The soundtrack including an initial order bonus disc is available to order via amazon.co.jp. The CD album artwork has finally been updated:

In case you're new to the music, the NieR soundtrack and its various iterations are great. I imported and learned most of the piano collections sheet music. The Drakengard 3 soundtrack is also fantastic and very similar in some ways.

Anyone else bothering to import the CD?

If anyone is interested in the deeper aspects of the original NieR soundtrack, this article/paper is a really fun read: https://godspeedyoucrimsonking.kinja.com/persistent-melancholy-an-examination-of-unifying-harmo-1792838122#_ga=1.236212931.311520571.1484279469

I kind of want to buy it, the art and packaging look amazing .

FYI someone did already rip it to youttube, if you don't want to spend 30 bucks on a CD.

I've definitely enjoyed everything up on YouTube because I can't stop listening. I'm assuming they're just doing analog out to analog in, converting to digital, and uploading it to YouTube.

I might consider buying it myself. I'm only about 5-6 hours into the game, but man the music is incredible.

How does this game's soundtrack measure up to original Nier? I don't want to listen to any of it before I start the game, I'm that crazy about not spoiling anything.

So, it completely captures the feel of the original game unlike the Drakengard 3 soundtrack which just hinted at it and had its own thing. The soundtrack does incorporate loops from the original game and expands on those at certain points. The main thing you should be aware of is there are 3 ridiculously awesome vocalists now that get blended in to everything. Emi Evans was the vocalist in the first game. J. Nicole and Nami Nakagawa (I think ?) are the other two incredible vocalists which just make the soundtrack better than the first.

@tuffalobuffalo: Sold. Hopefully the soundtrack becomes available in a way that won't cost me an arm to import, but that seems unlikely...

@teddie: I think it tries a bit too hard to be reminiscent of Nier's soundtrack and only really stands above the original when it goes out of its way to try something different.

Square Enix soundtracks generally go up at the least on iTunes (which I admit is less than ideal). My guess is that it'll go up on iTunes only *groan* and there will be the import CD on the US Square Enix website.

All that said, rips are up on YouTube because that's how things go.

@teddie: I think the original Nier's best tracks stand a bit higher than Automata, but I think Automata utilizes its soundtrack better and more creative ways in-game. Both are among the best soundtracks in gaming though.

Yeah, I agree with that. If you had to pick one, go with the original ideas in the NieR soundtrack. In context, Automata is better and assumes you've listened to the original soundtrack already.

I honestly no longer have any means to play a cd other than a game console.

I've been fully intent on ordering this thing for a while now. The Amusement Park theme is just sublime, I could listen to it for an hour.

I pre-ordered with Play-Asia and am immediately regretting it, having checked the actual price difference between PA and Amazon :(

I would be concerned about that preorder with Play-Asia given their description (3 Discs). They also aren't taking orders anymore. It seems it isn't the initial bonus 4th disc version which is concerning. Can you cancel that order and just order through amazon.jp? Honestly, if it were me, I would try and place another order through amazon.jp as well and sell off whichever version happened to be inferior. They still have the preorder option listed on amazon.jp.

Apparently square enix are releasing the same soundtrack here in May I believe? (Here for me being Europe, i'm sure its the same for USA?)

I think the soundtrack for Nier Automata was the most impressive thing for me. The fact that they managed to make a soundtrack that stood up to the original is absolutely insane, considering how good the original was. Some of the ways they used the soundtrack just constantly flawed me, its definitely in running for one of my favorite OST's ever. It's obviously all subjective at the end of the day but for me the experience was perfect, I can't think of anything that I would have added or taken away from the music. It all seemed so thoughtfully put together and cohesive. And don't get me started on how much I enjoyed the use of the '8-bit' tracks....

Going into the amusement park and hearing the music and seeing the robot revelers was such a standout moment for me!

@tuffalobuffalo: From my experience with PA and other Japanese stores cancellations are a nightmare sadly. In the case of PA they take payment for pre-orders straight away and are very hesitant to offer cancellations. Basically by the time I'd manage to get through their bullshit "no pre-order cancellation" claims the CD will have shipped :( Serves me right for giving PA another shot after bad experiences in the past. Ah well, if el_tajij's sources are right I'll be buying the English OST when it releases so it isn't the end of the world!

If that's right then I'll think I'll hold off on importing. If there's a chance this has any liner notes, I'd rather get the local release and see if those get translated. And if not, at least the track names would be so I wouldn't have to bother editing the metadata tags myself.

https://store.eu.square-enix.com/uk/product/440768/nier-automata-original-soundtrack

Here's what I was looking at. I can't seem to find one in the USA store though. Hmmmm.

I put in my preorder last week along with the new keyakizaka single so I won't be getting it until some time after the 5th. It's not often I buy soundtracks but I loved the game and it was no 1. on the music charts when I went to preorder that other CD so I just went for it.

Amazon.jp is definitely one of the best places to import from these days. Cheap prices and their expedited shipping usually gets to the UK within 2 days at the cost of SAL shipping from most other sites. If your order goes over a certain amount you also pay tax in advance, which fast tracks you through customs and prevents any extra fees the other postal companies here charge. You end up paying more than if your parcel was overlooked but less than if you'd have been hit with charges at customs.

@el_tajij: Ooooh the 8-bit bonus CD must be what Amazon JP is stocking too! Guess I'll be double dipping in that case. There's a small bit of justification to buying both the Japanese and English releases as there are modified tracks for each release - the justification of poor rationalisation to yourself that throwing even more money at Nier is the best decision.

Woohoo! Mine shipped via DHL. Somehow, the tracking is saying it's arriving Friday, which is crazy, so I have my doubts.

That'd be a little odd if the early-order bonus CD is the 8-bit tracks. I would be extremely frustrated if the 3 disc regular version didn't include those because they are a huge part of the soundtrack. If it is, I'm hella glad I was able to order the 4 disc version through Amazon instead of waiting to order it off the NA Square Enix store.

Much like the game itself I feel like NieR's OST has slightly higher highs but Automata's OST is great throughout. Not many songs stuck out the same way they did in the first, but I'd chalk that up to it just being a soundtrack more fit to the actual game and not just Okabe doing mostly his own thing.

I can't believe how fast shipping is when ordering off Amazon Japan.

Gallery

@tuffalobuffalo: Oh wow, the character art on the discs is a nice touch. Can you tell me if there's any liner notes at all?

@redyoshi: There are notes by the composer, director, game designer, and producer in Japanese. The lyrics to Weight of the World are in there in both Japanese and English. There are also two pieces of concept artwork that do not appear in the Black Box Edition art book. I'm ripping the CDs now, and all the tracks seem to have been tagged in English by someone in a database, so that's nice.

@tuffalobuffalo: Cool, thanks. I was hoping that there'd be some comments in there.

Nice to hear about the tags too. Maybe I should have imported after all, but since I've waited this long I'll keep holding out for the NA version.

It's now available digitally on the US iTunes store and the US Amazon store.

Out of curiosity do the Western digital releases contain English or Japanese tracks?

@chippy180: There isn't any difference, and the track titles are all in English. Even the JP CD release has the track titles in both English and Japanese.

Oh nice. Wasn't sure how they'd handle tracks like "This Cannot Continue"!