Even ardent fans of the Ogre Battle series might have a little trouble appreciating "The Entrance," an image album and therefore automatically an object of unreasonable scorn among self-described "fans" of the original game music. Such knuckleheads will certainly find a silver lining in a "Megalo Syntaxis tes Astronomia," a synthesized, 22-minute dandy of a medley that outdoes Kikuta's Secret of Mana + in the sense that one can actually recognize the original tracks. Aside from "Constellatus," which features a humorous summary of the game by a guy describing the conflict between "lightness and darkness," the rest are "original" compositions supposedly inspired by the game music - "typical groovy image album fare" may be a sufficient description. The lone exception to this, "Innocence," is a remarkably discomfiting song that rivals the lyrical awkwardness of Joanne Hogg's ballads (and from the singular Risa Ohki, no less!), yet it still manages to be beautiful, a fitting description for "The Entrance." For two tracks, anyway.

(Lyrics written by Ikuo Kakui. Original composers are listed in square brackets. Arrangers are listed in the "Artist" field, with performers in parentheses.)

(The synopsis was written for the DPCX-5220 edition.)