Evergrace Original Soundtrack (Liner notes translation)

scan of liner notes from evergrace original soundtrack, with darius sitting on a rock scarves fluttering in the wind, and sharline sitting on the grass swept hill beside him, hair also fluttering. in the bg is the tower and a bust shot of sienna, eyes closed, translucent in the sky. there is japanese text superimposed on the bottom left, and list of tracks in evergrace on a right solid beige column. lastly, there is a vertical crease in the middle of the scan.

Scans are thanks to Nick G. on VGMdb!

You can see all the scans of Evergrace Original Soundtrack's jewel case on the Wikia, my Tumblr, or on VGMdb if you log into the site.

Everyone likes Evergrace's soundtrack.

Some of you might even like Evergrace's Unofficial In-game Soundtrack, too (hee hee).

But who here has read the liner notes on the inside of the jewel case's booklet?!?

...Well, considering that it's been on the wikia for a while and on my Tumblr, I hope you have read it. If not, I'm also putting it here now, from the Tumblr writeup!

as a wise person once said.... evergrace ost

I got permission to post the evergrace official soundtrack scans from vgmdb~~ i’m really happy. the evergrace wikia article on it now has a very nice facelift regarding that! (i’m planning on putting a link to my novel stuff on there and then running away forever lol)

and did you know that there was producer and composer commentary within the booklet from masanori takeuchi and kota hoshino respectively!? and that as far as i know, no one translated it yet :| why?! THERE WAS A WHOLE SOUNDTRACK SCRAPPED BECAUSE DEVELOPMENT WAS MOVED FROM PS1 TO PS2 GUYS!!!!!!

so i translated it with the help of deepl google translate high school japanese yknow the works. if you’re interested, and don’t wanna give page traffic to wikia because they are really shitty and bloated with ads, read it down below!

As some of you may know, the title Evergrace (subsequently referred to as EG) was originally developed for the PlayStation (subsequently referred to as PS). At the time, the development of the game was quite advanced, and I think it was about 50% complete. Naturally, the music was already made.

And then, it was suddenly decided to develop the game for the PS2, but at that time, the PS2 had not yet been released, and of course, there was a lot about the console’s power that we didn’t understand.

Through a lot of trial and error, we had to recreate everything from scratch for PS2, including the programming, modeling, animation, and textures. I was told that the sound system was technically not that different from the PS’s system, so I thought I would just reuse the PS music… I thought about it quite trivially. So I tried it out, combining PS music with the near-completed PS2 version of EG. Of course, I asked them to make the sound richer and to improve the sound quality for it. However, when I actually tested it out, I found out that the BGM that used to sound so good in the PS version no longer fit at all!

This made me a little nervous. When I think about it now, it would’ve made sense that it wouldn’t fit, but I didn't realize it until that moment. Hoshino [referred to as Hoshino-kun, now i know because of coworker hierarchy and all] seemed to have noticed the problem before I did, and it was easily decided that it’d be a bad idea to use the PS version, so we had to throw everything away and start over like the rest of the game.

In other words, the soundtrack you're listening to was created entirely for the PS2, with nothing reused from the PS version. However, the music in the PS version was also very good, so it is a shame that it never saw the light of day. For me personally, the PS version of Saramad Hill’s music [also known as “Sunbeams Streaming Through Trees on the Hill”] is still one of my favorites.

I believe that Hoshino's music played a very big role in establishing EG's world view. What do you think of it? By listening to this soundtrack, if you can feel the far-off winds of Rieubane, I would be very happy.

Evergrace producer, Masanori Takeuchi

Before the development of Evergrace (subsequently referred to as EG), I had a certain idea in my mind. I wanted to create a sound that was, in a lot of ways, something I could hold to myself, and I think I have achieved that by composing the music of EG which also had its own unique worldview.

I am also very grateful to the producer and everyone around me for allowing me to do what I wanted to do.

And with that, if people who listen to EG's soundtrack are able to feel the world of Evergrace, I would be very happy.

Evergrace composer, Kota Hoshino

Ah, wouldn't it be nice to own a copy of the Evergrace soundtrack for my own one day...