And here we are in the end of Composers’ Month where we detailed Nobuo Uematsu. We had a triple dose of Final Fantasy with Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy IV, and Final Fantasy VI. We lived 1000 years with Lost Odyssey. And finally, we told a story with The Last Story.

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Final Fantasy II – Main Theme

Composed by Nobuo Uematsu

 

The end of the month approaches, so let’s end Composers’ Month with Nobuo Uematsu. Since he’s primarily worked on Final Fantasy, you’ll be seeing a lot of selections from that series. We’ll start things off with Final Fantasy II. Now I know this version was arranged another person for the PS1, Uematsu was the one that did this back in ‘88. Much respect to the NES version, but this version just exemplifies how much turmoil the world of FFII is in. Outwardly it looks like a light-hearted, typical Final Fantasy world. But if you look closer, it hides an oppressed people hoping that the tyrant Emperor Palamecia is taken down one day. It draws parallels to the music, with the flute sounding kinda happy but almost afraid to show what exactly is wrong with the world. The guitar kicks in to tell the flute, “just show them,” and we have a duet of the flute and acoustic playing a variation of the melody. So, who’s more fabulous that the Emperor?

Final Fantasy IV – Kingdom of Baron

Composed by Nobuo Uematsu

 

Like the Hyrule Castle Theme in A Link to the Past, Baron Castle commands almost the same level of… how you say, attention. Like, this starts up, you gotta stop what you’re doing and listen up. This theme also shows how much of a military state Baron Kingdom is. Everything in ever corner of the castle is there for the purpose of the nights. If you’re a civilian, you’re probably in the town and not working in the castle. So, are you a Dark Knight or a Paladin?

Final Fantasy VI – Terra’s Theme

Composed by Nobuo Uematsu

 

This’ll be the last song I use from Final Fantasy here since Uematsu’s done other games recently. So here’s the theme to Final Fantasy VI, aka Terra’s Theme. Interestingly, while there is the all encompassing Final Fantasy theme, each entry has its own individual theme. Most commonly, what you hear in the World Map is the theme to the Final Fantasy you’re playing. Here, this theme plays in both the Magitek March scene in the beginning and in the World Map. Similar to FFII’s theme, while this theme is attached to Terra and her plight, this has a more world reaching theme—as if the problems are not just Terra’s, but the whole world. Everyone is living their lives, but they have no idea how f’ed their world is about to become behind the scenes. No question today, so discuss what ever you want.

Lost Odyssey – Battle Theme

Composed by Nobuo Uematsu

 

We’re gonna make a huge time leap here to the early days of the Xbox 360. Lots of things changed in the JRPG space. Many Square dignitaries left the company, most notable Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man behind Final Fantasy. Uematsu had long left the company to become freelance. He teamed up with Sakaguchi’s company Mistwalker to create the music for Lost Odyssey. Here you can her a sot of modernization for Uematsu while at the same time sticking to old-school melody making. Most composers tend to want to make these grand epic scores that seem to be more about the instruments rather than making something memorable. In other words, it’s like having so many things at your disposal and not knowing what to do/getting carried away. Uematsu applies his composing style first, then adds on the hot sauce afterwards. So, if you lived for 1000 years, what would be the hardest thing to let go of (aka outlive)?

The Last Story – Death Dance

Composed by Nobuo Uematsu

 

Hold on, I’ll say it for you. “Damn, this sounds like that Boss Theme in Final Fantasy VII.” We know. We all know. But you know what? This is The Last Story baby, and you batter be playing this game since it’s already been out for two weeks already by the time this goes up. In a sense, this can be seen as a sort of short return of classic Uematsu with quick compositions and hard riffs that made him a household name in the gamer space.

Since this is the end of Composers’ Month, who’s your favorite videogame composer?