You can find examples of each musical style Sakimoto uses, which is the reason this twelve-minute monster is one of my favorite tracks.
This piece is, actually, a great cross-section of the entire soundtrack. The third theme is found at the beginning of “Climax of the Graylands Incident” (which is, appropriately, track 3). The first track on Disc One opens with one of these themes, and the second track with another. Some are more dominant than others, and I consider there to be three major ones that are the “driving force” behind the symphonic elements of the music. You’ll notice as you listen to the soundtrack that there are quite a few recurring themes. At the same time, there is a strong Industrial and Tribal influences you’ve got to love those percussion instruments and synthesized chants. These tracks, and others, would be best described as symphonic, nearly Classical in nature. My favorite tracks on the album, “Climax of the Graylands Incident” and “Staff Roll” are far from your traditional ambient music. While describing it as “ambient” would be mostly correct, it doesn’t tell the whole story. I’ll do my best to describe Hitoshi Sakimoto’s unique style to you. Bodyīut of course, dear reader, you require more than just a thumbs-up in order to justify investing your money in this album. At the same time, all the good things about the soundtrack are so subtle that I find that I don’t have much to say except the soundtrack is one of the best collections of game music ever to grace my ears. The pieces are so similar, and they’re all pretty ambient, making a track-by-track review difficult. Without a doubt, reviewing the Vagrant Story Original Soundtrack has been the toughest job I have faced while writing reviews on a regular basis. DigiCube (1st Edition) Square Enix (2nd Edition)