I grew up playing Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and every story moment, line of dialogue, and note of music is all pretty thoroughly burned into my brain.

This afternoon, my friend and I picked up the remake. It is indeed quite pretty, the cutscenes are gorgeous, and getting to see enemies and characters realized as high-poly 3D models is quite fun. But for my money's worth, nothing is quite as incredible or hits me harder than Yoko Shimomura's new soundtrack.

I'd listened to the original soundtrack countless times and downloaded remixes upon remixes of my favorite tracks. But knowing that Yoko herself was in charge of remastering her own soundtrack from 1996 puts so much more weight behind the music, to the point that while listening to it I was almost moved to joyful tears.

I know that part of that is due to nostalgia but it also makes me think think about her composing the original soundtrack: working within the limitations of the SNES, hearing it after being compressed down to fit in the cartridge's memory. Despite all of the compromises, though, it was (and still is) a wonderful and delightful soundtrack.

Listening to the new soundtrack, it's like you can feel her joy, like this is how it always sounded to her, that this is what she heard in her mind nearly three decades ago when she was composing it.

And now she's finally getting to share it with us. :')