, but rather how Falcom marketed it. It was a blast to play from start to finish, and I liked the pacing far more than Kuro 2. I respect how they kept Van the main character here by giving his route the most focus compared to Rean and Kevin. Now, my biggest complaint; it was said that this game would answer the mysteries of Zemuria and wrap up the Calvard arc. Now I know for certain to never trust another word Kondo says, because it only somewhat accomplishes the former and spectacularly fails the latter. In case you’re wondering, it ends with a CS3-esque cliffhanger with a tease for a sequel at the end. So basically, Calvard’s getting another game, bringing it up to par with the number of Cold Steel games. It answers some questions, such as the barrier around the planet itself as well as the Sept-Terrion of Time, but now we’re left with questions about stuff like the Grand Reset, alternate timelines, time travel, alternate timelines PLUS time travel, where the fuck do we go after the entire universe is reset by Agnès, etc. Essentially, more questions are posed than answers, and we’re getting Kai 2 in at least another two years. This has happened every arc: Sky was meant to be one game but was split into two and got a bridge game. Ditto with Crossbell. Cold Steel was meant to end with 3 and it got extended to 4, and now the same has happened with Calvard. It seems Falcom just can’t help themselves, huh? But yeah, it’s a great game once again marred by false advertising. It’s in my top 5, maybe even third on the list behind 3rd and Zero, though I wouldn’t put it on the same tier as those games. I do anticipate the next game, but I need a break from Trails, lol. If you’ve read this far, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read this long-ass essay lmao. I had a lot of thoughts playing through and wanted to write them all down, so I do appreciate it. If you think the soundtrack is best best Kiseki soundtrack ever made, then kudos to you; don’t let me stop you from enjoying it. If you think it’s the worst Kiseki soundtrack ever made, again, you’re welcome to trash it. For me, it’s in-between; it isn’t abysmal like Kuro 1, but it doesn’t reach the heights of the first seven games in the series. We’re all entitled to our own opinions/thoughts, and that’s okay. I’ll also make some individual comments on each of the tracks in a couple of days, since I want to rest from this game for a bit. Now then, I really should end this, I’ve written more than 3000 words 😅. With that, have a wonderful day/evening/night! 😊
I prefer that some of Singa tracks in this game are "barebone", because it feels like he actually has constraint in this game. Usually Singa have some ideas for a part of a track, or just the chorus, then he will shove some random unfitted filler or padding into his tracks when he is out of idea. For example, the weird synth solo at the end of Non-negotiable Line, a bazillion tracks in Reverie just randomly have sax in them for some reason, pirate mode in Bold Assailant,... He still does that in this game, much i "think" that he does that less in this game. While that results in some track has a short loop, i agree, but like the Remnant battle theme is kinda barebone composition wise, i'm sure that the usual Singa will have some weird loud synth plays under the guitar, a random unrelated section before loop,...and just makes the track worse. His works in this game usually end where i expected it to end. But his works in this game is undoubtedly much more pleasant on the ear than his usual. Yeah, maybe his 500th generic event theme has nothing noticeable about it, but it's not annoying to hear on loop and that great for the dude who created a built in jumpscare in the Ys X's title theme. His piano or more sedate tracks are great and some tracks of his in this game have genuinely cool idea.
@@AlithinoiDesmoi Really good read, i pretty much agree with most of the points even though i haven't fully heard the soundtrack just yet besides the most well known ones or the ones i heard in the dengeki streams. It's pretty much my favorite soundtrack over the past 5 years easily for me and i'm still quite suprised of how many Jindo's tracks are in Kai.
I like how these long soundtrack reviews at the end of each soundtrack are kinda becoming a tradition lmao. The Kuro OST release had one and I think the Kuro 2 BGM rip had one too. Anyway, to answer your question Nagano and Teramae did play together for the Adol theme'd album, but for non-arrange albums I don't think Falcom provides Jindo enough of a budget each game to hire both anymore.
interesting read all in all Kai probably has my favourite OST since CS4/Reverie. it still doesn't come close to 2012-2017's OSTs for me. but there's a fair amount of stuff I liked that I sorely missed from Ys 10's OST and there's a fair amount of stuff I think is handled better than Kuro 1/2 contextual counterparts on average
I am so exited to see this in the English version! I am now so double happy they casted the actors they did in the English dub! I am 100%sure Amanda and Damien can pertray this scene perfectly if they are directed apropiatly. I also still hold out hope for nisa to publish this game next year if daybreak 2 comes out in February or March and Falcom actually gave nisa the script of kai at this point.
it can also be translated as "for you who will return one day (いつか帰る貴方 | のために)", due to Japanese's ambiguity in fact from what i know, the Chinese translation and Korean translation are also "for you who will return one day"
So if Agnes never existed that means Van would still know Risette and Bergard and would meet Feri shortly after the game begins. Judith could stumble into the group but I’m not sure how the gang would meet up with Aaron or Quatre without time travel memory Ex Machina
I mean, clearly the game is just implying that she's gone. That doesn't mean people won't remember her, nor does it mean they should all of the sudden retcon Kuro 2. Van will DEFINITELY know something is wrong and others will as well. I can just imagine the absolute chaos that could be Kai 2's prologue.
One thing that has been bothering me about the ending is the flashback of the final scene between Agnes and Van on the rooftop. In the credits they're standing in opposite positions, Van touches his neck with his left hand instead of scratching his head with his gloved hand and it looks like they're on the highest rooftop of the building (the one that appears at the end of Elaine's last connect event in Kuro1) instead of the usual rooftop where the intermission ends at. Here's another week of hopefully waiting for some kind of extra chapter DLC...
@@feynevan It has to be a hint of some sort. Very few people have questioned the beginning scenes of Zero, Sen1, Sen3 and how they differ from the same scenes that happen later in each game but it was always something that bugged me personally for years now. The ending of Kai finally answered this puzzle after what, 14 years after the release of Zero in Japan? There's no way Falcom simply overlooked this and got too lazy to fix the inconsistencies between the ending cutscene and the in-game cutscene during the intermission
lol doing 4spg entire game and ended the game like a lot of things haven't said yet, the content should be enough to make the entire game... instead of making cliffhangers ending
![Kai no Kiseki [BGM RIP] - Boss Theme 7](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UNyG3TPFbdo/mqdefault.jpg)
![Kai no Kiseki [BGM RIP] - Boss Theme 7](/img/tr.png)
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
度々聴きにきてしまう
ずっと軌跡シリーズやっているけど今回が一番無力感が残り続けていて、この穏やか曲と悲しいEDで浸ってしまうのよね😌
誰が明確に悪いのではなく、ちょっとしたすれ違いの積み重ねで最悪（あるいは世界にとっては幸い）な展開になった感
良い曲なんだけど聞いてるとエンディングの際の無力感を思い出して泣きたくなる
超良い曲なんだけどエンディングと重なって、、、
次回作の結末見届けるまで正面から受け止められる自信が無い。
お前ら２年後か１年後かしらんけど体も心も元気に前向きにお愛しましょうそしてこの仮想な現実も一緒に打ち破りましょう
These melodic songs of singa's are really good. He should do more.
クリアしてきたわ。
進むに連れて今作で完結する話ではないなとは思ったけど、まさかああなるとは。
次作まじでどういうスタートになるのか気になってしょうがない。
閃3〜閃4の時みたいな。
もうアニエスは出ないことは確定
who or whatever the next final boss is, I am ready to take out my rage on it and save agnes
Latoya and rune when i fucking catch you i swear to god. If this series taught me something is never trust anyone with glasses
바로 ZOC 쓰고 고래 부를거임
@@탁구왕김제빵-w4w when I'm done with them they're gonna have less DEF, ADF, STR and ATS than a level 8 slime in Dirk's memorial park
@@hamsterman5735 what about Lloyd?
@@buttertoast1146 bro probably saw the sky turning white while fishing and went like "Well shit, maybe i shouldn't have gone for the bro fist after al-"
クリアしてから2カ月位経つが曲聴くと本当ダメだわ😢
Agnes sacrifice was the ONE THING I didnt want happening but that commercial with Van screaming AGGGNNNEEEESSS!!! broke my hopes and I was right...
That's gonna full on destroy me, as if the rejection didn't tug at enough heartstrings. But, given the fact that Van is the one who reacts strongest, it makes you wonder if in actuality, it was Van who didn't know the answer at the time
@@fierytigergaming8112 nah he knew the answer, he’s said it many times
@@buttertoast1146 Falcom probably learned from forcing Rean X Alisa then
I like this song
How did you guys have the courage to do this to us?
Falcom has A LOT of questions to answer.
The word "reset" is gonna scar me for a little while.
I admit after watching the ending, I couldn't sleep well because of all the uncertainty bombarding in my mind.
Agnes was saying completely different lines from the box's so there's no doubt she managed to save everyone, in exchange for her own existence.
@@chauvikien Septerrion of Time says "0, Grand Reset starting" Agnes says "0, Grand Reset rebuilding" so youre right. Instead of resetting all the way back to Year 0 she hacked it with the Geneses to only go back a year or so to around Daybreak 1 time in 1208.
Swin, Nadia and Lapis were present when Llyod kindly declined the offer :))
But as long as Agnes comes back in the end, it can be overlooked eh.
2年後決定したな、辛すぎるわ😭
メインキャラ永久離脱するの？… アニエーーース！！！
Absolutely beautiful song and cinematic ending but hoo boy Falcom have some serious answers to give us and SOON
Not over yet,just wait the last chapter of this series
WHY FALCOM, JUST WHY?! In all honesty, I have a feeling they are already working on the next game and that it may only take them a year to finish like what happened with Cold Steel IV after Cold Steel III.
2:23 The melody is so beautiful and sad...😢
Apparently they are planning on releasing a DLC episode focusing on Van that they teased after the credits for the game that's supposed to tie both it and the next game together. We just have to wait until they finish it, and the Sky Remake too.
I don't know where you're getting this misinformation, but DLC was deconfirmed a long time ago and Kondo stated more than once that they're working on a sequel, not a DLC
Definitely my favourite Kiseki ending. I hope Van confesses to Agnes next and then she rejects him 😂
You know, that would be perfect karma. Now we just need to wait for the next game. At least Daybreak II is coming to the west in a few months.
shut the hell up and get your cuck fantasies out of here
This must be the deathflag for her, poor Agnes.
Anyway, I still wanna ship Elaine-Van
卒業式に流れそう...
Okay the shiroi sekai literally meant we are going to make you cry like babies just like when 2b died Falcom wtf Kondo san feeling is something but, then this song damn.... 😢
ああ駄目だ（汗）閃の軌跡Ⅲの二の舞してどうすんの？どうしてもやるなら可能性を残したエンディングにして欲しかった。そして、空の軌跡リメイクよりそっちにして欲しかった。
So, I have just finished Kai no Kiseki. I have a lot of thoughts about the soundtrack and the game itself which I’ll write below. Since I’ll be discussing the context of certain tracks, there will be SPOILERS for the entire game below, so do not read this if you want to experience it for yourself. (EDIT: MASSIVE TWO-PART COMMENT INCOMING!)
First off, my feelings about the soundtrack. When I listened to the OST mini preview, I was disappointed, and thought this would end up being terrible. Well, I’m happy to say this is easily the best Calvard game OST. It’s not on the level of Falcom soundtracks a decade ago, but this is one of the better ones in the post-Singa era. Before I break down the composers below, I want to express just how much of a fucking travesty the OST mini preview is. They either hand-picked the worst sections you could possibly extract from the tracks to give a “sampler” of (Battle Junction, Kevin Graham), or picked themes that have barely any relevance in-game whatsoever (Scorching Sand Dance, Anchor in the Dark). Battle Junction and especially Kevin Graham have phenomenal intros that you don’t get to hear on the preview, and the choruses of these tracks are not interesting enough to stand alone, imo. They also barely play in-game, tragically. Scorching Sand Dance is an incidental dance theme, and Anchor in the Dark plays once during a dungeon. They don’t even stand out much in-game; what were they thinking? The rest of the tracks on the mini preview were decent though, especially Farewell, My Dear. But enough about those themes, you’re here to hear me talk about the rest of the soundtrack, aren’t you? Let’s break it down by composer.
Before I begin, I have not looked at the spreadsheet since the final Dengeki stream, and have not visited the Falcom Music Channel or even listened to Falcom music since last Monday, when I was preparing to play the game. This was to ensure that I could get an unclouded, clear vision of the soundtrack, without knowing the composer ratios, who is credited in-game, that my knowledge of other soundtracks would not interfere with this one, etc. I am currently writing this in Word as well, and will probably post this on either the opening theme or credits theme video. Now, let’s begin!
So, Hayato Sonoda. He honestly did an amazing job here, special mentions to that Enforcers remix. He continues to have the greatest sense of contextuality in his music. Even his re-used tracks from the previous Kuro games fit well within the story events they play for here. His music accurately portrays the tension that the writers are trying to convey with the Calvard games, something that I believe, was what the Cold Steel games failed to. He understands the importance of this game and does his absolute best to do it justice. His electric guitar mixing is significantly improved from the previous games, noticeable in things like the Garden boss theme, and a certain endgame event theme. It becomes even more transparent when his pinch theme from Kuro 2 (I think? Not too familiar with Kuro 2’s OST…) plays for certain events, such as the raid on the dark town (Modern F-Corp music assignment; using a pinch theme for a significant raid instead of something like Omen in Azure lmfao). Overall, Sonoda continues to be soul. Far better showing here than his previous works. Other favourite works include the nighttime theme (which actually made me tear up when it first played), and the one where he uses the White World motif (first Singa track reference in an internal member’s track???).
Next is Shuntaro Koguchi. He continues to bring some very fresh tunes. It seemed as though new music of his was popping up constantly early on, but towards the end his contributions fizzled out. Regardless, his music, both old and new, has a constant presence in the game. Along with Sonoda, he continues to represent Calvard well. His music here is also really emotional; it’s like he knows what was going to happen at the end of the game, and crafted his music specifically to set the tone for the game as a whole. This is best exemplified with his title theme; when you first boot-up the game, it’s a familiar and warm, yet slightly sad feeling track. When you return back to the title after the finale, you now see and understand why that sad feeling exists. Furthermore, the quality of his tracks are much higher than what the OST mini preview would lead you to believe; Kevin Graham has a phenomenal opening that isn’t heard there. And although it doesn’t play much in game, when it does play it hits very well, such as the boss fight against Kevin/when he uses both of his Stigmas, and as the normal battle theme for the second part of the Creil Ruins; Kevin’s final dungeon. Other standouts include the new Downtown Edith theme (which feels like a culmination of the previous themes that stays relevant to the game’s tone), the theme commonly used at the end of bonding events, the Garden battle theme, and of course, Farewell, My Dear.
Now for Yukihiro Jindo. I can summarise his work here in just one simple word; great. It doesn’t reach the heights of his Kuro 1 works imo, but they are still awesome pieces that accompany the dramatic moments well enough. Unfortunately, likely due to his nature as an outsourcer, his themes here don’t really feel like they were “meant” for the specific, dramatic setpieces they play for; instead going for an easily digestible, “wide-applicability” approach. As a result, they don’t really stand out in-game as much as they should. Although this is nothing new for Falcom outsourcers, I felt it was more apparent here than in previous games. Fortunately, though I have not checked the spreadsheet for the composer ratio, he certainly does more new tracks here than Ys X; I would not be surprised if he has more than twice the amount of works here than he does in that game. My favourite tracks of his here include And Then, to Space, The Nagano track the plays for Rean’s finale in the Longlai Mountains, the final dungeon theme (as per usual), and the pre-final boss battle theme, the track that plays for the 4v4 against Kincaid, Kasim, Alexandre, and Viola. As an aside though, I have a question; do Nagano and Teramae not work together anymore or something? The last game they were featured together in was in Reverie, and as far as I remember there wasn’t a track where they performed together. Maybe they did in Ys 35th? I honestly don’t remember that well, correct me if I’m wrong.
Finally, the one we’ve all been waiting for; Mitsuo Singa. I am very surprised to say that this is probably the most positive I’ve been about his music, where his works as a whole here are simply unremarkable. There isn’t anything here that is completely abysmal like in the previous two Kuro games, but again, nothing that I could call “good”. This game features probably the best sound/arrangement quality he’s ever had, but the compositions themselves don’t do anything interesting, are constantly meandering and either loop far too quickly or end before reaching any sort of satisfying conclusion; essentially the standard Singa fare. It’s clear that because he composes at least 3 tracks a week, his compositions never really receive the care necessary to truly become anything phenomenal or even inspiring. Undoubtedly because of this, he has the most tracks in the game, I don’t even need to check the spreadsheet to discern this to be true. And I must give Singa praise; I only received a headache from only a couple of his songs here, instead of literally every other track like previous works of his. I know I sound cheeky here, but I’m being genuine; anything impressive (for him) sound/arrangement-wise he does here is undone by the fact that his compositions are barebones and boring. It doesn’t matter what kind of fancy tricks you use in a track; if the underlying composition sucks, then it can never be salvaged, because there is no substance to it whatsoever; regardless of how sophisticated the sound quality is, or how many fancy tricks you want to use, or whether it uses live instrumentation or not... (cont. in comment because of how fucking long this is RUclips wouldn't let me post lmfao)
...Why do you think Unisuga tended to consistently have less tracks per-game than his co-workers? It’s because he gives his tracks the time and care needed to make them truly flourish; he cares about “quality” over “quantity”. What I’m getting with this, is that Singa will _never_, _EVER_ get better, unless he starts composing less tracks. Sonoda did far, far too much work on the soundtracks of CS3/CS4, and it really shows there with how much lower the quality is compared to his usual. We would have better soundtracks if Falcom either stopped dunking a significant portion of the tracks on one person, simply had more composers, distributed their workload better, and/or just didn’t pad out soundtracks with needless filler. Sonoda easily does the largest chunk of the soundtrack for Zero no Kiseki, but what makes him better there than in CS3/CS4? There are three reasons; a) he worked with a great _TEAM_ that collaborates very well together. b) though the composer ratio isn’t perfectly even, each composer is able to fulfill their “role” well, with Sonoda and Momiyama doing a higher quantity of simpler tracks and Unisuga and Osaki doing the more complex, higher quality composition and/or arrangement tracks. This ensures all tracks are at least of good quality, even the incidental ones. c) although there are many tracks on the album, about 75, there’s no filler, or tracks that were made simply to pad out the album. Each song has a “reason” to exist, whether that be all-purpose incidental themes or a one-time dramatic event theme. This approach led to great results all around. I’m bringing this up because the way composers are utilized in modern soundtracks are that Falcom expects them to be able to do everything all in the same soundtrack, the internal team is not nearly as cohesive as back then, and you can outright remove tracks from some modern albums without negatively affecting its quality. Besides, having one composer do a significant portion of the soundtrack worked back in the days of Brandish 3, where FM tracks were simple enough to compose that the sound team had _hundreds_ of unused music for stuff like Brandish 2 and The Legend of Xanadu, but it doesn’t now with modern day synth. Basically, Kato, Ishikawa and co. need to get their shit together and stop spitting upon their sound team who’s responsible for creating such wonderful music that brought so many people to discover Falcom to begin with, in favour of cheap outsourcing. Now, before I move on to the next point, there were some Singa tracks I thought were standouts; the rainy day theme, although sounded kinda weird (especially in-game), is decent enough. There are two battle themes of his that stood out to me; there’s this “Destruction Impulse at home” kinda track with female choir at the beginning. It plays during some of the demonic battles, and I thought was interesting, despite the track never really going anywhere. The Remnant battle theme with Yoshida on guitar, though, was pretty okay. Yoshida gives the track a lot of extra oomph the Singa’s tracks usually lack; I do get the feeling that it’s a vitally important track, and fit decently with the epic battles it accompanies. There’s also the Shizuna/Yun Ka-fai boss theme, which has a good intro, but again fails to go anywhere interesting, even though it does fit somewhat. His vocal ending theme is also probably my favourite vocal theme of his.
Now, aren’t we forgetting someone? That’s right, I believe Takahiro Unisuga has a small role to play here. First is his “route selection” theme, the one that some were confused if it was him or Koguchi. Well, now that I’ve played the game, I am sure it is Unisuga. It calls back to his route selection theme from Hajimari, Crossing Causal Lines with its in-game usage. It is also used as an event theme, despite its short loop. It doesn’t really bother me though, since it’s more of an ambient track with less of a focus on melody, and more on feeling. Fits pretty well with the events it plays in. But there’s another track I believe is him, one that completely shocked me when I first played. I only say it's him because I cannot believe any other composer did this: it’s the final boss theme. I was absolutely fucking floored when this first played, both from the shock of the in-game reveals, but also how it’s like Unisuga came back to compose this sole track. I don’t believe this is a leftover, even considering that it’s less sophisticated than say, Majestic Roar or The Decisive Collision. But the overall composition/arrangement still is representative of him, and his Friedlander violin is easily recognisable. This track gives me just the slightest bit of hope he’ll be back in full force someday, and is one of my favourites in the soundtrack; the entire final battle itself is outright insane, and this track gives it the weight it deserves. Once again, Unisuga brings extremely high-quality work to the soundtrack, even if it is only two tracks. But like I said, quality over quantity, and that is Unisuga’s MO.
Next, let’s talk about the in-game music assignments. It’s honestly really weird. Remember when I mentioned Sonoda’s Kuro II pinch theme being used for a city raid, a la Chapter 4 of Ao? I don’t think I need to tell you how strange that sounds on paper, and in execution it’s even worse. I legitimately don’t know if this raid is meant to be some truly earth-shattering event, because the music makes it seem like just some generic monster attack instead of, you know, people becoming crazy cultists and burning the city down. Imagine if, instead of Omen in Ao Chapter 4, Stand Up Battle Formation! played instead. Not fitting at all. And then there are tracks that either play way too much, or barely at all. Did Battle Junction even play past the Prologue? I think maybe once? Whilst you get generic Singa mid-boss theme every other battle. Also, I was under the impression that the Shizuna/Yun Ka-fai battle theme was for them specifically, but it plays in unrelated scenarios at the end. The music assignments are decent most of the time, but you have some really bad, stand-out situations like these. Can’t think of more right now, so I’ll stop here.
Overall, despite Singa and some strange placement decisions, my feelings of this soundtrack lean towards positive. Koguchi and Sonoda synchronise far better together here than in the previous Kuro games as well as turn in some high quality work, Jindo does a good amount of music and they always enhance important scenes, and Singa as a whole performs better here than his other recent Kiseki works. However, compared to the first seven Kiseki games, this soundtrack is still far inferior than them, but ever since CS3 I’ve come to expect that. I just wish Falcom cared enough to give us another soundtrack on the level of those games.
Since this is already a massive comment, I’ll only quickly go over my thoughts on the game itself. It’s a great game, and my biggest issue with it isn’t even about the game itself, but rather how Falcom marketed it. It was a blast to play from start to finish, and I liked the pacing far more than Kuro 2. I respect how they kept Van the main character here by giving his route the most focus compared to Rean and Kevin. Now, my biggest complaint; it was said that this game would answer the mysteries of Zemuria and wrap up the Calvard arc. Now I know for certain to never trust another word Kondo says, because it only somewhat accomplishes the former and spectacularly fails the latter. In case you’re wondering, it ends with a CS3-esque cliffhanger with a tease for a sequel at the end. So basically, Calvard’s getting another game, bringing it up to par with the number of Cold Steel games. It answers some questions, such as the barrier around the planet itself as well as the Sept-Terrion of Time, but now we’re left with questions about stuff like the Grand Reset, alternate timelines, time travel, alternate timelines PLUS time travel, where the fuck do we go after the entire universe is reset by Agnès, etc. Essentially, more questions are posed than answers, and we’re getting Kai 2 in at least another two years. This has happened every arc: Sky was meant to be one game but was split into two and got a bridge game. Ditto with Crossbell. Cold Steel was meant to end with 3 and it got extended to 4, and now the same has happened with Calvard. It seems Falcom just can’t help themselves, huh? But yeah, it’s a great game once again marred by false advertising. It’s in my top 5, maybe even third on the list behind 3rd and Zero, though I wouldn’t put it on the same tier as those games. I do anticipate the next game, but I need a break from Trails, lol.
If you’ve read this far, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read this long-ass essay lmao. I had a lot of thoughts playing through and wanted to write them all down, so I do appreciate it. If you think the soundtrack is best best Kiseki soundtrack ever made, then kudos to you; don’t let me stop you from enjoying it. If you think it’s the worst Kiseki soundtrack ever made, again, you’re welcome to trash it. For me, it’s in-between; it isn’t abysmal like Kuro 1, but it doesn’t reach the heights of the first seven games in the series. We’re all entitled to our own opinions/thoughts, and that’s okay. I’ll also make some individual comments on each of the tracks in a couple of days, since I want to rest from this game for a bit. Now then, I really should end this, I’ve written more than 3000 words 😅. With that, have a wonderful day/evening/night! 😊
I prefer that some of Singa tracks in this game are "barebone", because it feels like he actually has constraint in this game. Usually Singa have some ideas for a part of a track, or just the chorus, then he will shove some random unfitted filler or padding into his tracks when he is out of idea. For example, the weird synth solo at the end of Non-negotiable Line, a bazillion tracks in Reverie just randomly have sax in them for some reason, pirate mode in Bold Assailant,...
He still does that in this game, much i "think" that he does that less in this game. While that results in some track has a short loop, i agree, but like the Remnant battle theme is kinda barebone composition wise, i'm sure that the usual Singa will have some weird loud synth plays under the guitar, a random unrelated section before loop,...and just makes the track worse. His works in this game usually end where i expected it to end.
But his works in this game is undoubtedly much more pleasant on the ear than his usual. Yeah, maybe his 500th generic event theme has nothing noticeable about it, but it's not annoying to hear on loop and that great for the dude who created a built in jumpscare in the Ys X's title theme. His piano or more sedate tracks are great and some tracks of his in this game have genuinely cool idea.
@@AlithinoiDesmoi Really good read, i pretty much agree with most of the points even though i haven't fully heard the soundtrack just yet besides the most well known ones or the ones i heard in the dengeki streams. It's pretty much my favorite soundtrack over the past 5 years easily for me and i'm still quite suprised of how many Jindo's tracks are in Kai.
I like how these long soundtrack reviews at the end of each soundtrack are kinda becoming a tradition lmao. The Kuro OST release had one and I think the Kuro 2 BGM rip had one too. Anyway, to answer your question Nagano and Teramae did play together for the Adol theme'd album, but for non-arrange albums I don't think Falcom provides Jindo enough of a budget each game to hire both anymore.
interesting read
all in all Kai probably has my favourite OST since CS4/Reverie. it still doesn't come close to 2012-2017's OSTs for me. but there's a fair amount of stuff I liked that I sorely missed from Ys 10's OST and there's a fair amount of stuff I think is handled better than Kuro 1/2 contextual counterparts on average
I am so exited to see this in the English version! I am now so double happy they casted the actors they did in the English dub! I am 100%sure Amanda and Damien can pertray this scene perfectly if they are directed apropiatly. I also still hold out hope for nisa to publish this game next year if daybreak 2 comes out in February or March and Falcom actually gave nisa the script of kai at this point.
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
This song would be perfect if agnes' voice actress (Miku Itō) sing it 🥺
Man... this is so beautfiul and i love it 🥲
please tell me, she will come back...orz
Van will save her!❤
@@jeiku8077 they can’t its irreversible
@@buttertoast1146 not so sure about that.. i think van's demon core will play a vital role..
@@jeiku8077 I’m sure he’s connected to mcburn somehow
She will for sure, and there’s still a Witch Medallion from the side quest which is said by the letter to give to the other Agnes.
at 5:53 "One day I'll return just for you" -Blonde Girl
it can also be translated as "for you who will return one day (いつか帰る貴方 | のために)", due to Japanese's ambiguity
in fact from what i know, the Chinese translation and Korean translation are also "for you who will return one day"
@@Tsunngai issue here is that agnes added a pause in the middle, most likely Falcom making a word play
@@TsunngaiIt also fits with the title of Kuro 1’s final chapter.
@@alsosprachzarathustra4756 now you mention it lol truly foreshadowing
😭
So if Agnes never existed that means Van would still know Risette and Bergard and would meet Feri shortly after the game begins. Judith could stumble into the group but I’m not sure how the gang would meet up with Aaron or Quatre without time travel memory Ex Machina
I hope next installment would explain most of the question in so call the last part of the van 's story
I mean, clearly the game is just implying that she's gone. That doesn't mean people won't remember her, nor does it mean they should all of the sudden retcon Kuro 2. Van will DEFINITELY know something is wrong and others will as well. I can just imagine the absolute chaos that could be Kai 2's prologue.
@@zerosolis6664 or it's the opposite, She never dies. only her memories erased from everyone else.
Im going to cry
Is it me or is the volume jumping here and there?
There's dialogue in the ending. It goes lower when someone's talking
Definitely not just you, as the ending song presumably doesn’t exist as an individual track yet, it’s tied into the ending with dialogue over the top.
It's the BGM RIP, so it's gonna be lower quality. They pull it from the game and modify it a bit, then later get access to the sound files.
Dammit from square enix and KH to this.........the emotional manipulation is criminal i say.....CRIMINALLLLL!!!!
曲はもう文句すらないくらいグッドすぎるのに……心が辛い…。
次作のラスト部分は、匣の中で一松と十四松の某仮面ライダー対決となったりして？ｗ
“You cried for a video game?”
The video game:
Yes on 2b time this will be 2nd.
Yes
Lacrimosa of Dana
ruclips.net/video/BqZB0nAY-1c/видео.html
One thing that has been bothering me about the ending is the flashback of the final scene between Agnes and Van on the rooftop. In the credits they're standing in opposite positions, Van touches his neck with his left hand instead of scratching his head with his gloved hand and it looks like they're on the highest rooftop of the building (the one that appears at the end of Elaine's last connect event in Kuro1) instead of the usual rooftop where the intermission ends at. Here's another week of hopefully waiting for some kind of extra chapter DLC...
you gonna need to wait for the next installment
A JP fan thought that it’s done on purpose for the credits scenes only (except the stills), with Van placed on the left side and Agnes the right side.
@@feynevan It has to be a hint of some sort. Very few people have questioned the beginning scenes of Zero, Sen1, Sen3 and how they differ from the same scenes that happen later in each game but it was always something that bugged me personally for years now. The ending of Kai finally answered this puzzle after what, 14 years after the release of Zero in Japan? There's no way Falcom simply overlooked this and got too lazy to fix the inconsistencies between the ending cutscene and the in-game cutscene during the intermission
emotional damage the song
I need the lyric
我真的不能接受這個結局
lol doing 4spg entire game and ended the game like a lot of things haven't said yet, the content should be enough to make the entire game... instead of making cliffhangers ending
そろそろなにか情報をください
rip bozo
good song but I don't like sasaka