Overview

This small promotional album was released with pre-orders for the game in Japan. It offers a glimpse into how Yuzo Koshiro originally thought about composing the dungeon and battle themes for the game. In addition, it offers a prototype opening theme as well.

Body

The promotional album opens with "Dungeon Prototype Music (PCM) 2006.3 Dedicated to the First Adventurers." This is a bright and upbeat theme with a bit of a militaristic march style to it. The strings accompaniment is quite nice and the melody overall is quite good. The second theme, "Battle Prototype Music (PCM) 2006.4 To Fight and Obtain the Greatest Treasure," interestingly enough, is actually an early version of "Battle - Inspecting the Resounding Weapons" from Etrian Odyssey II. It's quite good, though it's definitely more orchestral focused than its final rendition.

The next theme, "Dungeon Prototype Music (PCM+FM) 2006.5 A Long, Quiet Corridor," is an early version of "Labyrinth I - The Green Green Woodlands" from Etrian Odyssey. Melodically, it is the same; however the instrumentation is definitely weaker than the final version of this theme. Next up, we have "Dungeon Experiment Music (FM) And We Arrived at Midori's Ground At Last." This theme is very tranquil in nature and carries with it a sense of etherealness. Overall, it's a pretty decent theme with a nice melody.

"Battle Music Out Take (FM) Scattered Flower Blade, Resounding Iron Shoes" is an intense theme with some nice percussion, but the melody is quite lacking. It's quite intense, but that's about it. On the other hand, "Battle Music Out Take II (FM) The Battlefield Does Not Sleep" is actually awesome. It's got an awesome bass line and the melody is fantastic. I'm not sure why he decided not to use this one, but it has a nice charm to it.

Lastly, "Opening Full Version Traditional Poetry, Brave People" is probably the prototype opening theme. The opening is the same as in the final version of the theme, entitled "Spinning the Tale" on the original soundtrack, but after that, it moves into an upbeat theme with plenty of percussion. It didn't really seem to fit the whole style of the game, so it was probably revised to the final version.

Summary

Overall, this bonus album is rather interesting. Some of the dungeon and battle music is a bit lacking, but others are fantastic. A mixed bag for sure, but it is interesting listening to this in retrospect and realizing it offered a glimpse into a future battle theme for the series, even if unbeknownst to even Koshiro at the time of its conception. It's probably not worth picking up as I think the original soundtrack offers much better themes, but for those diehard collectors, they might want to get it.