Let me give it to you in one word: underwhelming.

Now, for the longer version of the review.

Naoshi Mizuta has done nothing but Final Fantasy XI music for about eight years. And, in my opinion, he's done a great job in that role. I was excited to see him take on his first non-XI project. I knew it would happen eventually. The project chosen for him was Blood of Bahamut, a Nintendo DS Action RPG with a concept similar to Shadow of the Colossus: normal-sized people killing gargantuan creatures.

Though I wasn't enthralled by the game's concept (SotC with a Final Fantasy summoned-monsters skin), I was excited to hear Naoshi Mizuta try his hand at something new. Unfortunately, it seems the music serves to be mostly functional in purpose and scope, with very few exceptions. As such, I want to say, "this is nothing you haven't heard before." It sounds like an average, B-grade soundtrack for an RPG from SNES or PS1. The only pieces that really stood out to me were the opening theme, and a handful of battle/event themes that stood out to me. Those tracks that I found to be the best are also the ones sampled. So, what you hear from clicking the links on the tracklist is what I consider to be the cream of the crop. The rest is significantly less "creamy."

The production value of the music is really strong. For a DS soundtrack, all of the instrumentation (though it is synth) sounds very good. At some points, it is on par with the FFXI expansion soundtracks, but only in terms of the clarity and quality of audio. The melodies and harmonies composed by Mizuta do not have the same effect as virtually any other soundtrack he's written.

Mizuta has been announced as the composer for another DS RPG coming soon, "4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden." Let's hope that soundtrack fares better than Blood of Bahamut.

Reviewed by: Patrick Gann