Music of Chrono Trigger
Encyclopedia
The Chrono series is a video game franchise developed and published by Square Enix
(formerly Square
). It began in 1995 with the time travel
console role-playing game Chrono Trigger
, which spawned two continuations, Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross
. The music of Chrono Trigger was mainly composed by Yasunori Mitsuda
, with a few tracks composed by regular Final Fantasy
composer Nobuo Uematsu
. The Chrono Trigger soundtrack has inspired four official album releases by Square Enix: a soundtrack album in released by NTT Publishing in 1995 and re-released in 2004, a greatest hits
album published by DigiCube
in 1999, published in abbreviated form by Tokyopop
in 2001, and republished by Square Enix in 2005, an acid jazz
arrangement album published and republished by NTT Publishing in 1995 and 2004, and a 2008 orchestra
l arranged album by Square Enix. Corresponding with the Nintendo DS release of the game, a reissued soundtrack was released in 2009.
The original soundtrack has been hailed as one of the best video game soundtracks ever made, and the Original Sound Version album met with similar applause. The reception for the other albums has been mixed, with the releases finding both fans and detractors among reviewers. Songs from the soundtrack have been played at various orchestral concerts, such as the personal arrangements by Mitsuda for the Play! A Video Game Symphony
concert series. Chrono Cross music has also been extensively remix
ed by fans, and such remixes have been included in both official and unofficial albums.
, with assistance by veteran Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. A sound programmer at the time, Mitsuda was unhappy with his pay and threatened to leave Square if he could not compose music. Final Fantasy developer Hironobu Sakaguchi
, one of the three designers for the upcoming Chrono Trigger, suggested he score the game, remarking, "maybe your salary will go up." Mitsuda reflected, "I wanted to create music that wouldn't fit into any established genre...music of an imaginary world. The game's director, Masato Kato
, was my close friend, and so I'd always talk with him about the setting and the scene before going into writing." Mitsuda has said that he was unsure of how to start, saying that he "must've tried to start writing the music 4 times" and that it took "a month and a half" before he knew how to compose the music for Chrono Trigger.
Mitsuda slept in his studio several nights, and attributed certain songs, such as "To Far Away Times", to inspiring dreams. He later attributed this song to an idea he was developing before Chrono Trigger, reflecting that the song was made in dedication to "a certain person with whom I wanted to share a generation." Mitsuda tried to use leitmotifs of the Chrono Trigger main theme to create a sense of consistency in the soundtrack. He also suffered a hard drive crash that lost around forty in-progress tracks. After Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers, regular Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu joined the project to compose ten songs and finish the score. Mitsuda returned to watch the ending with the staff before the game's release, crying upon seeing the finished scene. Mitsuda considers Chrono Trigger a landmark title which helped mature his talent. While Mitsuda later held that the title piece was "rough around the edges," he maintains that it had "significant influence on my life as a composer." At the time of the game's release, the number of tracks and sound effects was unprecedented, causing the soundtrack to span three discs in its 1995 commercial pressing.
, produced by Yasunori Mitsuda and Mitsunobu Nakamura. The soundtrack spans three discs and 64 tracks, covering a duration of 2:39:52. It was published by NTT Publishing on March 25, 1995 and re-published on October 1, 2004.
The majority of the tracks were composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, while ten tracks were contributed by Nobuo Uematsu after Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers. Noriko Matsueda
composed one track, "Boss Battle 1", which was arranged by Uematsu. The soundtrack tunes have been described as covering a wide variety of moods, from "simple, light-hearted tunes" like "Spekkio" to "sad themes" like "At The Bottom of Night" and "darker themes" like "Ocean Palace".
The album was well-received by reviewers such as Liz Maas of RPGFan, who termed it "well worth its price" and noted that the tracks were very memorable and "always fit the mood in the game". IGN
termed it "one of the best videogame soundtracks ever produced" and said that the music was a large part of the game's ability to "capture the emotions of the player". It furthermore called the soundtrack "some of the most memorable tunes in RPG history". The game itself won the "Best Music in a Cartridge-Based Game" award in Electronic Gaming Monthly
's 1995 video game awards.
Track listing
The Chrono Trigger Arranged Version: The Brink of Time is an album of acid jazz
rearrangements of the music from Chrono Trigger, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and arranged and performed by Hiroshi Hata, Hidenobu Ootsuki, and Gizaemon de Furuta. The soundtrack spans one disc and 10 tracks, covering a duration of 52:47. It was published by NTT Publishing on June 25, 1995, and reprinted on October 1, 2004.
The Brink of Time came about because Mitsuda wanted to do something that no one else was doing, and he noted that acid jazz and its related genres were uncommon in the Japanese market. It was the first album for which Mitsuda had to work with live recordings. The cover art of the album depicts a plate of fried egg
s between a fork, knife and glass, while the inside booklet depicts a rooster which was specifically brought into the studio for the photo shooting. Several eggs had to be fried before the designers could settle on the correct shape. Mitsuda has stated that Ootsuki's arrangement technique left a strong impact on him and notably influenced his next score, the soundtrack to Front Mission: Gun Hazard
.
The album received mixed reviews from critics. Freddie W. of RPGFan, while calling the album "pretty good" overall, said that several of the tracks including "Zeal Palace" and "Warlock Battle" were "absolutely horrible" due to the "disgustingly bad" distorted guitars. He cited the overuse of guitars as the worst part of the album. Simon of Square Enix Music Online had a different reaction; he enjoyed the guitars in the songs and said that the album had "skill, class, and a feel that's relatively original". He concluded, however, that he could not seem to "connect" with the album, and that the CD was "very much down to personal taste — a love or hate arrangement".
album featuring 21 tracks from Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version and nine arranged tracks from the release of Chrono Trigger for the PlayStation
. The arranged tracks come from the cutscene
s added to the game, while Tsuyoshi Sekito
composed four new pieces for the game's bonus features which weren't included on the soundtrack. The album was released by DigiCube on December 18, 1999 to coincide with the PlayStation release and re-released by Square Enix on February 23, 2005. The album is 1:14:12 long and spans 30 tracks.
A version of the album was re-published by Tokyopop in North America as Chrono Trigger Official Soundtrack: Music From Final Fantasy Chronicles on August 21, 2001, to coincide with the release of the Final Fantasy Chronicles
collection of Final Fantasy IV
and Chrono Trigger. The first 21 tracks of the album out of 25 were identical to Chrono Trigger Original Soundtrack, while the next three tracks corresponded to tracks 22, 23, and 29 of the Original Soundtrack and the final track was the same as the first track of Brink of Time. This version of the album is 1:13:03 long.
Original Soundtrack received mixed reviews by critics. Ryan Mattich of RPGFan termed it "an excellent selection of music", primarily due to the arranged tracks, saying that the Original Sound Version album's tracks were better than this version's as they were looped and thus played longer. Patrick Gann was disparaging of the North American version of the CD, however, saying that its shortened tracklist destroyed the main reason to buy the album. Don Kotowski of Square Enix Music Online was dismissive of the Original Soundtrack album, saying that while the Original Sound Version tracks truly represented the "best of" the game's soundtrack, the arranged tracks were "either too short, too much like the original, or lifeless compared to the original", giving no incentive to purchase the album over the Original Sound Version.
port of Chrono Trigger, this soundtrack consists of two tracks, "Chrono Trigger ~Orchestra Version~" and "Chrono Trigger Medley ~Orchestra Version~", the latter spanning the songs "A Premonition", "Guardia's Millennial Fair", "Yearnings of the Wind", "Frog's Theme", "Battle with Magus", "Epilogue ~To Good Friends~", and "To Far Away Times". Mitsuda expressed difficulty in selecting the songs for the orchestral medley, eventually picking a song from each era and certain character themes. While both tracks involve a full orchestra, "Chrono Trigger" is more heavily horn-based, while "Medley" relies more on stringed instruments. The CD itself came in a single sleeve with a short note from primary composer Yasunori Mitsuda. The album as a whole has a length of 6:18, with "Chrono Trigger" lasting 2:07 and "Medley" having a length of 4:11.
The album has been described as showing that Mitsuda was "well ahead of the curve" when he composed the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. IGN described "Chrono Trigger ~Orchestra Version~" as having a heavy 1970's influence and as being "a testament to Mitsuda's compositional skills", while calling "Chrono Trigger Medley ~Orchestra Version~" "playfully romantic" with "a fairy tale element" in the beginning of the song that later transforms into "an entirely more grandiose arena". Patrick Gann described the soundtrack as "awesome" and said that "Kameoka is really good at orchestral arrangement". His primary complaint was the length of the album, as he wished it had been a full album instead of a "mini-album" of only two tracks.
The track lengths for a number of tracks on all three discs are different than the Original Sound Version release. On Disc One, tracks 24-27 are new arranged version tracks that were included as the music from those tracks corresponded to the video animated sequences that were added originally on the PlayStation release of the video game. The same applied to tracks 25-27 on Disc Two and tracks 18-24 on Disc Three. Track 2 of Disc 3 was renamed from "Tyran Castle" to "Tyranno Lair".
The Bonus DVD included a special Yasunori Mitsuda interview and two music videos for the tracks that were on the Orchestra Extra album: "Chrono Trigger ~Orchestra Version~" and "Chrono Trigger Medley ~Orchestra Version~".
The * indicates the additional tracks that were not in the original Original Sound Version.
Track listing
in 1996, and released on an accompanying album. Mitsuda has arranged versions of music from Chrono Trigger for Play! A Video Game Symphony
video game music concerts in 2006, presenting the main theme, Frog's Theme, and To Far Away Times. Music from the game has also been performed in other video game concert tours such as the Video Games Live
concert series and in concerts by the Eminence Orchestra. Music from Chrono Trigger and Cross made up one fourth of the music in the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in Cologne in September 2009 which were produced by the creators of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series and conducted by Arnie Roth
. The concerts featured a suite of music from both games interspersed together with the songs from Trigger comprising "A Premonition", "Battle with Magus", "Chrono Trigger", "Peaceful Days", "Outskirts of Time", "Frog's Theme", and "To Far Away Times", as well as a boss battle suite that featured "Lavos’ Theme". "Crono's Theme" was performed at the Press Start -Symphony of Games- 2007 concerts in Yokohama
and Osaka
, Japan, and a suite comprising music from Chrono Trigger and Cross was performed at the Press Start -Symphony of Games- 2008 concerts the following year in Tokyo
and Shanghai
. An arrangement of "Light of Silence" was performed on July 9, 2011 at the Symphonic Odysseys concert, which commemorated the music of Uematsu.
Music from Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version has been arranged for the piano and published as sheet music by DOREMI Music Publishing. Chrono Trigger' s soundtrack has been heavily remixed by fans, sparking several albums. These include the officially licensed Time & Space - A Tribute to Yasunori Mitsuda, released by OneUp Studios on October 7, 2001 and containing 18 remixes over a span of 1:00:58, with a second version of the album released on June 17, 2003. In 2009, another album, "Chronotorious", was released by the same band under the name "Bad Dudes" and is praised by most fans as being the best remix album. Another popular album release was Chrono Symphonic, an unofficial download-only album release by the remix website OverClocked ReMix
on January 3, 2006 containing 25 remixes over 2 "discs". Selections of remixes also appear on Japanese remix albums, called Dōjin
, and on English remixing websites such as OverClocked Remix.
Square Enix
is a Japanese video game and publishing company best known for its console role-playing game franchises, which include the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and the action-RPG Kingdom Hearts series...
(formerly Square
Square Co.
was a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix...
). It began in 1995 with the time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
console role-playing game Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. Chrono Triggers development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a...
, which spawned two continuations, Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross
Chrono Cross
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. It is the sequel to Chrono Trigger, which was released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System...
. The music of Chrono Trigger was mainly composed by Yasunori Mitsuda
Yasunori Mitsuda
is a Japanese video game composer, sound programmer, and musician. He has composed music for or worked on over 35 games, and has contributed to over 15 other albums...
, with a few tracks composed by regular Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy
is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...
composer Nobuo Uematsu
Nobuo Uematsu
is a Japanese video game composer, best known for scoring the majority of titles in the Final Fantasy series. He is considered as one of the most famous and respected composers in the video game community...
. The Chrono Trigger soundtrack has inspired four official album releases by Square Enix: a soundtrack album in released by NTT Publishing in 1995 and re-released in 2004, a greatest hits
Greatest hits
A greatest hits album is a music compilation album of successful, previously released songs by a particular artist or band...
album published by DigiCube
DigiCube
DigiCube Co., Ltd. was a Japanese company established as a subsidiary of software developer Square on February 6, 1996 and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The primary purpose of DigiCube was to market and distribute Square products, most notably video games and related merchandise, including toys,...
in 1999, published in abbreviated form by Tokyopop
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
in 2001, and republished by Square Enix in 2005, an acid jazz
Acid jazz
Acid jazz is a musical genre that combines elements of jazz, funk and hip-hop, particularly looped beats. It developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as tacking the sound of jazz-funk onto electronic dance: jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd and Grant Green are...
arrangement album published and republished by NTT Publishing in 1995 and 2004, and a 2008 orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l arranged album by Square Enix. Corresponding with the Nintendo DS release of the game, a reissued soundtrack was released in 2009.
The original soundtrack has been hailed as one of the best video game soundtracks ever made, and the Original Sound Version album met with similar applause. The reception for the other albums has been mixed, with the releases finding both fans and detractors among reviewers. Songs from the soundtrack have been played at various orchestral concerts, such as the personal arrangements by Mitsuda for the Play! A Video Game Symphony
Play! A Video Game Symphony
PLAY! A Video Game Symphony is a concert series that features music from video games performed by a live orchestra. The concerts from 2006 to 2010 were conducted by Arnie Roth...
concert series. Chrono Cross music has also been extensively remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
ed by fans, and such remixes have been included in both official and unofficial albums.
Creation and development
Chrono Trigger was scored primarily by Yasunori MitsudaYasunori Mitsuda
is a Japanese video game composer, sound programmer, and musician. He has composed music for or worked on over 35 games, and has contributed to over 15 other albums...
, with assistance by veteran Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. A sound programmer at the time, Mitsuda was unhappy with his pay and threatened to leave Square if he could not compose music. Final Fantasy developer Hironobu Sakaguchi
Hironobu Sakaguchi
is a Japanese game designer, game director and game producer. He is world famous as the creator of the Final Fantasy series, and has had a long career in gaming with over 100 million units of video games sold worldwide...
, one of the three designers for the upcoming Chrono Trigger, suggested he score the game, remarking, "maybe your salary will go up." Mitsuda reflected, "I wanted to create music that wouldn't fit into any established genre...music of an imaginary world. The game's director, Masato Kato
Masato Kato
is a Japanese video game artist, scenario writer and director. In the early days of his career, he was credited under the pseudonyms of "Runmaru" and "Runmal".- Biography :...
, was my close friend, and so I'd always talk with him about the setting and the scene before going into writing." Mitsuda has said that he was unsure of how to start, saying that he "must've tried to start writing the music 4 times" and that it took "a month and a half" before he knew how to compose the music for Chrono Trigger.
Mitsuda slept in his studio several nights, and attributed certain songs, such as "To Far Away Times", to inspiring dreams. He later attributed this song to an idea he was developing before Chrono Trigger, reflecting that the song was made in dedication to "a certain person with whom I wanted to share a generation." Mitsuda tried to use leitmotifs of the Chrono Trigger main theme to create a sense of consistency in the soundtrack. He also suffered a hard drive crash that lost around forty in-progress tracks. After Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers, regular Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu joined the project to compose ten songs and finish the score. Mitsuda returned to watch the ending with the staff before the game's release, crying upon seeing the finished scene. Mitsuda considers Chrono Trigger a landmark title which helped mature his talent. While Mitsuda later held that the title piece was "rough around the edges," he maintains that it had "significant influence on my life as a composer." At the time of the game's release, the number of tracks and sound effects was unprecedented, causing the soundtrack to span three discs in its 1995 commercial pressing.
Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version
Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version is a soundtrack of the music from Chrono TriggerChrono Trigger
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. Chrono Triggers development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a...
, produced by Yasunori Mitsuda and Mitsunobu Nakamura. The soundtrack spans three discs and 64 tracks, covering a duration of 2:39:52. It was published by NTT Publishing on March 25, 1995 and re-published on October 1, 2004.
The majority of the tracks were composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, while ten tracks were contributed by Nobuo Uematsu after Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers. Noriko Matsueda
Noriko Matsueda
is a Japanese former video game composer. She is best known for her work on the Front Mission series, The Bouncer, and Final Fantasy X-2. Matsueda collaborated with fellow composer Takahito Eguchi on several games. Composing music at an early age, she began studying the piano and electronic organ...
composed one track, "Boss Battle 1", which was arranged by Uematsu. The soundtrack tunes have been described as covering a wide variety of moods, from "simple, light-hearted tunes" like "Spekkio" to "sad themes" like "At The Bottom of Night" and "darker themes" like "Ocean Palace".
The album was well-received by reviewers such as Liz Maas of RPGFan, who termed it "well worth its price" and noted that the tracks were very memorable and "always fit the mood in the game". IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
termed it "one of the best videogame soundtracks ever produced" and said that the music was a large part of the game's ability to "capture the emotions of the player". It furthermore called the soundtrack "some of the most memorable tunes in RPG history". The game itself won the "Best Music in a Cartridge-Based Game" award in Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly is a bimonthly American video game magazine. It has been published by EGM Media, LLC. since relaunching in April of 2010. Its previous run, which ended in January 2009, was published by Ziff Davis...
's 1995 video game awards.
Track listing
Chrono Trigger Arranged Version: The Brink of Time
Acid jazz
Acid jazz is a musical genre that combines elements of jazz, funk and hip-hop, particularly looped beats. It developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as tacking the sound of jazz-funk onto electronic dance: jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd and Grant Green are...
rearrangements of the music from Chrono Trigger, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and arranged and performed by Hiroshi Hata, Hidenobu Ootsuki, and Gizaemon de Furuta. The soundtrack spans one disc and 10 tracks, covering a duration of 52:47. It was published by NTT Publishing on June 25, 1995, and reprinted on October 1, 2004.
The Brink of Time came about because Mitsuda wanted to do something that no one else was doing, and he noted that acid jazz and its related genres were uncommon in the Japanese market. It was the first album for which Mitsuda had to work with live recordings. The cover art of the album depicts a plate of fried egg
Fried egg
A fried egg is a food made from an egg fried whole with minimal accompaniment. They are traditionally eaten for breakfast in western countries, but may be eaten at other times of the day.-China:...
s between a fork, knife and glass, while the inside booklet depicts a rooster which was specifically brought into the studio for the photo shooting. Several eggs had to be fried before the designers could settle on the correct shape. Mitsuda has stated that Ootsuki's arrangement technique left a strong impact on him and notably influenced his next score, the soundtrack to Front Mission: Gun Hazard
Front Mission: Gun Hazard
is a side-scrolling shooter video game developed by Omiya Soft and published by Square Co., Ltd., and was released in Japan on February 23, 1996 for the Nintendo Super Famicom game console. Front Mission: Gun Hazard is the first spin-off entry and the second entry overall in the Front Mission series...
.
The album received mixed reviews from critics. Freddie W. of RPGFan, while calling the album "pretty good" overall, said that several of the tracks including "Zeal Palace" and "Warlock Battle" were "absolutely horrible" due to the "disgustingly bad" distorted guitars. He cited the overuse of guitars as the worst part of the album. Simon of Square Enix Music Online had a different reaction; he enjoyed the guitars in the songs and said that the album had "skill, class, and a feel that's relatively original". He concluded, however, that he could not seem to "connect" with the album, and that the CD was "very much down to personal taste — a love or hate arrangement".
Chrono Trigger Original Soundtrack
Chrono Trigger Original Soundtrack, also referred to as "Chrono Trigger '99" or "Chrono Trigger PSX OST", is a greatest hitsGreatest hits
A greatest hits album is a music compilation album of successful, previously released songs by a particular artist or band...
album featuring 21 tracks from Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version and nine arranged tracks from the release of Chrono Trigger for the PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
. The arranged tracks come from the cutscene
Cutscene
A cutscene is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, strengthen the main character's development, introduces enemy characters, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues...
s added to the game, while Tsuyoshi Sekito
Tsuyoshi Sekito
is a Japanese video game composer, arranger, and musician who has been employed at Square Enix since 1995. As a composer, he is best known for scoring the video games Brave Fencer Musashi and The Last Remnant...
composed four new pieces for the game's bonus features which weren't included on the soundtrack. The album was released by DigiCube on December 18, 1999 to coincide with the PlayStation release and re-released by Square Enix on February 23, 2005. The album is 1:14:12 long and spans 30 tracks.
A version of the album was re-published by Tokyopop in North America as Chrono Trigger Official Soundtrack: Music From Final Fantasy Chronicles on August 21, 2001, to coincide with the release of the Final Fantasy Chronicles
Final Fantasy Chronicles
Final Fantasy Chronicles is a compilation of Square's console role-playing games Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger, released for the North American Sony PlayStation on June 29, 2001...
collection of Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy IV
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square in 1991 as a part of the Final Fantasy series. The game was originally released for the Super Famicom in Japan and has since then been rereleased for many other platforms with varying modifications. An enhanced remake with 3D graphics...
and Chrono Trigger. The first 21 tracks of the album out of 25 were identical to Chrono Trigger Original Soundtrack, while the next three tracks corresponded to tracks 22, 23, and 29 of the Original Soundtrack and the final track was the same as the first track of Brink of Time. This version of the album is 1:13:03 long.
Original Soundtrack received mixed reviews by critics. Ryan Mattich of RPGFan termed it "an excellent selection of music", primarily due to the arranged tracks, saying that the Original Sound Version album's tracks were better than this version's as they were looped and thus played longer. Patrick Gann was disparaging of the North American version of the CD, however, saying that its shortened tracklist destroyed the main reason to buy the album. Don Kotowski of Square Enix Music Online was dismissive of the Original Soundtrack album, saying that while the Original Sound Version tracks truly represented the "best of" the game's soundtrack, the arranged tracks were "either too short, too much like the original, or lifeless compared to the original", giving no incentive to purchase the album over the Original Sound Version.
Chrono Trigger Orchestra Extra Soundtrack
Chrono Trigger Orchestra Extra Soundtrack is an album of orchestral arrangements of Chrono Trigger songs, arranged by Natsumi Kameoka. Published by Square Enix on November 20, 2008 exclusively as a pre-order bonus of the Nintendo DSNintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
port of Chrono Trigger, this soundtrack consists of two tracks, "Chrono Trigger ~Orchestra Version~" and "Chrono Trigger Medley ~Orchestra Version~", the latter spanning the songs "A Premonition", "Guardia's Millennial Fair", "Yearnings of the Wind", "Frog's Theme", "Battle with Magus", "Epilogue ~To Good Friends~", and "To Far Away Times". Mitsuda expressed difficulty in selecting the songs for the orchestral medley, eventually picking a song from each era and certain character themes. While both tracks involve a full orchestra, "Chrono Trigger" is more heavily horn-based, while "Medley" relies more on stringed instruments. The CD itself came in a single sleeve with a short note from primary composer Yasunori Mitsuda. The album as a whole has a length of 6:18, with "Chrono Trigger" lasting 2:07 and "Medley" having a length of 4:11.
The album has been described as showing that Mitsuda was "well ahead of the curve" when he composed the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. IGN described "Chrono Trigger ~Orchestra Version~" as having a heavy 1970's influence and as being "a testament to Mitsuda's compositional skills", while calling "Chrono Trigger Medley ~Orchestra Version~" "playfully romantic" with "a fairy tale element" in the beginning of the song that later transforms into "an entirely more grandiose arena". Patrick Gann described the soundtrack as "awesome" and said that "Kameoka is really good at orchestral arrangement". His primary complaint was the length of the album, as he wished it had been a full album instead of a "mini-album" of only two tracks.
Chrono Trigger Original Soundtrack (2009 release)
Chrono Trigger Original Soundtrack is a Square-Enix re-release of the Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version soundtrack that was made available for purchase on July 29, 2009. This was reprinted for the Nintendo DS version of the game (that came out in 2008), however the music and synth is almost identical to the Super Nintendo versions. This 3 disc soundtrack contains additional tracks that were not included on the original release, as well as a bonus DVD.The track lengths for a number of tracks on all three discs are different than the Original Sound Version release. On Disc One, tracks 24-27 are new arranged version tracks that were included as the music from those tracks corresponded to the video animated sequences that were added originally on the PlayStation release of the video game. The same applied to tracks 25-27 on Disc Two and tracks 18-24 on Disc Three. Track 2 of Disc 3 was renamed from "Tyran Castle" to "Tyranno Lair".
The Bonus DVD included a special Yasunori Mitsuda interview and two music videos for the tracks that were on the Orchestra Extra album: "Chrono Trigger ~Orchestra Version~" and "Chrono Trigger Medley ~Orchestra Version~".
The * indicates the additional tracks that were not in the original Original Sound Version.
Track listing
Legacy
The main theme of Chrono Trigger was played at the fifth of the Orchestral Game Music ConcertsOrchestral Game Music Concerts
The were a series of Japanese video game music concerts. The events took place in Tokyo from 1991 to 1996 and were performed by different orchestras. Recordings of the concerts were released as a series of albums, which are known for their rarity....
in 1996, and released on an accompanying album. Mitsuda has arranged versions of music from Chrono Trigger for Play! A Video Game Symphony
Play! A Video Game Symphony
PLAY! A Video Game Symphony is a concert series that features music from video games performed by a live orchestra. The concerts from 2006 to 2010 were conducted by Arnie Roth...
video game music concerts in 2006, presenting the main theme, Frog's Theme, and To Far Away Times. Music from the game has also been performed in other video game concert tours such as the Video Games Live
Video Games Live
Video Games Live is a concert series created and produced by industry veterans and video game composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. The concerts consist of segments of video game music performed by a live orchestra with video footage and synchronized lighting and effects, as well as several...
concert series and in concerts by the Eminence Orchestra. Music from Chrono Trigger and Cross made up one fourth of the music in the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in Cologne in September 2009 which were produced by the creators of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series and conducted by Arnie Roth
Arnie Roth
Arnold "Arnie" Roth is an American, Chicago-based Grammy Award-winning conductor, composer, and record producer, best known for conducting numerous video game concerts. He is also a classically-trained violinist and a member of the Grammy Award-winning music group Mannheim Steamroller...
. The concerts featured a suite of music from both games interspersed together with the songs from Trigger comprising "A Premonition", "Battle with Magus", "Chrono Trigger", "Peaceful Days", "Outskirts of Time", "Frog's Theme", and "To Far Away Times", as well as a boss battle suite that featured "Lavos’ Theme". "Crono's Theme" was performed at the Press Start -Symphony of Games- 2007 concerts in Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
and Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
, Japan, and a suite comprising music from Chrono Trigger and Cross was performed at the Press Start -Symphony of Games- 2008 concerts the following year in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
. An arrangement of "Light of Silence" was performed on July 9, 2011 at the Symphonic Odysseys concert, which commemorated the music of Uematsu.
Music from Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version has been arranged for the piano and published as sheet music by DOREMI Music Publishing. Chrono Trigger
OverClocked ReMix
OverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs with new technology and software, as well as by various traditional means...
on January 3, 2006 containing 25 remixes over 2 "discs". Selections of remixes also appear on Japanese remix albums, called Dōjin
Dojin
, often romanized as doujin, is a general Japanese term for a group of people or friends who share an interest, activity, hobbies, or achievement...
, and on English remixing websites such as OverClocked Remix.
External links
- Yasunori Mitsuda's official website
- Chrono Compendium Music - Listing of track information, official releases, fan albums, rearrangements and remixes