Woke up way too early this morning, like three AM. Decided to use the time to get a jump on the music update.

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We haven’t had a Children of Mana track up here in a while, so here we go. Tower of the Flickering Prayer, it’s the music used for the Mana Tower level which is like the first one you do. All of the levels in Children of Mana have pretty great music, but I think this might be my favorite one.
It kind of has a weird cosmic vibe going on, or maybe I am just really tired. I don’t know.
Listen and you can decide. I’m gonna try to go back to sleep.

Nothing much going on today. I might have the Dawn of Mana soundtrack updated later today with listings of where each track is found in the game. Just gotta go back and revisit a few of the little cut scenes I am not sure about.

Speaking of Dawn of Mana, check this out:

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I really really like this track. Sounds insanely upbeat and fun, which matches the level in Dawn of Mana that this plays on. You’ve just got this huge field to run around and explore what you can do in the game, really great. The music has a huge Latin feel to it that just kinda makes you want to dance around.
This track is seriously so cool.

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So here we’ve got Sorceror, the Dark Lich’s theme in Secret of Mana and Sacrifice Part Two from the last boss fight in Seiken Densetsu 3. These tracks are probably the most similar tracks in those two games, apart from like, the obvious Fear of the Angels.

I don’t guess there is much more to say?

Totally love Sorceror, it has to be the best boss music I’ve ever heard. The redux of it in Seiken Densetsu 3 is ok, but it isn’t as pumped up and lively.

This week, I bring you not only the Music Monday, but another batch of updates which are related to the pieces below. I’ve chosen these two by Hiroki Kikuta, because in spite their overall simplicity, they greatly enhance the emotional connection to the story.

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I don’t know about you guys, but when I go to watch a film in the cinema, I stay right ’til the end of the credits while everyone else starts packing out like rats from a sinking ship, and there are several reasons I do this. Read the rest of this entry »

Alrighty, we’ve got another pair of tracks from Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 here that are pretty similar, check it out:
And uh, I still don’t know how to make the music thing smaller.

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And also there is a huge blank space here that I dunno how to get rid of! I am not having an easy time with the news thing I guess.
If they don’t actually sound similar, then my bad guys, but I swear these tracks have got a lot in common! Stay tuned for next week when we’ll have another look at some tracks that follow the same theme in SoM and SD3.

Also, maybe I’ll have a site update later today!

Alrighty, for this week’s Mana Music Monday I’ve got three tracks for you to check out. The first two tracks, Repeating Eternity and Legend are from Secret of Mana, and the third one, Return to Forever, is the end credit music from Seiken Densetsu 3. All of these tracks were composed by Hiroki Kikuta.
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(Dunno why this thing is so tall, maybe Kassidy knows how to fix it?)

This is pretty neat here, if you listen to Repeating Eternity and Legend they both sound pretty similar, now listen to Return to Forever and BAM! Totally Repeating Eternity and Legend put together. I wonder why Kikuta decided to keep these tracks from Secret of Mana, and incorporate them into Seiken Densetsu 3 as the end theme.

On some of the next MMM updates we’ll explore more tunes that made the transition from SoM to SD3 and see how it all went down. Enjoy!

Also, I’ve forgotten the thing that lets my camera memory card hook into my computer, so I can’t work on the Merchandise section for a while. The Bestiary is gonna take a lot of work, so my updates might be coming pretty slow.

While I continue to hack away at Heroes of Mana material, try to move house, and keep a job down all at the same time (and not loose my marbles playing Chinese Checkers), I took some time out to listen to the OST for Concerto Gate again and got caught on this Dungeon F theme which is quite soothing and reminds me of Topple, or some odd reason. So here you have it, your music for this Monday is by jam-masters Ito and Kikuta.

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Here is a little track from Dawn of Mana y’all can listen to, it is called “Rondo of Sand.”
Now that title got me thinking, what the heck is a Rondo? So I started looking up words and here is what I came up with:

“A musical composition, commonly of a lively, cheerful character, in which the first strain recurs after each of the other strains.”

I kinda think this music is more sneaky than lively and cheerful, but I guess it fits the mold. Though, I dunno a thing about music so whatever a “strain” is I have no idea.

Well I hope you enjoyed this week’s Mana Music Monday, keep coming back and you might just learn a little. Also, Mana Music Mondays are now going to only be available for streaming, no downloading. We don’t wanna get in any trouble, if you want more info on why it is streamed you can check our legal jazz that Kassidy put together. Link is at the bottom of the page under Terms & Conditions.

Well I went to the doctor and he “Ooh, eeh, ooh ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang”, then gave me some tablets that… well, the only way to describe the taste is that if I were ever to find out what rotten mushboom tasted like (and I hope I never do), this would be exactly the same. Needless to say, I can now at least close my eyes without getting dizzy.

So for this Music Monday it’s not going to be Mana Music… Instead, it’s Mana-related. A while back we mentioned a collaboration taking place for the soundtrack of Concerto Gate, Square-Enix’s new MMORPG, between Kenji Ito and Hiroki Kikuta. Well, the beta came out a while ago, so I thought I would bring you a sample track from it.

Concerto Gate – Battle 01 (Kenji Ito, Hiroki Kikuta)[MEDIA=25]

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Peaceful Underground Lake – Masaharu Iwata

So I figured we need some Children of Mana music, we haven’t seen any of that except for the one track that made it into the annoying music poll. Speaking of polls, there’s a new one running, don’t forget to vote! This track is the one you find yourself listening to when you’re running around Star Lake in Topple. Here’s a tip for leveling up there:

Once you get to a high enough level (pretty much near the end of the game) you can head to Star Lake and find some secret Metal Crabs hiding there. A good place to look for them would be near a bunch of gold treasure chests, you probably need to work your way through some of those annoying vines that grab you too, so push some enemies into it and then kill them so they’ll take the vines down with them.
When you get near the treasures run around a bit and a purple Metal Crab will pop up. Be careful around this guy, even when you’re at level 99 with some nice armor he can still do some good damage. If you kill him you’ll get a whopping 1000 experience points, which is usually enough to push you through 2 or 3 levels.