Music of the Final Fantasy series
The franchise includes a main series of numbered games as well as several
The majority of Final Fantasy games, including all of the main series games, have received a soundtrack album release. Many have also inspired
Themes
Although each game in the Final Fantasy series offers a variety of music, there are some frequently reused themes. Most of the games open with a piece called "Prelude", which is based on a short piece by Bach that has evolved from a simple, two-voice, arpeggiated theme in the early games to a complex melodic arrangement in recent installments.[3][4][5] It has been described as being "as recognizable in gaming circles as the Super Mario Bros. theme or Sonic the Hedgehog's title screen pop".[4] Battle victories in the first 10 installments of the series were accompanied by a victory fanfare; this theme has become one of the most recognized pieces of music in the series.[6][7] Chocobos and moogles, two mascots for the series, each have their own themes. The basic theme for chocobos is rearranged in a different musical style for each installment, and usually has a title ending in "de Chocobo", while moogles have a theme entitled "Moogle's Theme", which first appeared in Final Fantasy V.[3] The chocobo inspired the spin-off Chocobo series, and many of the pieces from the soundtracks of that series are stylistically based on the main chocobo theme.[8] A piece called "Prologue" or "Final Fantasy", originally featured in the first game, has appeared in some form in every game in the main series, with the exceptions of II, X, and XIII, originally appearing in the prologue of the games. It sometimes appears as a full arrangement and surfaces other times as a theme played during the finale track.[3][9] Although leitmotifs are often used in the more character-driven installments, theme music is typically reserved for main characters and recurring plot elements.[1]
History
1987 | Final Fantasy |
---|---|
1988 | Final Fantasy II |
1989 | |
1990 | Final Fantasy III |
1991 | Final Fantasy IV |
1992 | Final Fantasy V |
1993 | |
1994 | Final Fantasy VI |
1995 | |
1996 | |
1997 | Final Fantasy VII |
1998 | |
1999 | Final Fantasy VIII |
2000 | Final Fantasy IX |
2001 | Final Fantasy X |
2002 | Final Fantasy XI |
2003 | |
2004 | |
2005 | |
2006 | Final Fantasy XII |
2007 | |
2008 | |
2009 | Final Fantasy XIII |
2010 | Final Fantasy XIV |
2011 | |
2012 | |
2013 | |
2014 | |
2015 | |
2016 | Final Fantasy XV |
2017 | |
2018 | |
2019 | |
2020 | |
2021 | |
2022 | |
2023 | Final Fantasy XVI |
Main series
1987–2000: Uematsu era
When Nobuo Uematsu was working at a music rental shop in Tokyo, a woman working in the art department for Square, which would later become Square Enix, approached him about creating music for some of their titles in development, and he agreed. Uematsu considered it a side job and was skeptical it would become any sort of full-time position. He said it was a way to make some money on the side, while also keeping his part-time job at the music rental shop.[10] Before joining Square, he composed music for television commercials.[11] The first score he produced for Square was the soundtrack for the role-playing video game Cruise Chaser Blassty. While working at Square, he met Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who asked him if he wanted to compose music for some of his games, which Uematsu agreed to.[10] Sakaguchi gave him a few instructions for the soundtrack of Final Fantasy, Uematsu's 16th score,[5] such as the need for "battle" and "town" music, but left the remainder of the composing to Uematsu, aside from informing him of the specific technical limitations of the Famicom system. The game was released in 1987.[12]
After the success of Final Fantasy, Uematsu remained with the series to compose the soundtrack to Final Fantasy II (1988). Although I and II were composed separately, music from the two games have only been released on albums together. These albums include a soundtrack album and two arranged albums. Final Fantasy III (1990) was released two years later and featured a soundtrack from Uematsu that has been lauded as one of the best soundtracks of any NES game.[13] The soundtrack spawned two soundtrack albums, as well as a disc of vocal and orchestral arrangements.[14]
Final Fantasy IV (1991) was the first game in the series to be released for the Super Famicom, and the resultant changes in the sound technology resulted in a composition process that Uematsu noted was "excruciating".[15] Uematsu has stated that, beginning with this soundtrack, he started to move away from the idea that the soundtrack had to be solely an orchestral score.[16] In addition to the soundtrack album, the music of IV was arranged and released in the style of Celtic music, performed by Máire Breatnach. It also sparked the release of an album of piano arrangements, something which would be repeated for every subsequent main-series game to date.[14]
Having now gained experience with the Super Famicom sound chip, Uematsu felt that the sound quality of the soundtrack for the next game in the series,
In 1994, Square released
Beginning with
The soundtrack of
The music of Final Fantasy IX (2000) was based around a theme of Renaissance music, and was heavily inspired by previous Final Fantasy games, incorporating themes and motifs from earlier soundtracks. Uematsu felt previous games VII and VIII had a mood of realism, but that Final Fantasy IX was more of a fantasy, so "a serious piece as well as silly, fun pieces could fit in".[26][27] Uematsu has claimed several times that the music of IX is his favorite work, as well as the one he is most proud of.[28][29] Like Final Fantasy VIII, IX included a vocal theme, "Melodies of Life", which was sung by Emiko Shiratori. The game's discography includes albums of the original soundtrack, a selection of the best tracks, a piano arrangement album, an album of unreleased tracks, and a single of "Melodies of Life".[14]
2001–present: other composers
Uematsu, along with Naoshi Mizuta and Kumi Tanioka, composed the score for Final Fantasy XI (2002). It was the last Final Fantasy soundtrack that Uematsu was a main composer for until Final Fantasy XIV, as he resigned from Square Enix in November 2004.[1] The expansion packs were mostly scored by Mizuta alone. The opening of the game features choral music with lyrics in Esperanto. According to Uematsu, the choice of language was meant to symbolize the developers' hope that their online game could contribute to cross-cultural communication and cooperation.[34] The game and each of its four expansion packs have produced a soundtrack album; the discography for the game also includes two piano albums, an album of unreleased tracks, two arranged albums, and a single for its vocal theme, "Distant World", which was composed by Uematsu and performed by Japanese opera singer Izumi Masuda.[14]
Final Fantasy XII (2006) was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, with six other compositions by Hayato Matsuo and Masaharu Iwata. Uematsu only contributed the game's ending theme song, "Kiss Me Good-Bye", which was performed by Angela Aki.[35] Violinist Taro Hakase also contributed a piece named "Symphonic Poem 'Hope'", featured during the game's ending credits. Sakimoto was brought in to compose the soundtrack to the game by Yasumi Matsuno, the producer of the game, five months before the game was officially announced.[36] Sakimoto experienced difficulty following in Uematsu's footsteps, but he decided to create a unique soundtrack in his own way, although he cites Uematsu as his biggest musical influence.[37][38] Sakimoto did not meet with Uematsu for direction on creating the soundtrack and tried to avoid copying Uematsu's style from previous Final Fantasy soundtracks. However, he did attempt to ensure that his style would mesh with Uematsu's "Kiss Me Good-Bye" and the overall vision of the series.[36] The current discography, while originally limited to the soundtrack album and singles for "Kiss Me Good-Bye" and "Symphonic Poem 'Hope'", was late in 2012 given an album of piano arrangements like most prior soundtracks in the series.[14]
Uematsu was hired through his "Smile Please" studio to score the original
The music for Final Fantasy XV (2016) was composed primarily by Yoko Shimomura, who had previously worked with Square Enix on the Kingdom Hearts series, among various other titles. XV was her first project for the series. Shimomura was brought on board the project in 2006, when it was a spin-off title called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and stayed in her role during the game's ten-year development cycle. Her music, based around themes of "friendship" and "filial bonds", incorporates multiple musical genres including Shimomura's classical style, Bossa nova and American Blues. Several tracks, including the main theme "Somnus", feature Latin lyrics written by the game's original director Tetsuya Nomura. The game was expanded into a multimedia project dubbed the "Final Fantasy XV Universe", for which other composers were hired; John R. Graham composed the music for the CGI film Kingsglaive with additional tunes from Shimomura, Yasuhisa Inoue and Susumi Akizuki of Righttrack wrote the music for the original net animation Brotherhood, while a team from the music studio Unique Note handled the mobile spin-off title Justice Monsters V. English indie rock band Florence and the Machine collaborated on three songs for the game, including a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" which acted as the official theme song. Later contributors to the soundtrack via downloadable content packs were Keiichi Okabe, Naoshi Mizuta, Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu.
Spin-offs
Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
The
Advent Children featured a song by former Japanese rock band Boøwy's singer Kyosuke Himuro in its ending credits, the Dirge of Cerberus soundtrack contained two songs by Gackt, including its theme song "Redemption", and Crisis Core's theme song, "Why", was performed by Ayaka. Each element of the series sparked its own soundtrack album except for Before Crisis and Last Order, which had their soundtracks released together in one album.[14] Dirge of Cerberus also had a download-only soundtrack album for its Japan-only multiplayer mode, while "Redemption" and "Why" each had a single release by their respective artists.[49][50]
Final Fantasy X-2
Tactics and Ivalice Alliance
The Final Fantasy Tactics series is a spin-off of the main Final Fantasy series, consisting of primarily tactical role-playing games with heavy thematic similarities to the main series. After Final Fantasy XII was set in the same world, Ivalice, as the two games in the series Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) and Tactics Advance (2003), all future games set in the game world became part of the new Ivalice Alliance subseries. These games to date include Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (2007), Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (2007), Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (2007), and Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System (2007).[53]
The music of these games has been primarily composed by
Crystal Chronicles
Another spin-off of the main series, the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series consists of
Of the released games, Crystal Chronicles, Ring of Fates, and Echoes of Time are the only ones to have a released soundtrack. Crystal Chronicles also has sparked a single of its theme song, "Sound of the Wind" (カゼノネ, Kaze no Ne), composed by Kumi Tanioka and performed by
Chocobo
The
Only some of the games have led to separate soundtrack releases. The first of these was Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon (チョコボの不思議なダンジョン オリジナル・サウンドトラック, Chocobo no Fushigina Dungeon), which was scored by Masashi Hamauzu and inspired an orchestral arrangement album also composed by Hamauzu.[65] The soundtrack of Chocobo's Dungeon 2 was composed by Kumi Tanioka, Yasuhiro Kawakami, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Kenji Ito, and Nobuo Uematsu.[66] The games whose soundtracks were primarily composed of previous Final Fantasy and Chocobo tracks were Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon, which was arranged by Yuzo Takahashi of Joe Down Studio, Chocobo Racing, whose original tracks were composed by Kenji Ito, and Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales. The sequel to Chocobo Tales, Chocobo and the Magic Picture Book: The Witch, The Maiden, and the Five Heroes, contains mainly original works, and the two games were scored by Yuzo Takahashi. Unlike the other Chocobo games, they had a joint soundtrack album release, while Chocobo Tales had a previous download-only "best of" album.[67]
Others
Other spin-offs of the main Final Fantasy series include
Merchandise
The majority of games in the franchise, including all of the main series games, have led to a soundtrack album release. Many have also inspired orchestral, vocal, or piano arrangement albums as well. These albums have been produced and reprinted by a number of different companies, including
Music from the original soundtracks has been arranged for the piano and published by DOREMI Music Publishing.[74] Books are available for every main series game except for Final Fantasy V, as well as for Advent Children and Crystal Chronicles. All piece 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. "Best of" collections and arrangements for guitar solos and piano duets are also available.[75]
Additionally, the actual piano sheet music from each of the ten Final Fantasy Piano Collections albums has been published as ten corresponding music books by Yamaha Music Media.[76] Each book contains the original music, exactly as arranged and performed on the albums. Unlike the Original Score arrangements, these pieces are intended only for advanced players as they are generally more difficult. Sheet music for the Final Fantasy XI Piano Collections album included in the Final Fantasy XI OST Premium Box Set was included in that box set, and, like the album itself, is unavailable for purchase elsewhere;[77] sheet music for the identically named standalone piano album is published by Yamaha.[76]
Public performances
Music from Final Fantasy has been performed numerous times in concert tours and other live performances. Music from the series was played in the first four concerts of the
Music from the series has also been played in specific Final Fantasy concerts and concert series. After the success of the 20020220 Music from Final Fantasy concert in 2002, a recording of which was produced as an album, the Tour de Japon: Music from Final Fantasy, was launched in Japan in 2004. It was followed by the Dear Friends -Music from Final Fantasy- tour in the United States that same year, which was originally scheduled to be a single concert but grew into a year-long tour.[83] In 2005, a concert entitled More Friends: Music from Final Fantasy was performed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the first Dear Friends concert and also had an album published of the performance.[84] The latest Final Fantasy tour is the worldwide Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy tour, which began in Sweden in 2007 and still continues to date.[85] A recording of its first performance was released as an album. Nobuo Uematsu additionally plays with The Black Mages, a band which performs Final Fantasy music in a rock music style. They have performed music live in concert, as well as with orchestras as part of various concert tours. They have released three albums to date, as well as DVDs of their live performances.[14]
From November 2003 to April 2004, Square Enix U.S.A. launched an AOL Radio station dedicated to music from the series, initially carrying complete tracks from Final Fantasy XI in addition to samplings from VII through X.[86] The station was relaunched in July 2006 and still remains on the site. In the 2004 Summer Olympics, the American synchronized swimming duo consisting of Alison Bartosik and Anna Kozlova were awarded the bronze medal for their performance to "Liberi Fatali" from Final Fantasy VIII.[87] "Born Anew" from Final Fantasy XIII, "Victory Fanfare" from Final Fantasy VII, and the "Main Theme" all played at the 2020 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.[88][89][90][91]
Sales
The following table lists music album & single sales figures for Final Fantasy soundtracks in Japan.
By 2010, at least eight Final Fantasy soundtrack albums had debuted in the top ten of the Oricon albums chart: Final Fantasy VI Original Sound Version, Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy IX Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy X Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy X-2 Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy XII Original Soundtrack, and Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack, the latter debuting at #3 on the chart.[92] As of 2010, the only Final Fantasy albums that failed to reach the top 30 of the Oricon albums chart were the soundtracks for the Final Fantasy Tactics series and Crystal Chronicles series.[93]
"
Legacy
Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy music has appeared multiple times in the annual top 300 Classic FM Hall of Fame,[97] including five appearances in the annual top 20. In 2012, "Aerith's Theme", written by Uematsu for Final Fantasy VII, was voted into the number 16 position in the annual Classic FM (UK) "Hall of Fame" top 300 chart.[98] It was the first time that a piece of music written for a video game had appeared in the chart. In 2013, music from the Final Fantasy series received even greater support and was voted into the third position on the Classic FM Hall of Fame.[99] Uematsu and his Final Fantasy music subsequently appeared at number seven in 2014,[100] number nine in 2015,[101] number 17 in 2016,[102] and in the top half of the list for every subsequent year through 2019.[97]
Eímear Noone of Classic FM states that Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy score "changed the course of classical music" by "setting concert halls alight and inspiring a new generation of classical music lovers".[97] Elizabeth Davis of Classic FM states that Final Fantasy helped introduce "a whole generation to the magic of orchestral music" and "inspired a generation of composers, many of whom have gone on to write music for video games". She states that the "epic soundtracks of games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed and God of War, all owe a debt to Uematsu, who made the world wake up to the power of video game music". She notes that "Aerith's Theme" from Final Fantasy VII in particular is "one of the most famous pieces of video game music ever written" and is rooted in romantic music.[103]
Notes
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External links
- Official Square Enix Final Fantasy music site
- Nobuo Uematsu's official website
- Masashi Hamauzu's official website
- Hitoshi Sakimoto's official website