Rise of Mana was composed by an ensemble group including Ito, Kikuta, Shimomura, Sekito, Yasuhiro Yamanaka, and Kokia.

[7] The album was well received by critics such as Ryan Mattich of RPGFan, who termed it full of "quality compositions and timeless melodies" that created a "nostalgic listening experience".

Kikuta was chosen for Secret of Mana after Kenji Ito, who was originally slated for the project, was unable to work on the sequel due to other demands, including the soundtrack to Romancing SaGa.

Despite difficulties in dealing with the hardware limitations, Kikuta tried to express in the music of Secret of Mana two "contrasting styles", namely himself and the game.

[16] Kikuta worked on the music for the two games mostly by himself, spending nearly 24 hours a day in his office, alternating between composing and editing to create an immersive three-dimensional sound.

[27] Jason Walton of RPGFan agreed, saying that "the music is composed extremely well, full of variety", though he did not like that the tracks were kept short instead of looping in order to fit all of the songs on one disc.

[17] He was assisted by a sound programmer, Hidenori Suzuki, which along with his experience from the previous game allowed him to compose over three times the amount of music he had created for Secret of Mana.

[14] Kikuta decided to take the music in a "different direction" than Secret of Mana's, as he did not think he could surpass it with the same concept, and tried to create a mix of multiple simultaneous instruments using the six sound channels of the Super NES.

[22] Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online had similar feelings about the album, praising the wide range of styles and sounds and calling it an "unparalleled achievement".

[35] Simon of Square Enix Music Online added that it was "refreshing to see there is no compromise" between Kikuta's artistic vision and more traditional commercial styles.

It was sung by Swedish vocalist and then-Rednex group member Annika Ljungberg, who was chosen by Shimomura because she "wanted to stay away from working with someone popular that everyone already knows".

[42] RPGamer's review of the album was also praising, calling the composition "excellent", the sound quality "superb", and that it kept the "atmosphere" of previous Mana game soundtracks.

The soundtrack was composed by Kenji Ito, Masaharu Iwata, and Takayuki Aihara, and covers a range of musical styles including rock and roll, jazz, and classical orchestra.

[51] Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online, in his review of the album, reacted positively to the score, calling it a "colourful, diverse, and rich experience overall".

They noted that the music did not stand out as much as the visuals of the game, though they still "conveyed the theme", and that the "town" tracks were in their opinion weaker than the rest of the soundtrack.

[53] The composition of the soundtrack was done under a great deal of time pressure; Soken has said that he composed 32 tracks in 52 days at a breakneck pace, and Sekito has said that Ito conducted the orchestral recordings while ill to make the deadline.

[54] Dennis Rubinshteyn of RPGFan was pleased by the soundtrack, saying that the music met his high expectations for what he called the "only redeeming quality left" to the series since Legend of Mana.

[54] Bryan Matheny of Square Enix Music Online held the opposite opinion, calling Sekito's pieces what "made this work bearable" and saying that he "just can't get into this soundtrack", especially the first three discs, which were full of "boring and underdeveloped" tracks.

[55] Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online's review, however, was more in line with RPGFan's, wherein he praised the "diversity" and "glorious spectrum of emotion" found in the soundtrack.

It includes music composed by Kenji Ito, Nobuo Uematsu, Hiroki Kikuta, Yoko Shimomura, Masaharu Iwata, Takayuki Aihara, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masayoshi Soken, and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

[60] Jayson Napolitano of Original Sound Version was more complimentary towards the album, enjoying many of the tracks that Gann did not, though he too was not as impressed by the Dawn of Mana arrangements.

[64] Yamanaka acted as sound director, while poro@lier created the piano arrangements for both "Rising Sun" and the game's theme song.

[64] Andrew Barker of RPGFan was cautiously positive about the album: he described "Believe in the Spirit" as being "hit-or-miss" for different listeners while evoking memories of earlier Mana games.

[67] Chris Greening of Video Game Music Online gave the album a 2.5-star rating: he was most positive about the tracks from the guest composers like Ito and Shimomura.

While he praised Sekito for moving away from his traditional musical style, he felt that the result was fairly mixed, with some tracks lacking the proper emotional drive and others "falling flat".

"Believe in the Spirit" was praised for avoiding J-pop elements and sticking with its Celtic style, being favorably compared to the theme songs of Xenogears.

Overall, Green felt that, while it had good production value and was substantially better than other mobile game soundtracks, but lacked the emotional impact of previous Mana titles in the majority of its tracks.

Legend of Mana's title theme was also performed by the Australian Eminence Symphony Orchestra for its classical gaming music concert A Night in Fantasia 2007.

[74] Kenji Ito, along with other players, performed "Fool's Dance" from Dawn of Mana at the Extra: Hyper Game Music Event 2007 concert in Tokyo on July 7.

All songs in each book have been rewritten by Asako Niwa as beginning to intermediate level piano solos, though they are meant to sound as much like the originals as possible.