Yoko Shimomura is actually my favorite JRPG composer. She did Kingdom Hearts, Mario RPG/& Luigi, and Radiant Historia before this game.

Her combat music always stands out to me in particular for being emotionally unconventional. Everybody else makes a battle theme and all that’s on their minds to convey is “cool and/or scary that violence is happening, throw in some grandiosity if it’s a big one” but she’ll do stuff like “the enemy is the panicked one here; they’re trying to front like they’re badass but actually I weep for them” or “you are losing a nonverbal rap battle.”

XV actually let me down a bit in that specific regard but the soundtrack as a whole is very solid.