We were burned once by a low-quality Atelier soundtrack for the DS once, and frankly, I didn't want to get burned again. Atelier Lise, however, was composed by a new team. In this new Atelier DS game, "Atelier Annie," the composer is exclusively Daisuke Achiwa, part of the regular "Gust Sound Team" as we know it today. So I had hope.

At first, I thought my hopes were dashed. It's a bad sign, after all, when you've listened to the first ten tracks and you think "there's nothing good on this album." The opening vocal theme was nauseatingly sweet and peppy. And then the first handful of BGM tracks didn't sound any more interesting than Atelier Lise. This had me worried.

But I quickly found out where Achiwa flexed those musical muscles: battle themes. The first one is track 11, "Cloud Buster." It doesn't rival most of the battle themes from the Atelier series, but it is still quite strong. And as I continued to listen to the soundtrack, my resolve grew: this soundtrack has good battle themes, but little else, in the way of enjoyable music.

The ending theme, "Shiny," is just as sugary as the opening. I guess I just don't like vocalist Mami Yanagi. I much prefer the works of Haruka Shimotsuki or Akiko Shikata, as they are both good at dusting their performances with strange, memorable ethnic sounds. Straight up sugar-sweet J-Pop does not seem to fit my idea of what the Atelier series is all about.

There are a handful of pieces on this album that make it worthwhile. Again, they are the battle themes. And you may find a couple town/dungeon themes you like as well; but for me, only the battle music was worth it. That said, I wouldn't recommend buying this soundtrack unless you're some sort of completionist that wants every Atelier soundtrack in your grubby little fingers. I hope that, if Gust does another Atelier game for DS, some care is put into making a more mature soundscape for the music.

Reviewed by: Patrick Gann