We are now so many levels removed from the source, I am painfully confused.

Before even talking about the music, let's just go over the history of "Endless Frontier." In the early '90s, a company called Banpresto created the "Super Robot Taisen (Wars)" franchise. All they did was cross over dozens of mecha anime classics into individual installments of a Strategy RPG, and with each subsequent installment, introduce a few original characters as the protagonists.

As time passed, Banpresto created so many original characters for their Super Robot Taisen series that they were able to make full games based on the interactions of the original characters. Thus, the "Super Robot Taisen Original Generation" spin-off was born. This in itself was something of a miracle: a story that lived and breathed on using already-popular characters was making headway with its own cast. Wow!

At the same time, somewhere else in the land of videogames, Monolith Software (creators of Xenosaga) developed their own crossover strategy RPG called "Namco x Capcom." I bet you can guess whose company's characters were included in that game. Of course, this game had its own pair of protagonists.

"Endless Frontier" didn't seem to be designed, at first, as a brand. It was a spin-off of a spin-off of a spin-off, and it even changed the rules of the gameplay. No longer were we working with a pure Strategy RPG. These were one-on-one person encounters (instead of mechs) with a nice mix of turn-based and action-based combat. The cast? The original characters from Original Generation, plus original characters from other crossover games, and some established characters as well (hi2u, KOS-MOS). The game had different names in different regions, but it was something along the lines of this: "Super Robot Taisen OG (Original Generation) x Saga: ENDLESS FRONTIER." Endless Frontier was the suffix.

But now, apparently, it's popular enough to become its own branding. Why do I say this? There's a sequel! And it's just being called "Endless Frontier EXCEED." Drop all that crap about Super Robot Wars and Original Generations and Sagas and other nonsense. We're just cutting the name from scratch and starting at "Endless Frontier." It's like the Dark Forces / Jedi Knight / Jedi Outcast fiasco. But stupider.

So this soundtrack is a promotional release for Japanese consumers who got EXCEED. This two disc set contains full OSTs for both of the Endless Frontier titles. Here we see that, on disc two, much of the original music written for the first game was used a second time, modified for the new game. But it's still a ton of music. And it's all very good, very catchy stuff.

And take note! EXCEED has an instrumental version of "Brave New World," the theme song to Namco x Capcom. WHAT IS GOING ON?! This whole concept is such a ridiculous head trip. But if you can let go of that and just enjoy the music, it's a great mix of synth plus [other genre] fusions. Synth rock. Synth pop. Synth dance. Synth orchestra. And it all sounds mighty good.

My conclusion? This one should've gotten a retail release. The CDs come as part of the overall limited edition box, but even within the box the soundtrack CDs aren't packaged as part of an official "soundtrack," but as discs sleeved within a booklet. Furthermore, the first game in this series had like, a 10-track bonus CD. But the first game's soundtrack is awesome, so I'm happy it got bundled in with the EXCEED OST.

Reviewed by: Patrick Gann