© the other press e Culture Star Ocean Till the End of Time Director’s Cut Mini OST Well, since SquareEnix finally made it official that the Directors Cut of Star Ocean Till the End of Time will be released in North America, I’m pretty much not going to shut up about it until it comes out in August. But since that is several months away I figure I'd ramp everyone up to the release by doing some CD reviews. Yes that’s right, Game Guy listens to music, although it never seems to be anything one could easily find, or cheaply buy. And what could be bet- ter to review than the Mini OST released for the directors cut of Star Ocean? Nothing. My planning is absolute, plus I just got the CD in the mail a few days ago. So the basic deal is the eight new music tracks that have been added for the director's cut are here along with new versions of “Confidence in the Domination,” and “Highbrow,” by composer Motoi Sakuraba’s new band, plus one piano track by Sakuraba. The CD opens up with “More Complicated,” a very electronic sounding track with a heavy use of piano to carry the song. It’s upbeat while still retaining a bit of Sakuraba’s trademark mellowness, an unusual choice for an opening track, but since this is basically a collection of songs to fit new scenes, this CD won't fol- low a traditional formula. The next few tracks continue his electronic synthesizer sounds, accom- Witch Hunter Robin | BR panied by excellent drum work. But, when you can fill a day with this guy's works, some of the less noteworthy tracks tend to blend together. We get a nice treat “in the track “Flabbergasted,” the only slow oper- atic track of the whole CD. Still elec- tronic, it has a mellow feel, while being hauntingly empty. One of the oddest tracks, which is also the shortest, “You Know it Fails,” is probably his oddest piece yet. It’s basically a mish mash of electronic sounds with a drum in the back- ground, but it somehow manages to still be entertaining and not painful to listen to. As for the two band tracks, they're performed by Sakuraba’s band, which consists of him on ten synthesizers and one drum, and a guy on bass. These tracks, as well as the piano special track, are all ripped off of his earlier live concert CD. So if you never picked that one up this is nice, but it just kind of ends up being filler if you do have the live CD. These tracks are a nice addition to the full soundtrack, and are typical Sakuraba work, although none of them really stood:out-that much, but with only eight new tracks that’s almost to be expected. You can look forward to another Star Ocean music review next week, as part of my on-going series where I have no intention of shutting up about Star Ocean. Anime Laser Take a quick look at what’s going on the anime world with the OP’s resident game God. What's hot now: Witch Hunter Robin is hot on the North American charts, although this is mostly because’ the DVDs occasionally spontaneously combust when people are not wearing their glasses. There is also Angelic Lair, oh boy, little small fighting robots—it’s so cute it makes me violently ill. What's going to be hot: Well, hopefully this year we'll be see- ing Gundam SEED. What's that? http://www.otherpress.ca | | S-Cry-ed Volume 1: The Lost Grounds Despite the odd name with the dashes in it, this series is extremely well done and very enjoyable. The back-of-the-box premise of this is basically that 22 years ago during an earthquake, part of Japan float- ed into the ocean and separated. But the part where it gets interest- ing, if cataclysmic geological events aren't exciting enough for you, is when the people who were subse- quently born on this land mass began to develop these nifty psy- chic-like powers. That's when the real fun begins. It seems that unless I review something really old the picture isn't going to be sub par, and, as everyone would expect, the anima- tion transfer for S-Cry-ed is excellent. I’m also very pleased to see that Bandai has adapted using 5.1 channel sound on their English tracks, it sounds very impressive on a good 5.1 setup. Also included are the 2.0-channel Japanese voice tracks, which, despite being 2.0 channel, were mastered wonderfully. As for the extras, I was a little more impressed than I usually am. Along with the mandated clean open-and-close animation, was a whole lot a background informa- tion on the “Lost Ground” that helped to flesh out the setting a bit more. As well, there was a character design gallery that I wasn't bored to tears with. But these companies are going to have to come up with some more creative extras, because I don’t think a lot of people are looking at them these days. Also included in the box is a plastic, par- tially see-through trading card with the same art as the cover. I’m not sure as to the card’s purpose, but I'm going to assume there will be six of these cards to the set. Anyway, the psychic abilities these people are born with allow them to take any sort of matter Nick mentioning Gundam, what a shock! He might as well give it 10/5 right now. We can also expect Puni Puni Poemy, Excel Saga’s bastard child that makes less sense than its parent. And, from the pile of stuff I said no one would ever license for very obvious reasons, we have Mouse, about a student teacher whos also a master thief. What's hot from Japan: Two words: Fullmetal Alchemist. No seriously, Fullmetal is one word, it’s a guy's name. I mean, what's better than a military cast named after WWII planes. And it’s also educa- tional; in how many other series do they tell you the various elements around them and change it into a unique alter-ability. These alters can usually take the form of weird looking other beings, or sometimes they can also form different types of armor for the user. Now with all these people wield- ing one hell of a lot of power, a spe- cial police force call HOLD was created and they made a special anti-alter unit called HOLY, made up of alter users. Oddly enough our story doesn’t lie within HOLY, but outside in the lost grounds with a native alter user, Kazuma. Kazuma doesn’t really believe in the HOLD philosophy of ruling over the people with an iron fist so things can be nice and peaceful. The stars of the story are Kazuma, the hardheaded, ironed willed alter user who only fights for himself. And Ryuho, an elite member of HOLY who upholds their princi- pals, and should be given an award for biggest prick in the world— there is no way he could be more of an asshole. These two make up the fundamental conflict in the S-Cry- ed story, and these two opposing viewpoints on what justice is are the basis for some of my favorite types of stories. Instead of the one making up the human body in the very first episode? What’s hot on TV: Inu yasha, well hot probably isn’t the correct word for this; so far, the only good thing about the series is it can be used as a safe non-habit forming . ot ae oe Oh es eT tS lat es] main character, you technically have two, and neither side is neces- sarily right in their viewpoint, they're just different. That’s proba- bly the most appealing part; you're really not pointed in either direc- tion on what is right. You, the viewer, will actually have to make a decision here. Well you don’t really “have” to but you will when fight- ing breaks lose and you find your- self rooting for one side or the other. I know this sounds rather complicated for a series that is based around such a simple point as opposing senses of justice. But the alter powers, when all’s said and done, just take a back seat to this look at what justice is. So basically it’s about justice. Well, and it’s got a lot of blowing up stuff elements. But this series really surprised me mostly because it wasn't anything I was planning on buying in the first place. This was the “I got it given to me” one and now I'm planning on getting the rest. It just goes to show you that stuff you've never heard of will sometimes derail your best laid purchase plans. But for something of this caliber, I don’t mind. Gundam SEED sleep aid. Seriously, if you're going to skip six months of school to go to feudal Japan to collect jewel shards, could you at least not wear your school uniform?