The soundtrack was this game's saving grace, for me. Shimomura obviously put a lot of thought into this stuff, ahh so amazing
(originally posted
here, please credit that or
here~)
Dearly Beloved: I was told that they wanted "to jump in quick this time" because the intro to KH2 was so long, so this version begins comparatively quickly. Basically, I was conscious when composing to try for a slow, rich flow following in the footsteps of the one from KH2, and also, to have it feel a little heartbreaking. I always wanted to go with using the same tune but changing the impression a little each time, and I am very happy that I was able to pull it off. --Yoko Shimomura
Musique pour la tristesse de Xion: I wanted to see if I could incorporate "the sadness of Xion, who shouldn't be able to feel sadness" into the tile. In English it would have been the word 'sad', but I thought nahh, that doesn't sound very Xion-like! So I used French, which I rarely do. It ended up kinda Ravel-like, haha. I also wrote this before in the comment for the soundtrack, but I made this with the concept of "something, like a faint illusion, that should surely be there but somehow feels as though it's not; it's nothing, but it somehow feels like there's something important there..." --Yoko Shimomura
At Dusk, I Will Think of You…: During development, I called this the "Ice-cream-Time Theme". That's what it is, isn't it, haha. In the dusk we think back to everyone's smiles then, the fun times, and to important memories. When you all eat ice cream at twilight, who do you think of? --Yoko Shimomura
Vector to the Heavens: When the name first appeared in "Piano Collections KINGDOM HEARTS Field & Battle", it was "Musique pour la tristesse de Xion", and that confused everyone to no end. I'm really sorry ;; The story is, the song in the Piano Collections is Xion's theme and battle theme joined together, and because of the overall impression of the song, I used her theme song's title. For the concept of the battle theme, I used "vectors", originally from mathematics. Because of that, I decided I absoutely had to use "vector" when I gave it a title. What are you facing? Where are you going? What are you carrying?? That became the title just as it was. --Yoko Shimomura
Another Side – Battle Ver. -: "Another Side" sure did well! Even the battle version made it into the ranking. I'm honestly surprised. I heard so many happy voices from you all for "Another Side" too, more than I could have thought for a track originally from "Kingdom Hearts Final Mix". I made the "– Battle Ver. -" because they wanted battling with that song as BGM just like in the secret movie. Upon that request I looped it and tweaked fine details. It's mostly the same, but it's a tiiiny bit different. Just a bit, haha. --Yoko Shimomura
