Game OST

[Moonface]

So I mentioned in the last gaming purchase thread I bought Xenosaga 2, which reminded me of a back-of-the-box feature on Xenosaga 1 that I still think is really, really cool. So, when I say this, you have to keep in mind that this is 2002; video games still aren't yet in the mainstream. Oh, don't get me wrong, people noticed them, but they weren't a juggernaut of pop culture like they are now, where selling 10 million copies is considered "underperforming -- no, I will not let that go! Anyway, Xenosaga 1 proudly advertised on its box that its OST was performed by the world-famous London Philharmonic Orchestra. Yes, the famed orchestra behind music works of films like Lawrence of Arabia and Lord of the Rings. Yasunori Mitsuda managed to land THAT orchestra for his video game music! And again, this is 10 years before they became a video game music jukebox by releasing two back to back albums of video game music compilations! I cannot stress how incredible that this actually is for the time that the game was made. And what did we get? Well, arguably one of the best video game OSTs ever to come out. Here's a taste of it with the battle theme, and I want you to recognize that this song plays during basically every battle that is not the final boss.

I didn't comment on this before because I spent far too much time trying to see if there was anything on the internet that detailed how the Xenosaga team got the London Philharmonic Orchestra to work on their game music. Alas I didn't find anything, but from what I did read my guess was Mitsuda had connections from his prior work, or that work helped him to grab the interest of that orchestra by having them receive a sample or something of what he had already made or a sheet of the music he was writing for Xenosaga. If he reached out to them though I wonder what had him pick them over the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra who had performed the Chrono Trigger music as part of a concert in 1996.

[Maniakkid25]

I mean, all I know is I want to be a fly on the wall as these professional classical musicians heard they were playing music for some video game from a company no one's ever heard of (Xenosaga was Monolith Soft's first ever game). I just want to know: did they actually, at that time, think this was a project worthy of their expertise, or did they think that this was a waste of time, but begrudgingly did it anyway?

[Moonface]

I mean, all I know is I want to be a fly on the wall as these professional classical musicians heard they were playing music for some video game from a company no one's ever heard of (Xenosaga was Monolith Soft's first ever game). I just want to know: did they actually, at that time, think this was a project worthy of their expertise, or did they think that this was a waste of time, but begrudgingly did it anyway?

I could imagine they also just thought the music itself was good and worthy of performing, regardless of how the game itself would turn out. I'm sure there are plenty of cases where a musician worked on a game, made a banger of an OST, but the game itself was rather weak.