Xenoblade OST

One of the best parts of the game for me is the music.  What's your favorite tracks?

At first I was disappointed that Mitsuda was only called on at the end to handle the ending theme, but once I heard the music in the game, I was so happy with it regardless.

My favorite are the tracks by ACE+ which are most of your overworld and battle tracks.  But I liked Shimomura's tracks as well.  These are just my top favorites:

You Will Know Our Names (not sure about the title translation)
This song is brilliant.  The beginning startles you when you happen upon a boss.  It's very tense and foreboding at first as you choose to flee or fight.  Then if you survive to about a minute in, it lifts up into a heroic charge.  Every time I hear the song, I think WE CAN DEFINITELY DO THIS!

Engage the Enemy
This is another song that cleverly starts out slow, then once things get real, it lifts up into epic mode for maximum emotional impact.

Beyond the Sky
This song took a while to grow on me, but the more I listen to it, the more I love it.  It has a quiet depth to it.  Sarah Alain's vocals are romantic without being too cheesy.  I haven't played a game that Mitsuda scored in quite a while, so I was really happy to get at least one track in Xenoblade by him.

I always liked Tragic Decision and Once We Part Ways. I've always been a fan of the more somber tracks.

I really think all of the composers have outdone themselves.  I really love all of the music, but here are my particular faves.  :3
Mechonis Field (it just sounds so 80's), Gaur Plains is my cell phone ringtone, and Snowy Mt. Valak is my HEY GET UP alarm.  I also love the Nopon Village's music.  |3

Like the game, I think the soundtrack is overrated. I'm replaying the game so it's kinda fresh...

Overall, I think the best music is mostly from the cutscenes. Field/dungeon/town music are generally either "just there" (at best, just nice) or irritating enough for me to lower the sound (there is a reason I enjoy the towns better at night, the music isn't as loud). Alcamoth, Eryth Sea, Galahad/Sword Valley, Machina Village, some Colony 6 tracks, probably the second Mechonis dungeon (don't remember the song actually but I know the chore that is Mechonis was easier to cross with Mechonis Field playing... sadly, the second "level" didn't have as great of a song to ease the pain). Those ended up annoying me.

Makna Forest is probably the only area that have tracks that keep feeling like true background music (and maybe this track in the High Entia Tomb). It keeps playing but you hardly notice it. I don't care for the music but at least, it doesn't get tiresome (it's probably one of the reasons why it's the area where I feel the most relaxed). I feel pretty meh about Satorl music... or Satorl as an area (at day, it looks boring, at night, I get lost because I can't see much because of all the colored fog... and darn, the game unleashes pretty high level monsters all over the place too). Some people say it's Macalania done right but I prefered Macalania in FF10, despite the game not being open world. Also, I have to say that Gaur Plain (the song... but the area itself is nothing special either when you look at the entire game) lost its appeal after a while. I guess it's so talked about because it was the first huge area of the game with the giants in the background (not that Colony 9 was small but Bionis Leg was surely bigger) and a more upbeat song.

There are a few great field songs (valak during the day, mechonis field... I have a nice memory of Agniratha music but I'm not there yet and I forgot the song) but overall, the truly good tracks are from the cutscenes (and unfortunately, with such a huge open world game, you'll get to listen to town/field songs more than cutscenes songs *especially since some cutscene tracks can be used once in the entire game*). I'm not a big fan of the battle music either... save for a few used in story boss moments.

I don't really feel like I can listen to the entire soundtrack outside the game, really. The soundtrack fits the game well, but half of the songs aren't worth listening on their own to me. That said, the better half of the soundtrack is nice to listen to (the main song *truly, the best melody of the game*, the ending theme *even if it's the weakest Mitsuda song to me*, Grandeur, Mechonis Field, Unfinished Battle...)

Necroing the thread because I can, even though the actual track doesn't seem to be available, the added electric guitar track to Gaur Plains that was in the Shulk Smash Reveal Trailer at 0:48 was enough to take me from an excited observer to a crying fangirl.