Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack Limited Edition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I buy a lot of OST for games and anime. As a Limited Set, it is OK but too expensive. It comes in a nice large white box with a big XIII on the front. It also includes a drama disc (sealed in a foil bag no less), mini-artbook, and the large 4 CD fold-out set. The CD has Bilingual Japanese/English track names. The mini-artbook is all Japanese (except for the credits in English, go figure). I have a beef with the artbook being just stapled sheets. I figure for this price they could make it a hard-bound artbook like that included with Mass Effect 2's Collector's Edition. But not to be, it's just paper.

I am very disappointed with the sound quality of this set. This goes for most of the piano and orchestral pieces. They all sound "tinny" with lots of clipping on the piano sections. This makes me very sad, because those are some of the best pieces in the whole set! And to make the recording so bad, makes my sound system sound like a cheap radio, like an mp3 compressed at 96kb or something. What the hell were they thinking? The only good sounding track is "Afro Blues" on CD2, but I wanted all the orchestral/piano to sound good, and they sure screwed that up. Sad very sad. As far as tracks go, they have all the music in the game that you'll ever want, with some very short tracks. However it is quite complete.

If you want all of the music, then by all means buy this. But if you want better sound quality, I would wait and see if they release just an orchestral tracks version, which hopefully has better quality recordings.

Music quality aside, many of the tracks on multiple CDs sound like the CD had been "scratched" terribly. It even had my iTunes freeze up on me multiple times for importing the mp3s. I had to actually buy the tracks off of the iTunes store to get those tracks - nearly a whole CD's worth. Please purchase a different version of the soundtrack than this one. It ended up costing me close to a hundred dollars in replacing the songs.

First off, I'll just say that I would have given this item five stars, but for Amazon's outrageous import prices. I bought this brand new from eBay for $30. Also, the standard, four-CD, 85-track edition (as many tracks as in this five-CD edition) is available from the Square Enix online store for $30. And you can find it right here:
[...]

Quality-wise, this an excellent soundtrack! I don't get why people have been complaining about sound quality from these CDs. It really is excellent, both in sound quality, and in composition. Masashi Mamauzu had some big shoes to step into in taking on the challenge of being the only composer for Final Fantasy XIII. And though I don't think he is as good as Uematsu, who has composed what I think are certainly the best video game soundtracks around, Hamauzu still did a great job with XIII.

This soundtrack is a must-have for any Final Fantasy fan, and a great compositional work in its own right. A worthy collector's item, and well worth the money spent on it, even if you do buy from Amazon.

Track information can all be found on the Wikipedia article on the game's music, at this address: [...]

I received this item much faster than I thought I would. So that was a bonus. Upon opening it, the item was undamaged in any way, which is more than I'm used to. Most of the time I find a dented corner or a scratched cover from mishandling between the manufacturer and the supplier. This was completely unscathed.

The box itself is fairly nice, it does give the Final Fantasy feeling when opening it. Very contemporary in style. The artbook has some nice pictures in it. The soundtrack CD's appear very nice and the casing in which they are carried is also fairly nice. There is also a bonus wrapped up CD which I have yet to open. All in all I am fairly impressed with the stuff provided.

I am however, not as impressed in the price. As a limited edition I can see them charging an abundance of money, but I just think for a soundtrack this was a little steep. If they wanted to charge extra money for something, they could've released a limited edition of the game itself. That would have been worth it. I was expecting this to be about $44.99-$50.00, not almost $80.00 - this is steep. For this price, the quality of the contents don't really meet up to par. It seems more like a marketing scam just to get the all the diehard fans to dish out some extra cash.

The box could have been white velvet lined or had a little more put into it. The artbook should've definitely been hardbound and maybe a little thicker in detail. I don't mind the Japanese subtitles on everything, because this is a Japanese game. However English would've been nice, even if in fine print in the artbook so you knew what it said. The CD quality could've been a bit better. Some parts of it kind of reminded me of the music from Rapture in Bioshock. With an old radio scratchiness to it. Maybe this is the effect they were going for? Or maybe there was a lack of attention between the recording studio and the manufacturer. In any event, it is a little disappointing.

All in all I'll give it four stars because it's still a nice set for a diehard fan. But it could have been better. Hopefully in the future when they release Versus and such it will be better.

Fantasy Fantasy always had a style of music that captured the environment of the game. While this is the first version not to use any of the original themes created by Nobuo Uematsu, the new themes were beautiful and strong. Definately recommend for the die-hard fans of not only the game but the music style as well.

This was the first OST I ever bought and I have to say that I am really satisfied with it.

The sound problem some have complained about I haven't even noticed, or thought about. Could be because I'm studying while I've been listening to the soundtrack and haven't been focused about the soundquality.

Other then that the package is great and like others have pointed out the artwork should have been hardbound but the pictures are still great. The box is really nice and I love the kind of like obscure title of the box.


The only downside I now of is that I was one of the unfortunate souls who got a misshandle box when I picked it out from the postoffice, lucky me it was only a corner of the box and I guess I can live with that.

Everything was in pristine order. Unopened copy, so I was definitely satisfied. Was also satisfied with the speedy delivery. If found something from this seller would definitely order again.

Almost a year later, I'm still enjoying the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack! For me, it's wonderful background music throughout the day. It's refreshing and different to just listening to the same songs on the radio day after day. If you've enjoyed the game, you'll enjoy reliving the moments through it's soundtrack.

Final Fantasy XIII

Pretty good collectors edition , comes with the real complete soundtrack , if you are a final fantasy music lover this is a MUST HAVE...

I loved the product, music and the packaging are great, if you are a FF fan then go for it, otherwise don't buy it. Since its a limited edition, it worth the money, but I was surprised since its listed here for only 25$ [..] and amazon listing price was 70$+ . the 4 star for the product and the -1 star for the listing price of amazon.