[merylsilverburg]

A single was released for the theme song for FFXII. It's called Kokoro no Senshi (Heart of the Soldier) and it's sung by Angela Aki, a woman who is born and raised in Japan but moved to Hawaii when she was sixteen. So, she's billingual in English and Japanese (though, in my ears, she lost her Japanese accent a bit...she seems more fluid in English than Japanese).

The song sounds a bit too upbeat and I don't like the way she sings...she seems to be overdoing it along with her piano playing. There's also a bonus track of "Eyes on Me" from FFVIII, which sounds horrendous (give me Faye Wong anyday!).

There's also an add-on song for FFXII called "Kiss Me Goodbye" which is a bit more mellow but since it's an add-on, it might play during certain scenes in the game, I'm not too sure.

Here is Aki's official site (in Japanese) if you'd like to check her out.

Here you can listen to the main theme (Japanese site only. Next to number 1, just click the blue button to get a preview, the red is to purchase the download in Japanese only.) You can also listen to "Eyes on Me".

There will also be an instrumental main theme called "Hope" by musician Taro Hakase.

EDIT: I forgot to add that along with the single came a "Premiere Movie" featuring a full video of clips/scenes from the game. The graphics are lovely, but the character designs seem "scratchy", I don't know how to describe it. Also, one scene kinda reveals a spoiler to the game (at least I think it does) so I have no idea why they decided to put it in the video.