Video
Game
Music

My Rating: 9.25/10
Personal Favorites: In Your Room [1.2], Aki Muroto [1.5], Mai Sakura [1.6], Rina Yunoki [1.9], Kanon [1.11], Momoko Otani [1.12], Katsumi Kurebayashi [1.13] (wait for 1:07), Ruu Narita [1.14], Hiromichi Kudou [1.15], Yuuko Uchida [1.16], Ahoge Appi [2.1] (vocals), Theme of Biological Rythm [2.5]

Yet another one of Noriyuki Iwadare. I'm never quite sure how to rate these so I always end up listening to them more times than I intend. His style is consistently high quality, with many tracks tottering on the edge of greatness, but never quite hitting it for me as some of Takeshi Abo's songs do. This album is especially strong with all the elements of a great album: Character themes are all distinct, with crisp instrumentation throughout. Each track is quite varied with complex melody arrangements that retain interest. The climaxes in some songs are especially strong, with the themes of Aki Muroto [1.5] and especially Katsumi Kurebayashi [1.13] stand out in this respect. Aside from that, the quality of the album is less interesting overall on the second disk.


Don McCow's contributions are also great. Ahoge Appi is a standout here with his other two tracks [1.23-24] not blowing it out of the water. Those are interesting because while a lot of vocalists in video game music just aren't great and it's a quality issue, for those two tracks McCow uses vocalists who imitate fairly well the characters you'd be trying to impress romantically in game. They're not opera singers and their vocals aren't crisp and perfect. But, they sound real people singing, are good enough, and fit the game nicely.


Overall, high quality stuff and a great listen.