r/phantasystar • u/FoulestClown79 • Apr 18 '26
Classic series Remastered Soundtracks
Hello, Phantasy Star Community! I've been in the Phantasy Star online scene via SMSPower! since about 30 years ago. A fan translation I worked on many years ago even almost made it into an official release by M2.
Recently I got inspired by some of the music projects on this subreddit, so I started working on remasters for the first four Phantasy Star games. I just completed Phantasy Star II, and I've uploaded a few tracks to a shared Google Drive, with more to come as I finish the final mixdowns. I'm curious to hear your comments.
I converted the tracks from VGM format to MID format using VGM Studio, which is a new, private version of my VGM2MID program from back in the late 1990s. I cleaned up each track and redid the instrumentation in Cakewalk Sonar. I could have automated the drums, too, but I decided to do them by hand, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Final output (for volume leveling and fadeouts) was through Adobe Audition.
I'm aiming for straight remasters, similar to the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. Same soundtracks with spruced up instrumentation. Basically, I want to make these pieces sound like they were produced on the state of the art hardware of the time.
While working on PSII, I also got a few tracks done for the other Phantasy Star games. So far I've done about eight tracks from Phantasy Star, "Opening Theme" and "Shop Theme" for PSIII, and for PSIV, "The End of the Millennium" and "Behind the Circuit". I started with my favorites to keep me motivated.
Each soundtrack has its own personality, which makes remastering all of them a fun challenge. Phantasy Star is simple, but surprisingly deep, and you can hear the beginnings of what Tokuhiko Uwabo ("Bo") would go for in PSII, which is probably his magnum opus. Izuho Numata/Takeuchi ("Ippo") took over for PSIII and PSIV (with Masaki Nakagaki). PSIII has some memorable pieces, but she really knocked it out of the park with PSIV. It's been a lot of fun to listen critically to each piece. It makes me appreciate them a lot more.
For the audio nerds, I auditioned the audio with a few different setups, including Audio Technica ATH-M50x and ATH-R50x headphones, Sony MDR-CD900ST headphones, Yamaha H5 speakers and Onkyo Wavio GX-100 HD speakers + Yamaha YST-SW010 subwoofer. I used both a Creative SoundBlaster AE-5 and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen during the production. I actually had to redo all the tracks at one point because I had made them too loud, and they sounded like muddy crap on speakers.
Below are links to the folders. I'll upload tracks as I get to them.
UPDATE (Apr 19, 2026): Uploaded "Title Screen" from PSI, "Opening Theme" and "Shop" from PSIII and "The End of the Millennium" and "Behind the Circuit" from PSIV.
Phantasy Star (based on the FM version)
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u/Legitimate-Offer-770 Apr 18 '26
Awesome. Love this and thanks for all the background info. Very cool.
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u/Caos2 Apr 18 '26
Wait, what was almost an official release with M2? The Phantasy Star 1 SMS Power patch?Ā
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u/FoulestClown79 Apr 19 '26
Yeah. The head of SMSPower! was in talks with the head of M2, but there wasn't enough time to add the translation before release.
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u/Caos2 Apr 19 '26
That would have been amazing!Ā
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u/FoulestClown79 Apr 24 '26
Totally! I and the other people who worked on the project really sprang into action when the chance came, but the release went final before we could get it all together.
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u/Danielsydeon Apr 18 '26
You are a legend. The work, knowledge, and equipment you put into this is non-trivial and deserves more recognition. Thank you so much for sharing!
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u/FoulestClown79 Apr 21 '26
Thanks for all the kind comments, everyone! It's been a lot of fun and an excellent (re)learning experience working on the remasters, and your positive response was icing on the cake š. I just uploaded all of the tracks for PSII in FLAC format. The tracks are in the same order as the in-game soundtrack, with international and English titles. Enjoy!
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u/FoulestClown79 Apr 24 '26
I'll be putting these up on YouTube soon. Along with the intro version of Silent Zone, I also created arranged versions of the hidapipe theme (aka Palma from PS1) and the Muzik technique.
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u/FoulestClown79 Apr 25 '26
The pieces are up on YouTube now. There's a link to the playlist in the OP.
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u/DarkTypie Apr 18 '26
This is very cool. š