I've been waiting 27 metric yonks for this record. Ever since I first played the game I have wanted this soundtrack. The CD was never released in the west, so I had to make do with a badly encoded, low bit rate, early noughties illegal download. When I heard this record was being pressed I nearly came.And it was totally worth the wait. This is a great pressing. The full soundtrack as originally released back in the day, with an extra 7 inch for the Area X bit, which is actually quite good. It still has the alternative mix of 'Fear' without the 'California Soul' sample, but this version is great in its own way.

There is actually two version of it. This one with orange clear vynil and a more limited with two picture disc.

So does this include a digital download? The iam8bit store made a reference to a download before the preorders shipped, but it seems that it's since been erased from the description.

They advertised a digital download of the album before they actually acquired the rights to the music. Then they looked at what the rights would cost, having not considered that Japan had different copywrite laws the US, and couldn't afford to actually include it. So instead they gave a 3 track EP of the Area X songs, in mp3, not lossless. Pretty unprofessional and uncoordinated over there at the iam8bit....

It only includes a download for the new Area X songs.

This is one of my favorite video game soundtracks, sitting up high next to Ridge Racer Type 4 Direct Audio. The whole album has this nice, cohesive, purpose built sound that lends itself perfectly to the gameplay. It's like the two were built around each other. They stayed faithful to the original "A Gamer's Guide To..." version of the soundtrack, with the original version of the Mindkiller tune and not the Origin Unknown remix. Overall, the first two LPs in this collection are very nice and well composed. Then you get to the bonus tracks and it all falls apart. What the hell were they thinking? These two tracks are completely forgettable, poorly constructed, generic at their worst parts and 100% interchangeable with each other at their best. I feel betrayed as a fan of both the music and the game. They both stand well enough on their own as separate artistic entities, but when they're combined it pulls it into another dimension. This 7 inch feels like stapling a used condom to the Mona Lisa.

Excellent pressing. Nice object even if it takes much space among my other records. I suppose this is the definitive version of this OST. All original tracks are there. The 2 extra "WTF" tracks from Hydelic created for the Area-X are utmostly dispensable. Hopefully I can forget them easily as they are on a separate 7".

Face E/F tracks sound as crappy house dance music like what you can hear on these awful summer dancefloor compilations, a way far from the original titles... Original style were techno, experimental and transe, nothing to rely with what Hydelic did. So regarding the original EPs, hopefully we just have Fear (Rez Edit) which was missing although it's one of the best track of this ost. Now I'm thinking about 70$ just to get this title...

looks and sounds excellent! Fear is still missing the California Soul sample as it was on the old soundtrack release, so it's definitely not new renders or anything like that. the book binding seems a little fragile, so take note.

Yeah. The book binding looks like it was falling apart straight from the factory, unfortunately. Thinking of sleeving the discs elsewhere so that opening case doesn't ruin it.