As you know at this point, I am becoming (or already am) a Super Robot Wars (SRW) fanboy. I fell in love with Original Generation, and drooled over playing Alpha 3. Along with good gameplay, plot and characters, it provides me with an array of nice music too.
Alpha 2 is chronologically the 3rd installment in the Alpha series (Alpha Gaiden is 2nd) and its second entry onto the RPG-infested PlayStation 2 in 2003. I have only played Alpha 3 so initially, I thought reviewing this OST would be tough: I normally play the games, along with hearing and understanding its music. Fortunately, I was able to grasp the understanding of the OST easily, not because I only played Alpha 3, but because majority of the songs I have already heard on its predecessor.
The OST contains two discs with the first being anime music (minus the opening), and the second containing only original tunes.
A lot of the songs sound more synthesized, so there were alterations to the songs when I originally heard them in Alpha 3. The most notable changes are moments in songs that had usage of guitars, or other heavy instruments in Alpha 3 are replaced with techno beats. They are fine listens, though I find them kind of funny initially. There are some that uses them, aside from openings.
Disc one starts off with the game version of the opening “Skill,” performed by the dynamic JAM Project. I love the full version of the song, and while the game version is good, I felt it was cropped at a weird moment around 10-12 seconds into the song. Afterwards it goes on to the classic anime tunes, starting off with Mazinger and Mazinkaiser, which is featured in almost every Super Robot War games (excluding the Original Generation series).
Again, since I heard the Alpha 3 OST before, I already heard a lot of the anime themes. They are still just as sharp, though the more heavy songs sound more synthesized to me. Songs such as “Men of Destiny” have more techno portions of the songs. Despite that, they are still good songs, so it still remains enjoyable.
There were some songs that were new to me. “Sally” is an enjoyable orchestrated song from the Gundam movie Chars Counterattack. Gundam F91 was featured, and it had some very nice songs. I enjoyed “To the new space” with its simple melody, giving me an impression of something epic. Space can be epic after all. The game featured the anime Brain Powered, providing three songs. They are pretty good, though a bit on the generic side. “In my Dream” is the most enjoyable out of the three, and it used electronic guitars on this song, at least it sounded like guitars. I do find it strange, considering a lot of the other songs don’t use them when needed.
I find the song “Fleet Battle” to be the odd one among the disc. An energetic, gritty song, which gives me a bit of a cyber-punk impression. It doe’s not sound synthesized like some of the other energetic songs, nor is it familiar to me. Perhaps it is from Zeta Gundam, being placed in-between two songs from that anime, though it doe’s not fit with the orchestral style of the other songs. It seems like it was kind of thrown in, though I thought the song was pretty cool.
Disc two contains original music, but there is not much to say this time around. Majority of the songs I have already heard, and my likes remain the same. There are less character theme songs since there were less original characters in the game, and the main leads in Alpha 2 appear in Alpha 3. In this OST, the lead, Kusuha, has only two songs with one being shared with Brooklyn (Bullet), where as she has three, and Bullet doe’s not have his own individual song.
There are some alterations in some of the songs as well, due to the songs being synthesized, hence no heavy guitar usage. It is easily the noticeable upon listening to Zengar’s two theme songs, which were hardcore on the Alpha 3 OST.
There was one song I liked quite a lot that was not featured in Alpha 3. It is a remix of Ratsel’s song “Trombe!” titled “Trombe! Ver. R.” It is a great remix that sheds some new light to a song I already liked. Interesting techno beat, using the main melody, and easily memorable in my opinion. The soundtrack now comes to an end with JAM project performing the song “Forever and Ever.” It is only the game version, but I find the song itself, one of JAM project’s weaker works unfortunately. It simply didn’t click with me too well.
Overall I did enjoy the soundtrack, but it was less enjoyable than Alpha 3. When it first came out, it was a worthy purchase, but now, you are better getting off getting Alpha 3‘s OST. You can say that a lot of the songs Alpha 3 has, are originally from this OST, which downgrades the value of the other OST a little bit. Even so, Alpha 3 is twice as big, and for the same price, it’s worth getting that OST instead, unless you are a purist, or a collector of soundtracks. It may not have songs from certain anime like Brain Powered, synth versions of some songs, or even “Trombe! Ver. R,” but it has so much more.
