5 out of 5

Label: Data Discs

Produced by: Shaun Crook (digital remaster)

Original review is here, with this just a review of how the digital compares.

Data Discs put out their amazing vinyl edition of Yuzo Koshiro’s classic score in 2015. That edition is still amazing. I’m not a vinyl purist, but thanks to Shaun Crook’s mastering work – across all DD releases, but even more obvious when the score is the kind of genre ante-up that was SoR – the release is a nearly undeniable argument for the amazing skill required to compose these things, especially in the day when you had less memory and sounds with which to work. That is: it sounds so rich on vinyl that you can maybe forget (if you’re so inclined) that it accompanied stylized sprites beating each other up.

In 2020, maybe with some COVID time on their hands, the DD team started releasing some digital versions of albums – which they’d not been doing before – and I eagerly purchased so I could listen to this grand stuff on the go.

Now maybe I should be angry, because what I purchased is not that 2015 edition, but rather an edition remastered for digital. But I’m not angry, because in the same way that Shaun’s work in 2015 showed how great this stuff sounds on the warm, embracing medium of wax, the digital version sounds amazing in its own way. It has the more immediate vibe of modern music; elements that purposefully glimmered before now sparkle; lows and highs rebalanced so it sounds perfect when, say, coming through your phone and into headphones. Plus: one bonus track!

I’m not enough of an audiophile to add anything more intelligent than that to the conversation except that: this is an entirely different experience from the vinyl, while obviously being the same album. I guess there’s the possibility you dislike one remaster, but I feel that Crook knows his audience and maintains the spirit of the game; I feel that both of these – vinyl, digital – are fully worth your time.