they would be abandoning the CG full-motion videos and computer-style graphics of the previous title to focus on a more traditional, hand-drawn look. The game's art style was achieved by using hand-drawn and painted artwork produced on a canvas that would be scanned and digitized to produce the game's backgrounds and character sprites. Many of the game's towns, locations, and characters draw heavily from medieval Germanic influence, with much of the story taking place within a fictional time-frame similar to the 13th century. New features not seen in the previous SaGa Frontier title include compatibility with the PlayStation's DualShock analog controller and PocketStation peripheral device for accessing additional content. The North American version was announced at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles by Square. In January 2000, the game was released in that region by Square Electronic Arts, and was made available in PAL regions the following March. A promotional movie for SaGa Frontier 2 was included on the SquareSoft 2000 Collector's CD Vol. 3, which was packaged with the initial North American release of Vagrant Story. Music While Kenji Ito served as composer for most of the previous SaGa games, the music for SaGa Frontier 2 was written by series newcomer Masashi Hamauzu, who had previously provided the soundtrack for Square's Chocobo no Fushigina Dungeon two years earlier. SaGa Frontier 2s music was recorded at Sunrise Studio in Tokyo, and on April 21, 1999, Square released the three-disc SaGa Frontier II Original Soundtrack in Japan courtesy of publisher DigiCube. The soundtrack features German track names to keep with the game's eastern European theme, and was popular enough to be re-issued on the Square Enix Music label in February 2006. In July 1999, an album called Piano Pieces "SF2" was released featuring piano renditions of music from the game, featuring arrangements from Hamauzu himself along with Naoko Endo, Daisuke Hara, Mikiko Saiki, Daisuke Karasuda, and Michiko Minakata. Reception SaGa Frontier 2 was a bestseller in Japan. The game has sold over 675,000 copies in Japan as of December 2004. Like SaGa Frontier, the game has been re-released several times over the years, once in 2000 as part of the Square Millennium Collection, again in 2002 as part of the PSone Books best-seller range, and again in 2004 as a part of the Square Enix Ultimate Hits line. Eric Bratcher reviewed the PlayStation version of the game for Next