Topic Title: Uematsu getting worse?
| |  "Uematsu getting worse?"
, Mon 16 Jul 16:22 PM : |
Reply Edited |
Okay, a little while ago, I found a website that had the entire soundtrack to FF9 available to download, and so, naturally, I picked up a few mp3s. Ahem... at any rate, as I listened to them, I thought to myself "what the hell is everyone talking about?". Recently, I've been hearing a lot of people complain about how Uematsu's music has gotten worse of late. I disagree completely, however. While I enjoyed Uematsu's work on the SNES Final Fantasy's (as well as whichever songs he may have contributed to CT), I find his work on the PS FF's to be an improvement over them (well, okay, FF6j excluded... that soundtrack is just too good...). FF5 and 4j really didn't have the kind of music that "inspired" me into playing the way FF7, FF9, and to a lesser extent, FF8 did. Now while I feel FF6 was the greatest soundtrack Uematsu has ever produced, I think the PS FF's are NEARLY just as good (perhaps the only thing they're missing is characters as good as FF6's, to complement the music... but that isn't really Uematsu's fault, is it?), and FF9 specifically may even tie FF6 in my mind (I haven't decided yet... need to listen more). So, basically, what I want to know is why does everyone seem to be under the impression that the quality of Uematsu's work has degenerated recently? I for one, think he's still at the top of his game... and I am REALLY looking forward to FF10's soundtrack... and, um, the game too, I guess...
Oh, and just for fun, what do you guys think is Uematsu's best composition so far?
What's mine? Well I'm glad you asked!
*everyone looks around at each other, wondering what Surtur's talking about... *
"The Legendary Beast" (FF8) or the overworld theme from FF6... "Tina", or something...
-Surtur's favourite composer is still Mitsuda, though...
"You shall shed red tears." - Vicious (Cowboy Bebop)
[this message was edited by Surtur on Mon 16 Jul 04:34 PM]
Posts: 15
| Location: ON Canada
| Registered: Mon 9 Jul 2001 12:12 |  |
|
| Replies:
|
| |  "Re(1):Uematsu getting worse?"
, Sun 29 Jul 09:43 PM | Message #2595
|
I tend to prefer the Star Ocean 2/Tales of Destiny composer or the one who did Xenogears.
As for the FF...
FF6 certainly had some damned good music. Relm's Theme is among my favorites.
FF7 was okay...the one I really liked was the song in the Planetarium. Hell if I could remember what it was called!
FF8 music was mostly shit with a few gems. The Legendary Beast is my FAVORITE. I also liked the cute xylophone music.
FF9 as YET to impress me in the music field.
"These are not words they're only feelings." VNV Nation
Posts: 319
| Location: the Multiverse
| Registered: Tue 25 Jul 2000 18:34 | |
|
| |  "Re(1):Uematsu getting worse?"
, Sat 28 Jul 12:07 AM | Message #2585
|
wow, it's been along time since i've posted here......and i know i'm going to look like a complete idiot for saying this.....but who did the soundtrack for Xenogears, was that Uematsu? whoever it was.........utter brilliance..........easily better than any Final Fantasy score.
As far as my favorite (in personal opinion, best) final fantasy piece.......the overworld from ff7, and (yes this is everybody's) "one-winged angel".
but the thing i don't get is why he didn't do the Movie's soundtrack....THAT was idiocy.
"Everything that has form must fade away for that is natures way; yet I feel my heart being torn apart at times like these..." - chrono + cross
Posts: 254
| Location: eskimo!!
| Registered: Sun 18 Mar 2001 15:55 | |
|
| | | "Re(3):Uematsu getting worse?" , Sat 28 Jul 08:13 PM | Message #2589
Replied to #2586 |
figures i didn't know that. well, the man's a genius, and that's a definite understatement.
*anywho*
"Everything that has form must fade away for that is natures way; yet I feel my heart being torn apart at times like these..." - chrono + cross
Posts: 255
| Location: eskimo!!
| Registered: Sun 18 Mar 2001 15:55 | |
|
| | "Re(1):Uematsu getting worse?" , Thu 26 Jul 06:15 PM | Message #2582
|
I can't resist a discussion about soundtracks, so here's my 2.4 cents.
Best soundtracks: FF4 and FF6 (both are generally very good, almost no fillers, some outstanding music like the overworld theme).
2nd best: FF7 (more fillers, but featuring some INCREDIBLE battle musics- some of the best in the series- and some nicely dark music to fit the game's mood).
3rd best: FF5 (like FF6 and FF4 but the quality isn't as high and there are more fillers).
4th best: FF8 (I'll be fair-- there are quite a few tunes that I did like. Overall, however, the tunes I liked were bland compared to FF7).
Last: FF9 (I loved the game but I didn't like the music very much. Most of it was even more bland than FF8).
Posts: 33
| Location: Sunny CA
| Registered: Fri 27 Oct 2000 12:6 | |
|
| |  TheContact
Sex - Work - Death |
| 
 |
| "Re(2):Uematsu getting worse?" , Thu 26 Jul 06:30 PM | Message #2583
Replied to #2582 |
Those of you who missed out on FF3j probably don't find the soundtrack to FF9 as interesting, because a good portion of the music appears to be remixes of portions of FF3j songs.
While there were some good tracks on FF9, I missed certain elements of classic FFs.
1. The overworld music wasn't "travel" music. FF4, 5, and 6 all had "travel" music as the overworld theme. FF4 and 5 had a relatively fast beat over which a melody was placed, and FF6's mix of Terra's theme was amazing. From 7 onwards, the music became far more ambient... rather than traveling music, it was "lost" music... way too ambient.
2. Trills and arpeggios. Uematsu used to include all sorts of cool trills in his music. And the crystal theme itself is an excellent example of an arpeggio.. these were far more prevalent in the older FFs than in the newer ones.
3. Celtic influence. Dammit, I love celtic music, and I really missed it in the later FFs. This is one of the reasons I love Mitsuda's current work.
Posts: 1796
| Location: California
| Registered: Tue 25 Jul 2000 17:40 | |
|
 ZeldaRicdeau
A Link to the Uzuki |
|
|
| "Re(1):Uematsu getting worse?" , Mon 23 Jul 06:32 PM | Message #2568
|
I will give a longer reply here soon, but I am in a hurry now and want to say something, at least.
For right now, I will ask this: Part of what dissenchants(sp? again) me about his PS scores is that the quality of the music seems at odds with the quality of the visuals. By quality of the music I do not mean the composition but, rather, the orchestration of it.
For example:
In the good ol' 16 bit days, the player had to engage in suspension of disbelief on a number of different levels. Not only did they have to allow themselves to believe the story, but also the presentation of it. Compared to later FFs, 6 looked really quite cartoonish. Within that context, highly synthesized and Midi sounding music was exceptable--you were already set up to have to use your imagination to "fill in the gaps" whether or not these gaps be in the fact that the characters you were supposed to ego identify with were the size of dimes, or the fact that you could almost hear the speakers wailing at the tinny sounds of an obviously fake trumpet.
All this changes with the move to the PS. Now, a jump up the ladder in graphics creates a world substantially more believeable. The sound quality, however, does not follow suit. While a greater number of channels means that we can hear significantly more nasal sounding digital trumpets, they are still nasal sounding digital trumpets. With the obvious attempt at a higher level of naturalism in the visual arena, you expect to hear a higher level of naturalism in the aural one, too. When this does not happen, the effect is rather jarring IMHO.
Ok be back later . . . gotta run ;)
"And there was Silence in the House of Judgement" -- Oscar Wilde
Posts: 96
| Location: the ninth level of Hell
| Registered: Tue 12 Sep 2000 12:4 | |
|
| | BlurYamaneko
Citizen of New Yorke |
|
|
| "Re(3):Uematsu getting worse?" , Wed 25 Jul 11:21 AM | Message #2577
Replied to #2569 |
Personally I don't mind having music that isn't more realistic in games.. Especially games I play a lot :) if everyone was orchestrating their music for games they'd become a lot similar sounding and I bet a lot of it would get boring. I guess the reason a lot of people dug FF6 music so much is that it would be right at home with a real orchestra playing. But I don't think FF1-5 would work like that. FF7 would, FF8 I doubt would and FF9 just has too much deliberately synth based stuff to work with a real orchestra I think. Sure, they had arrangement CDs which were great (well, some of them), but they had tracks that were a) re-arranged for orchestra anyway and b) quite orchestral sounding in the game to being with, just with bad midi like sounds.
The thing I'm not liking about FF10 music that I've heard so far isn't the fact that the battle theme sucks (every OST has at least one boring tune!), just that the same samples are used as FF8 and FF9, it seems. So the OST will probably sound very similar, which isn't exactly _bad_, but it sure it could be better. Even the SNES FFs sounded different because each used different sounds. Personally I liked the FF5 ones most but that's just me! And quite where I'm going with this I don't know so I'll shutup.
---
I think you're crazy maybe
Posts: 35
|
| Registered: Sun 15 Oct 2000 3:14 | |
|
| | | "Re(5):Uematsu getting worse?" , Thu 26 Jul 06:04 PM | Message #2581
Replied to #2578 |
quote:
There's nothing preventing them from using better samples for the music.
Actually, as far as I can tell, it would cost more to use better samples.
And, see, the people at Square are greedy bastards...
hell, if they wanted to, they could make a game about a dancing Hippo, slap a "Final Fantasy" logo on it and sell millions of copies. So they probably don't have much of a problem with realeasing an FF game with inferior sound quality, so long as they still make billions off of it...
-Surtur once made a game about a dancing Hippo, slapped the FF logo on it, and made millions... but... then he got sued... now Surtur lives in a box...
"I can't believe it. I missed. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." - Bullseye after killing Karen Page with a shot meant for Daredevil (Daredevil Vol. 2 Issue 5)
-----------
"But sooner or later it happens to even the best children doesn't it blasphemer? Sooner or later every son lets his mother down."
"No... mom..." - Conversation between Mephisto and Daredevil (also Daredevil vol. 2 issue 5)
Posts: 29
| Location: ON Canada
| Registered: Mon 9 Jul 2001 12:12 | |
|
| | | "Re(5):Uematsu getting worse?" , Thu 26 Jul 06:02 PM | Message #2580
Replied to #2578 |
Oh, I agree.
In some places I think the synthed sounds are marvelously appropriate, especially in certain parts of 7 and most of 8. However, there are times (like the ending of 7) when the quality of the sound was obscenely poor either because it didn't have the aural qualities that the composer obviously wanted it to have (in the case of 7 it seems that an orchestra is what Uematsu wanted) or because it wasn't WELL synthed.
For 8, a lot of the tracks seem to have been intended to sound synthetic, and for the most part, the quality of the samples is good and appropriate for the type of music.
I certainly don't blame any of the sampling and sything problems on Uematsu; that isn't part of his job. I do think his more recent music is a bit uninspired, but can you really blame the man?! He has been doing this for 10 games! Eventually even the best artist can run out of ideas.
For instance: 9. In 9 I have to say that most of my dissapointment came with the composition itself. I am biased, I admit, because I was really rather dissapointed in that game as a whole, but the music often didn't give me the thrills that I got when, while playing 6, I would run across a new theme. At those moments it wasn't unheard of for me to just sit and listen to the music for a good ten minutes. The last time I did that was in 8 where Squall goes into the cave to fight Ifrit. Whatever music plays there (I don't know the title of the track) it was magical enough to make me stop and listen for quite some time.
I haven't heard any of the music from 10, and I don't want to until I play the game. I didn't know anything about 4 or 6 until I played them, and I think I prefer it that way.
"And there was Silence in the House of Judgement" -- Oscar Wilde
Posts: 103
| Location: the ninth level of Hell
| Registered: Tue 12 Sep 2000 12:4 | |
|
| | BlurYamaneko
Citizen of New Yorke |
|
|
| "Re(6):Uematsu getting worse?" , Sat 28 Jul 07:43 AM | Message #2588
Replied to #2580 |
ah I loved ff7's crappy sounds so the ending was fine with me :) hey, I'm weird with music. but that was probably just cos it was my first rpg. for a while I thought the music on games like alundra and wild arms sucked cos they used more realistic sounds. but then I kinda got into those too. I don't think uematsu was running out of ideas on ff7 as much as doing something different. I don't think there's another ost like ff7, but I think the closest are (probably obviously) ff6 and ff8.
I'm not sure it would've been impossible for Uematsu to have better sound on the ending of ff7. didn't FFT come out very soon afterwards? that was a one disc game with very realistic samples for the most part _and_ live orchestral opening and ending themes. I can't say for sure but I think they could've used better sounds for at least the ending theme on FF7 (which at the time was the biggest and most anticipated - and sure to be the best selling - installment of their flagship series) if they wanted to.
as for ff9.. I thought that OST was the best since ff4 (I don't like ff6's music as much as everyone else. that's not to say it's not good though!), infact the best full stop. I just loved the emphasis on melody we hadn't really seen since FF5 (sure 6 and 7 had it, but not as much as 1-5 I feel). I liked the instruments used, which were mostly the same as ff8 but it also had some new ones, and I just loved the atmosphere of the whole thing. It had some boring tracks but I felt the good ones far outweighed the bad. true, most of it wasn't memorable (not a bad thing if you ask me), wasn't original at all (hey, fits with ff9 perfectly there!), etc etc. but I guess I just really enjoyed listening to it. ah well.. still thought melodies of life was boriiing.
---
I think you're crazy maybe
Posts: 38
|
| Registered: Sun 15 Oct 2000 3:14 | |
|
| | | "Re(3):Uematsu getting worse?" , Tue 24 Jul 10:04 AM : | Message #2570
Reply Edited |
quote:
The fact remains the quality of his songs has been going up and down more than two rabbit in mating season stuck in an elevator.
Heh... thanks for the imagery, buddy...
-Surtur's gonna have weird dreams tonight...
"I can't believe it. I missed. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." - Bullseye after killing Karen Page with a shot meant for Daredevil (Daredevil Vol. 2 Issue 5)
-----------
"But sooner or later it happens to even the best children doesn't it blasphemer? Sooner or later every son lets his mother down."
"No... mom..." - Conversation between Mephisto and Daredevil (also Daredevil vol. 2 issue 5)
[this message was edited by Surtur on Tue 24 Jul 12:09 PM]
Posts: 24
| Location: ON Canada
| Registered: Mon 9 Jul 2001 12:12 | |
|
| | | "Re(2):Uematsu getting worse?" , Sun 29 Jul 10:36 PM | Message #2596
Replied to #2548 |
Standard Final Fantasy battle music stuff...
ZZZZZ
"These are not words they're only feelings." VNV Nation
Posts: 320
| Location: the Multiverse
| Registered: Tue 25 Jul 2000 18:34 | |
|
| | | "Re(2):Uematsu getting worse?" , Tue 17 Jul 10:19 AM | Message #2551
Replied to #2548 |
Uh... this might make me sound stupid, but... um... I kinda like that battle music, actually...
-Surtur isn't worried about sounding stupid... everyone already knows he IS...
"You shall shed red tears." - Vicious (Cowboy Bebop)
Posts: 17
| Location: ON Canada
| Registered: Mon 9 Jul 2001 12:12 | |
|
| | | "Re(2):Uematsu getting worse?" , Sun 22 Jul 08:08 PM | Message #2566
Replied to #2546 |
FF4 - Frankly, I haven't heard the OST in quite a while, but what I recall of it was decent, not especially good for RPG music, nothing REALLY memorable like FF6. The arranged versions I've heard are great, though, so...
FF5 - Like the game, sub-par for the FF series, with some good tracks here and there. Not good enough composition to make up for the bad sound quality, for the most part.
FF6 - Musically, as in most respects, the pinnacle of the series. Great character themes, good event themes, and the best darn ending theme of any RPG. Overall, one of the best RPG soundtracks, and the arranged versions are even better.
FF7 - A letdown from FF6, but still full of memorable tracks. The main difference is that there's a ton of filler in-between the good ones. Inconsistent, but some tracks stand almost with FF6, especially with better sound quality.
FF8 - Like FF7, really, but with a different theme. Again, there are standout tracks (opening, Laguna battle theme, Eyes on Me, etc) but tons of filler, like the other battle themes and most of the rest.
FF9 - Same trend as the past two, but with fewer memorable tracks. Aside from the hauntingly beautiful Burmecian theme and the highly enjoyable Kuja themes, (and Beatrix's theme, to a lesser extent), not a lot here compared to any other than FF4.
"Gives a new meaning to the term 'Trash TV'"
- critical reaction to the first show of 'The Late Show with Kahran Ramsus'
Read all about it at the RPG Inquisitor!
Posts: 6
| Location: Esthar City Esthar
| Registered: Fri 6 Jul 2001 19:56 | |
|
| | | "Re(3):Uematsu getting worse?" , Tue 17 Jul 10:38 AM | Message #2552
Replied to #2549 |
Okay, let me give my own opinions on the individual soundtracks...
FF6 - Nothing more to say about this.
FF7 - A step down? Maybe, but to me it wasn't that much of a drop... I thought the music fit FF7's style pretty well (particularly the more "mysterious" types of music that played when either Cloud went insane, or when Sephiroth was around, killing people...)...
FF8 - Well, the game sucked, and unfortunately, the soundtrack fit it pretty well. The music for FF8 was boring, but to me, only when listened to while playing the game itself. I heard a few mp3's from FF8 on their own, and frankly, I was surprised to find myself enjoying them. I couldn't stand listening to the music DURING the game, though, mainly because I hated the game so much...
Oh, but yeah, Eyes on Me sucked in OR out of the game...
FF9 - Great soundtrack. It fit the game's more light-hearted mood well, I loved the battle music, hell, I loved ALL the music (even the overworld theme, although it didn't WORK as an overworld theme... but it still sounded good). Melodies of Life was a HUGE step up from Eyes on Me IMO. I mean, it sounds better in the original Japanese, but even in English it sounds pretty good. I really liked FF9, and I just thought it was one of Uematsu's best works...
But not better than FF6...
-Surtur, believe it or not, liked FF6's soundtrack.
"You shall shed red tears." - Vicious (Cowboy Bebop)
Posts: 18
| Location: ON Canada
| Registered: Mon 9 Jul 2001 12:12 | |
|
|
|
Home
