SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs - "Ace in the Whole Sky" Edition

SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs provides a weekly dose of great video game music goodness, and this week is no different. This week's edition is named after the Ace Combat series, which saw a new trailer for its upcoming seventh entry release last week. However, there's more than just that series featured this week.

Starting off, of course, with Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, we go even more retro with a character theme from Battle Arena Toshinden 2. Then, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles changes things up with a more subdued tone before things pick up again in rockin' fashion with a tune from F-Zero X. Finally, No More Heroes delivers a delightful theme for one of its more popular bosses.

As always, just click on the VGM volume name to hear its song, and be sure to check out the VGM Database for all past VGM volumes represented on this long-running series of articles. Now, let's get on to the music!

v1321. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War (PS2) - The Unsung War

We begin this edition of SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs with a majestic and sometimes forceful choir and orchestral piece from Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. This PlayStation 2 exclusive remains the top seller in the Ace Combat franchise, sporting over one million sales in North America alone. I figured we'd take a listen to a song from the series with the latest trailer from Ace Combat 7 popping up last week.

v1322. Battle Arena Toshinden 2 (ARC, PS1, PC) - Theme of Tracy

Time for something completely different. Between your Street Fighters and Tekkens, there have been a great deal of fighting game franchises that didn't last as long as the more popular Japanese fighters. Battle Arena Toshinden is one of those. This weapon-based fighter packed a serious punch in arcades and then later on the PlayStation One and PC. Let's pour one out (a bottle of Dr. Pepper, so no one below drinking age gets any ideas) for this franchise with a rockin' '90s character theme from the second game in the franchise.

v1323. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GCN) - Eternal Oath

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles's story has various caravans from each village in the game going out to dangerous dungeons to get crystal energy to protect their homelands from the deadly miasma mist in the air. A lot of villages and their caravans are success stories, but some, like the village turned dungeon where this somber and sullen theme is heard, fail. Composer Kumi Tanioka brought a rustic, earthen sound to the Crystal Chronicles soundtrack's marvelous melodies, something that makes it one of my favorite Final Fantasy soundtracks to date.

v1324. F-Zero X (N64) - Drivin' Through on Max

Both F-Zero X and F-Zero GX fight in many F-Zero fans' minds for best game in the franchise. Where do you stand? Musically, while I do like the techno and electronica music heard in GX, the hard rock and heavy metal of F-Zero X beats GX for me. It's amazing that such sound was possible from the Nintendo 64's hardware, and composers Taro Bando and Hajime Wakai delivered a delightfully peppy and energizing soundtrack.

v1325. No More Heroes (Wii) - Season of the Samurai

A chill start breaking into a guitar-driven romp caps off this edition of SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs, Season of the Samurai from No More Heroes is the theme song to female samurai Shinobu. Her battle is one of the first true challenges of No More Heroes where the difficulty most certainly picks up. Be careful and watchful for her one-hit kill attack which will cut Travis Touchdown down to size in a jiffy.