Sakuraba fans are in for a treat with this second volume of the Star Ocean soundtrack - while the first one addressed their orchestral wet dreams, you'll find nothing of that kind on Volume 2, which is a 2-disc electronic rock, metal and jazz festival of sorts. Gone is the clunky sampling Sakuraba was so renowned for during the first Playstation generation, and what replaces it is something that makes Uematsu's Otherworld pale in comparison. The entire soundtrack - that is, every single track - is done with live instruments (though the occasional use of programmed drumming or synths isn't out of the question) - from the powerful battle riffs of Divine Spirit of Language (which sounds more like a Joe Satriani song than Star Ocean: the Second Story's Dynamite), to the ten-minute feast of Highbrow on disc two. You won't find anything soft or emotional like We Form in Crystals with the possible exception of the complicated, fast jazz sound in Moody Goddess. All in all, if you wanted a soundtrack that resets the standard in RPG music, you've found it here and it's hard to imagine a future Uematsu album that completely ignores it.