Is the magic returning?

As a Wild Arms fan, the Playstation 2 era has been an extremely trying time. I'm not going to sit here and say the four outings on the system (3, ACF, 4 and 5) were bad musically or game wise, yet there is a part of me that just has to admit Media.Vision has yet to top the original Wild Arms or it's first sequel Wild Arms 2.

While I miss Naruke being at the helm of the series music in a certain sense it doesn't really matter: I found WIld Arms 3 soundtrack extremely bloated as she tried to take her style to the next level given the advancement in technology. Some may knock Naruke's earlier works for being somewhat simple yet this is what I feel made them so accessible. ACF more or less struck in the middle of these two extremes thus gave a mixed result; the new tracks dwarfing most of those with a history. After this, as most know, Naruke's appearances have been few and far between as she fell ill. As for Wild Arms 4 and 5, I can literally take ten discs worth of music and fit those I enjoy on one disc or less. Yes, that is pretty cutthroat...

So, as pessimistic as all this seems I didn't have high hopes for Wild Arms XF at all. I figured it would maintain the series sound and nothing else. Boy was I wrong. Don't get the wrong idea, the music for Wild Arms XF isn't the second coming for the series' music, but I'll be damned if it isn't the best soundtrack the series has seen in a good, long time. The most surprising thing was that this was music for a strategy RPG... something I learned after hearing the soundtrack since I hadn't read up on the game - after Wild Arms 5 I decided not to follow the games themselves anymore.

Anyway, as fanboyish as it may sound if you haven't given WIld Arms music a look recently or it fell out of favor with your tastes as it did mine I'd recommend giving the Wild Arms XF soundtrack a shot.