The bit with the airship goes da da da da da da da....

Whenever I hear Blue Dragon I can't help but think of Guan Yu in Dynasty Warriors. Some of you may be disappointed to hear that the Chinese war deity doesn't make an appearance in Hironobu Sakaguchi's company Mistwalker's offering. Luckily for the secret fanboys and girls amongst us, plenty of other fairly glorious sounds do.

Nobuo Uematsu continues his long association with Sakaguchi's work (you may have heard of those other games they've worked on together) as the official soundtrack to Blue Dragon is released. On two discs, Blue Dragon's soundtrack is bound to feature the soaring orchestration that has proven so popular on previous titles. With the release of Final Fantasy VII on CD, Uematsu's recognition amongst Western fans exploded; the new medium allowed for audio quality beyond the mind-cheese found in cartridge RPGs to that date. Many fans still recall Sephiroth's final theme, One Winged Angel, with great fondness (and occasional twitching), and symphony performances of Uematsu's game soundtrack work have become common and popular events world wide.

It's not just about evoking favourite moments from the game, though; the increasing quality of presentation across all genres of gaming is leading to more and more spin-off merchandise, from OST albums to comics and novels, like those ofHalo as fans demand more immersion in the developer's worlds of imagination. As the quality of storytelling improves, the artistic value of our beloved hobby climbs, too - and who's going to complain about blowing stuff up and communicating something, too?