126 - Build Your Own RPG Soundtrack

01/15/24 • 119 min

We're kicking off the new year on Rhythm Encounter with a brand-new kind of episode: Building a soundtrack from pieces of other games. We distilled our imaginary RPG down to eight core musical moments — title, overworld, town, dungeon, battle, emotional, final boss, and ending, to be specific — and pulled a song for each from eight different RPGs. While we were all prepared to justify how eight disparate tracks made sense together, the resulting "soundtrack" was more cohesive than we expected!

We hope you like this musical experiment, because we already have plans for a future sequel. Stay tuned!

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Gio Castillo, Lucas Greene; Edited by Paul Dennis

Tracklist
0:07:45 - Title Theme: Breath of Fire IV ~Opening Animation~ (Taro Iwashiro) - Breath of Fire IV
0:09:13 - Map/Overworld Theme: Quatera Woods (Yukihiro Jindo) - Falcom Field Zanmai (originally Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim)
0:31:51 - Town Theme: Hateno Village (Yasuaki Iwata) - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
0:37:35 - Dungeon Theme: Pyramid (Yuzo Koshiro) - Actraiser Symphonic Suite
0:58:34 - Battle Theme: Battle 1 (Yasunori Shiono) - Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals
1:01:32 - Sad/Emotional Theme: The Sandy Beach of Gumbo (Noriyuki Iwadare) - Grandia
1:25:52 - Final Boss Theme: On Blade’s Edge (Masayoshi Soken) - Endwalker: Final Fantasy XIV
1:30:11 - Ending Theme: Journey’s End (Rich Douglas ft. Jillian Aversa) - Shadowgate (2014)

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

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We hope you like this musical experiment, because we already have plans for a future sequel. Stay tuned!

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Gio Castillo, Lucas Greene; Edited by Paul Dennis

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

Get in Touch:
RPGFan.com
RPGFan Shop
Email us: [email protected]
Twitter: @rpgfancom
Instagram: @rpgfancom
Facebook: rpgfancom
Twitch: rpgfancom

Previous Episode

125 - Long Time Listener, First Time Caller

To celebrate the new year, we put together a special episode before we return to our regularly scheduled topics, with a short episode full of music dedications. We were inspired by the idea of radio DJs who take listener calls and offer up dedications on air, so we polled the RPGFan staff, asking them for songs and written dedications to read on the episode. We both offered some of our own as well, so we hope you enjoy everyone's heartfelt messages and musical choices.

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff; Edited by Paul Dennis

Links for this episode

Tracklist
0:05:31 - Wind Crest ~The Three Trails~ (Takahito Eguchi & Noriko Matsueda) - Piano Collection Final Fantasy X-2
0:10:11 - Boss Battle Theme (Shigeki Sako) - Vay
0:14:56 - Prelude (Nobuo Uematsu, cover by Patti Rudisill & Paula Bressman) - Final Fantasy series
0:23:32 - A Sailor Never Sleeps (Masayoshi Soken) - Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
0:31:20 - My Mind (Nobuo Uematsu, cover by Sebastien Skaf) - Final Fantasy VIII
0:36:17 - New Days (Shoji Meguro) - Persona 4
0:39:59 - Land of Radiant Flowers (Revo) - Bravely Default
0:47:17 - Zelda Heineken (Main Theme) (Koji Kondo, arr. & perf. by Mattias Holmgren) - The Legend of Zelda
0:52:33 - Overworld Theme (Koji Kondo) - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

Get in Touch:
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Email us: [email protected]
Twitter: @rpgfancom
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Next Episode

127 - Music of the Year 2023

It's finally time to celebrate the music of the (last) year! As you know by now, a great deal of incredible games released in 2023, and with them, many notable soundtracks. Our panel today brought some of their favorite songs of 2023, featuring music from some Square Enix heavy hitters to some lovely indie titles and others in between.

As usual for Music of the Year, this episode is longer than usual, as each of us picked one more song than usual, giving us a total of 12, plus two special bonus tracks from Rhythm Encounter's co-founders. It still isn't enough to cover it all, but we packed in as much musical greatness as possible! What are some of your favorite songs and soundtracks from 2023?

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Michael Sollosi, Patrick Gann; Edited by Jono Logan

Pat's Picks
0:05:05 - Toto’haha (Yasunori Nishiki) - Octopath Traveler II
0:08:38 - The Apotheosis (Brandon Boone) - Slay the Princess
0:11:21 - Celestial (Toby Fox Remix) (comp Ed Sheeran, arr Toby Fox) - Pokémon Scarlet & Violet - The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC

Mike Salbato's Picks
0:38:00 - Dedicated to Moonlight (Masayoshi Soken) - Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
0:43:44 - World Map (Reo Uratani) - Meg's Monster
0:45:53 - Colgera Battle (Manaka Kataoka, Maasa Miyoshi, Masato Ohashi, Tsukasa Usui) - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Bonus Track 1: Stephen Meyerink
1:11:33 - Normal Battle I (Yasunori Nishiki) - Octopath Traveler II

Michael Sollosi's Picks
1:17:30 - Preserved Realm (D’Anthoni Wooten) - Dave the Diver
1:20:56 - Ascension (Masayoshi Soken) - Final Fantasy XVI
1:25:04 - Mr. Top Player (Shigeyuki Kameda) - Street Fighter 6

Hilary's Picks
1:48:14 - The Way I See (Andrew Jeremy) - Coffee Talk Episode 2 - Hibiscus and Butterfly
1:54:46 - Down by the River (Borislav Slavov) - Baldur’s Gate III
1:57:05 - Lux Tizer (Norihiko Yamanuki) - The 7th Saga Soundtrack Composer’s Edition

Bonus Track 2: Derek Heemsbergen
2:33:17 - Main Theme (Tsutomu Narita?) - Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

Get in Touch:
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Email us: [email protected]
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