Search - Final Fantasy :: Final Fantasy XIII: Limited Edition Box Set

Disappointed with the sound quality

Obsidian | Hawaii | 03/30/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I buy a lot of OST for games and anime. As a Limited Set, it is OK but too expensive. It comes in a nice large white box with a big XIII on the front. It also includes a drama disc (sealed in a foil bag no less), mini-artbook, and the large 4 CD fold-out set. The CD has Bilingual Japanese/English track names. The mini-artbook is all Japanese (except for the credits in English, go figure). I have a beef with the artbook being just stapled sheets. I figure for this price they could make it a hard-bound artbook like that included with Mass Effect 2's Collector's Edition. But not to be, it's just paper.



I am very disappointed with the sound quality of this set. This goes for most of the piano and orchestral pieces. They all sound "tinny" with lots of clipping on the piano sections. This makes me very sad, because those are some of the best pieces in the whole set! And to make the recording so bad, makes my sound system sound like a cheap radio, like an mp3 compressed at 96kb or something. What the hell were they thinking? The only good sounding track is "Afro Blues" on CD2, but I wanted all the orchestral/piano to sound good, and they sure screwed that up. Sad very sad. As far as tracks go, they have all the music in the game that you'll ever want, with some very short tracks. However it is quite complete.



If you want all of the music, then by all means buy this. But if you want better sound quality, I would wait and see if they release just an orchestral tracks version, which hopefully has better quality recordings."

Great but still not GREAT..

Johnathan Mcilvride | Canada | 03/30/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I received this item much faster than I thought I would. So that was a bonus. Upon opening it, the item was undamaged in any way, which is more than I'm used to. Most of the time I find a dented corner or a scratched cover from mishandling between the manufacturer and the supplier. This was completely unscathed.



The box itself is fairly nice, it does give the Final Fantasy feeling when opening it. Very contemporary in style. The artbook has some nice pictures in it. The soundtrack CD's appear very nice and the casing in which they are carried is also fairly nice. There is also a bonus wrapped up CD which I have yet to open. All in all I am fairly impressed with the stuff provided.



I am however, not as impressed in the price. As a limited edition I can see them charging an abundance of money, but I just think for a soundtrack this was a little steep. If they wanted to charge extra money for something, they could've released a limited edition of the game itself. That would have been worth it. I was expecting this to be about $44.99-$50.00, not almost $80.00 - this is steep. For this price, the quality of the contents don't really meet up to par. It seems more like a marketing scam just to get the all the diehard fans to dish out some extra cash.



The box could have been white velvet lined or had a little more put into it. The artbook should've definitely been hardbound and maybe a little thicker in detail. I don't mind the Japanese subtitles on everything, because this is a Japanese game. However English would've been nice, even if in fine print in the artbook so you knew what it said. The CD quality could've been a bit better. Some parts of it kind of reminded me of the music from Rapture in Bioshock. With an old radio scratchiness to it. Maybe this is the effect they were going for? Or maybe there was a lack of attention between the recording studio and the manufacturer. In any event, it is a little disappointing.



All in all I'll give it four stars because it's still a nice set for a diehard fan. But it could have been better. Hopefully in the future when they release Versus and such it will be better."

Great product, too expensive

I. G. AlTheeb | UAE | 04/07/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I loved the product, music and the packaging are great, if you are a FF fan then go for it, otherwise don't buy it. Since its a limited edition, it worth the money, but I was surprised since its listed here for only 25$ [..] and amazon listing price was 70$+ . the 4 star for the product and the -1 star for the listing price of amazon."