The DigiCube Revival

In 1996, Square established the independent subsidiary DigiCube to commemorate their entry into the PlayStation era. DigiCube served to market and distribute Square’s video games, videos, books, toys, and albums. Prior to DigiCube, Square’s albums were published by external record labels — Datam Polystar during the NES era and NTT Publishing during the Super Nintendo era. With packages like theFinal Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack Limited Edition, DigiCube quickly became known for offering some of the highest quality and exuberant albums in the video game industry. The company went on to print the original scores, arranged albums, and occasional singles or drama CDs for practically all new entries in the Final Fantasy, SaGa, Mana, Front Mission, Chocobo, and Parasite Eve series. A few soundtracks, such as for Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy X-2, were published by other record labels since Square did not have the rights to publish the vocal songs.

Altogether DigiCube released over 70 album releases between 1996 and 2003, including best-sellers such as the Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack. Despite the success of its albums, DigiCube was hit financially crippled by Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within‘s commercial failure and Final Fantasy XII‘s delay. While Square was rescued by being absorbed into Enix, DigiCube filed for bankruptcy in November 2003 due to their 9.5 billion yen debt. They still managed a temporary release of the long-awaited Final Fantasy VII Piano Collections but the planned Front Mission 4 Plus 1st Original Soundtrack release was shelved. By early 2004, new copies of Final Fantasy albums were rarely available, though it took a longer for stocks of less popular albums to deplete. This threatened the existence of several well-known online game music stores, since the popularity of Final Fantasy music was far greater than other soundtracks at the time.

In May 2004, Square Enix established their own record label to reprint DigiCube’s albums and publish new soundtracks. They did so with the help of distributor Sony Music Distribution. They quickly reprinted the main soundtracks in the Final Fantasy series to the delight of fans and stores alike. They followed by finally releasing the Front Mission 4 Plus 1st Original Soundtrack and reviving the Final Fantasy Piano Collections albums. By late 2004, most major Final Fantasy albums had been reprinted and Square Enix had also published their first totally new album, the Final Fantasy XI Chains of Promathia Original Soundtrack. However, it often took a lot longer for other popular DigiCube albums to be reprinted and it wasn’t until 2006 that Square Enix attained an output of new releases similar to that of DigiCube. Below is a list of DigiCube albums in order of release date and their Square Enix reprints where applicable:

After reprinting the Final Fantasy soundtracks, Square Enix focused on reprinting other best-selling DigiCube albums. They successively reprinted albums in the Mana (Legend of Mana, Sword of Mana), Xeno (Xenogears, Xenogears Creid), Chrono (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross), and SaGa (SaGa Frontier, SaGa Frontier II) series between October 2004 and February 2006. Around the period ofFinal Fantasy XII‘s hype, they also reprinted Hitoshi Sakimoto’s Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance soundtrack. More were surprised when Square reprinted Final Fantasy Potion and the Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon Original Soundtrack. Since then, reprints have slowed to a rate of about two per year, but at last Square Enix begun to look beyond the popular series. Some of their latest reprints were the soundtracks for DewPrism, Front Mission Alternative, Einhänder, Chocobo Racing, and the Parasite Eve series. Once again, these released were unexpected given none of these albums were particularly popular in their original prints. Just how far did Square Enix intend to go with the reprints?

Given its reputation for high quality album releases, several companies external to Square entrusted DigiCube to publish their soundtracks back in the day. On behalf of Namco, they printed the albums forXenosaga Episode I, Tales of Destiny 2, Tales of Symphonia, and Soul Calibur II. Their other honours included Baroque, Armored Core 3, Ragnarok Online, and the Tengai Makyou series, all of which were popular in Japan. Towards the end of their life, DigiCube even published a series of albums for the hip-hop festival B-Boy Park. Many of these albums were never reprinted after DigiCube’s demise, but Yasunori Mitsuda personally re-released the Xenosaga Episode I soundtrack in enhanced form and, due to popular demand, new prints of the Tales of Symphonia and Ragnarok Online albums were created. In addition, a box set featuring the Soul Calibur II soundtrack and a completely new soundtrack toBaroque were recently published.

Square Enix seems to be reprinting few arranged albums. Even though the scores for Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon and SaGa Frontier II were reprinted, their orchestral albums weren’t. This seems to be in line with the company’s current policy that full-scale arranged albums aren’t generally worth producing since they sell fewer copies than original scores and can be costly to record. Nonetheless, perhaps the DigiCube revival will be even more far reaching than anticipated. Square Enix recently republished three classic obscure Super Nintendo soundtracks (Bahamut Lagoon, Live A Live, Rudra no Hihou) on iTunes. Perhaps a similar treatment will be given to those great DigiCube albums that couldn’t have commercially viable physical reprints. However, Square Enix are bound to be further physical reprints before then. And who knows what they’re thinking? Maybe they’ll once again surprise us with their love for hyperactive electronica and make the is: internal section original soundtracktheir next target!

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Chris Greening. Last modified on March 11, 2014.

Tags: Arranged Album, Chocobo, Final Fantasy, Front Mission, Mana, Parasite Eve, SaGa, Square Enix, Tobal

About the Author

Chris Greening I've contributed to websites related to game audio since 2002. In this time, I've reviewed over a thousand albums and interviewed hundreds of musicians across the world. As the founder and webmaster of VGMO -Video Game Music Online-, I hope to create a cutting-edge, journalistic resource for all those soundtrack enthusiasts out there. In the process, I would love to further cultivate my passion for music, writing, and generally building things. Please enjoy the site and don't hesitate to say hello!

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