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FINAL FANTASY Community Thread: XV Mainline Entries and Counting

Gravijah

Member
Aeana said:
I'm not actually a big Uematsu fan in general, I just like how many songs in FF8 use electric piano. That is the quickest way into my heart.

god, aren't electric pianos AMAZING?

Billychu said:
I don't "get" FFVIII's world map theme. It's so weird. It sounds like some low budget random garbage RPG's world map theme.

what the hell is there to get? you listen to the awesome. you take in the awesome.

plus it gives the world such a nice flavor.
 
It looks like I forgot to assign a GAF member to Red XIII for my list. So if anyone wants to be named him, speak now since I just got to the Shinra Building.

BTW, I love the dialogue while climbing the staircase. Best part of Disc 1.
 

Roto13

Member
Professor Beef said:
It looks like I forgot to assign a GAF member to Red XIII for my list. So if anyone wants to be named him, speak now since I just got to the Shinra Building.

BTW, I love the dialogue while climbing the staircase. Best part of Disc 1.
Come on. Who better than Roto13 to be Red XIII?
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
My boyfriend wants to play FFIX, so we're playing FFIX (in truth, I was leaning towards FFIX as well). I'll start it tonight if I decide to stop studying.

TheSeks said:
Ugh, I can't get to Beville at the start of Chapter 3 since I sided with the Youth League, seriously? :/ When can I get to it?
Chapter 5, iirc. You're an enemy of New Yevon now! Be happy they can't summon Dark Aeons to get you. :p

Edit: I think that before you do the Djose Hotspot, you can go back to Bevelle for one cutscene in Chapter 3.

Billychu said:
I don't "get" FFVIII's world map theme. It's so weird. It sounds like some low budget random garbage RPG's world map theme.
I don't like it either. It's my least favourite world map theme in the entire series. It's not just that it's bland, but it's also that it takes so long to get into the rhythm.

For a soundtrack that has such amazing tracks as "Liberi Fatali", "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec", "The Landing", "Force Your Way", "The Extreme", "Maybe I'm a Lion", "Silence and Motion", and "The Legendary Beast", it's surprising that something like "Blue Fields" would make the soundtrack in the state that it did. The version of Blue Fields on the Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec album packs a little more punch (and the arrangement is a lot better than the one on the original soundtrack), but I don't really like its original composition very much.

While Final Fantasy IX's soundtrack worked well as a full cohesive soundtrack, the up-and-down nature of Final Fantasy VIII's soundtrack works against it for me. There is a lot of really awesome of FFVIII's soundtrack but the reason why that "really awesome" stands out is because there are really bland tracks that make those tracks stand out even more. I know it's a way of trying to create minimalist work, but some of them just don't seem to do well to me.

In many respects, FFVIII's soundtrack works a lot like a cosine function (because Liberi Fatali was such an amazing opening track, the soundtrack is definitely not represented by a sine wave).
 

Gravijah

Member
Dark Schala said:
For a soundtrack that has such amazing tracks as "Liberi Fatali", "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec", "The Landing", "Force Your Way", "The Extreme", "Maybe I'm a Lion", "Silence and Motion", and "The Legendary Beast", it's surprising that something like "Blue Fields" would make the soundtrack in the state that it did. The version of Blue Fields on the Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec album packs a little more punch (and the arrangement is a lot better than the one on the original soundtrack), but I don't really like its original composition very much.

While Final Fantasy IX's soundtrack worked well as a full cohesive soundtrack, the up-and-down nature of Final Fantasy VIII's soundtrack works against it for me. There is a lot of really awesome of FFVIII's soundtrack but the reason why that "really awesome" stands out is because there are really bland tracks that make those tracks stand out even more. I know it's a way of trying to create minimalist work, but some of them just don't seem to do well to me.

In many respects, FFVIII's soundtrack works a lot like a cosine function (because Liberi Fatali was such an amazing opening track, the soundtrack is definitely not represented by a sine wave).

wait, what do you consider the bland tracks in ff8? :O
 

Rinoa

Member
Semi-recently did a replay, interesting this thread was recently made...

Blue Fields is bland because it's compared with FF6 and FF7's overworld themes.

Now that I think of it, lots of FF8 music had unusual time signatures going on, it could be why some people can't really get into the songs.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Gravijah said:
wait, what do you consider the bland tracks in ff8? :O
Some examples include:
  • Jailed (doesn't do much with intended genre, one motif, monotonous; even in-game it makes the dungeon even more boring because the dungeon sucked)
  • Junction (4 chords on... 14-16 bars of a solo synth harp melody... for an entire dungeon... oh god)
  • Blue Fields (repetitive underlying bass and poor synth... compared with other world map themes in the series like Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII, Crossing Those Hills, Terra's Theme, Four Valiant Hearts, Main Theme of Final Fantasy IV, Eternal Wind, Main Theme [of Final Fantasy] and Main Theme [of Final Fantasy II], this is extremely lacklustre)
  • Fear (short development, repetitive harmony, poor synch, poor atmosphere, uninspired)
  • Unrest (poor bass, boring strings, boring)
  • Rivals (ambience is appreciated with strings and woodwind, but it doesn't match the tone of the scene it's used in and it's rather repetitive as well)
A lot of these tracks are boring because they are extremely repetitive and/or they have poor synth. A lot of tracks can be listened to out-of-game and they aren't as repetitive at all, but take some of these examples and it's kind of mindboggling how poor these compositions are in comparison to the other heights the soundtrack demonstrates. The soundtrack simply lacks cohesion. Edit: the time signatures don't bother me, because I like awkward time signatures, lol. For a soundtrack that fixates itself so heavily on bass, I'm a little disappointed (because bass is my favourite kind of sound, even moreso than the guitar (my instrument of choice... though I have played bass before from time to time)).

There are other examples, but I really don't want to get my head chewed off because I get the feeling that some of the tracks I want to mention are popular, lol.

But like you once said to me, it wouldn't be fun if everyone liked the same thing! :p
 

Boney

Banned
Billychu said:
From the sound of it 4WoL is like the NES games, which sounds interesting, but I found them a bit tedious. Do they fix that? I don't mind things like the item limit, but FF1 especially really feels like a slog.
It's go to town and solve town's problem. Similar as DQIX I guess. But there's an fun overarching story and multiple parties that keeps things interesting.

I hate FFI, but I really liked 4wol.
 

Kazerei

Banned
I'm slowly getting through FFV ... just got the Black Chocobo so I can fly around and explore. Unfortunately in some areas of the world, I get my ass kicked by random encounters. Guess I'll grind a bit before I continue the story.

cimg0532e.jpg


cimg0530g.jpg
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Dark Schala said:
Edit: I think that before you do the Djose Hotspot, you can go back to Bevelle for one cutscene in Chapter 3.

Ugh, okay. :/ Guess I'll do the other spots and check back with Bevelle again for the Crimson Sphere.
 

Aeana

Member
onemic said:
I said it before and I'll say it again: FFVIII has by and far the best music of any FF to date. nothing comes close(Maybe VII...)
I think 6's is far and away better than any of Uematsu's other work, personally. Sometimes I wonder how it could be his work because it is so much better.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Dear current FF localization crew and Japanese FF scriptwriters/scenario crew,

Please make future FF narratives more like FFV's and FFVI's with a sprinkling of FFVII's and FFIX's, thanks. In case you didn't get the hint, please use more humour than "moms are tough" and "worst birthday ever".

Best,
Me

Aeana said:
I think 6's is far and away better than any of Uematsu's other work, personally. Sometimes I wonder how it could be his work because it is so much better.
Definitely. Final Fantasy VI has got to be my favourite FF soundtrack with FFIX and FFX's soundtracks closely following it. So rich with compositional quality and genre-influence. FFVI's piano collection album is my favourite next to FFX's (which is probably my favourite out of all the PCs).
 

Rinoa

Member
6 is Nobuo's best but he got really creative and established new norms with 8. The adding of vocal tracks (which is now unfortunately done for the sake of adding a vocal track) as part of the story and going with the "no character themes". The whole team did a lot of risky changes with 8, which is why fans got divided.

Speaking of bad synth, I've always thought that Martial Law sounded jarring.
 

Aeana

Member
Rinoa said:
6 is Nobuo's best but he got really creative and established new norms with 8. The adding of vocal tracks (which is now unfortunately done for the sake of adding a vocal track) as part of the story and going with the "no character themes". The whole team did a lot of risky changes with 8, which is why fans got divided.

Speaking of bad synth, I've always thought that Martial Law sounded jarring.
Martial Law is one of my favorites, it has a fantastic Rhodes piano part.
 

Onemic

Member
Lucky Number Seven Force said:
Quick FFXIII question, I'm at the Midlight Reaper boss... About how far into the game am I?

Pic? Its been so long since I've played that steaming pile of shit, I've almost forgotten everything about it.
 
Lucky Number Seven Force said:
Quick FFXIII question, I'm at the Midlight Reaper boss... About how far into the game am I?

Something like a bit less than halfway. Hard to judge since everyone spends a different amount of time in chapter 11.
 

Gravijah

Member
Aeana said:
I think 6's is far and away better than any of Uematsu's other work, personally. Sometimes I wonder how it could be his work because it is so much better.

the ffvi soundtrack is amazing, but i find i like it more for how consistent it is. it's definitely not my favorite of the soundtracks, though, and i find myself gravitating towards tracks from other games.

but it does have celes theme!

and the weakest battle themes of the snes games. barring dancing mad, of course.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Aeana said:
I think 6's is far and away better than any of Uematsu's other work, personally. Sometimes I wonder how it could be his work because it is so much better.

VI is fantastic. VI, VIII, IX, and X were the fantastic ones.

VI and VIII had the best piano collection pieces in my opinion:

VI's Piano Collection:
Celes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdixtSP2Blw
Tina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED66swL2gtE
Coin Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJuK4QWB7A
The Decisive Battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_9gLGUH-6k
Spinach Rag: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HizdlmU0wwE

VIII's Piano Collection:
The Castle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwEzvEdbIHU
Fisherman's Horizon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ryiSk995Q
The Oath: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kn4WLyDqGw
Ending Theme (basically, the FF theme song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbunWCmQ6s8
The Successor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6a2j2wbq_4
Succession of Witches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfee5Ns1IwE

VI's pieces were more beautiful and romantic whereas VIII's were more environmental and haunting (notably The Castle, Succession of Witches, and The Successor).
 
Beef and his merry companions duckroll and ULTROS snuck inside the extremely large Shinra building by way of the side stairwell to rescue their friend Boney. It was an arduous climb, but not only was Boney safe and sound, they made a new friend named Roto XIII. Unfortunately, Beef's old rival Sephiroth is apparently alive and killing, so the group has decided to head to the nearby town of Kalm to regroup and formulate a strategy.

I wish I could take screenshots so my re-telling of my FFVII adventure would seem more colorful. :(
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
You could take photographs instead of screenshots and upload them. :p
 
ULTROS! said:
You could take photographs instead of screenshots and upload them. :p
True, but the only camera I have is my phone, and the picture quality is awful.

I guess it doesn't matter in the end. If I remember to, I'll take some snapshots.
 

Gravijah

Member
Billychu said:
should have emulated it

says the guy playing VIII on his psp

my favorite thing about epsxe is that the save states also have an image of whats going on at that exact moment. makes figuring out what save state is what much easier.
 

Aeana

Member
Gravijah said:
the ffvi soundtrack is amazing, but i find i like it more for how consistent it is. it's definitely not my favorite of the soundtracks, though, and i find myself gravitating towards tracks from other games.

but it does have celes theme!

and the weakest battle themes of the snes games. barring dancing mad, of course.
Wut. The FF6 boss theme is my favorite in the series. So ls the fierce battle music (Ultima Weapon fight).
And Grand Finale part 2 COME ONNnn.
 

Gravijah

Member
Aeana said:
Wut. The FF6 boss theme is my favorite in the series. So ls the fierce battle music (Ultima Weapon fight).
And Grand Finale part 2 COME ONNnn.

ff4/ff5 boss themes are better. :/ if you put a gun to my head, i might pick the ff3 boss theme as my absolute favorite in the series, though.

maybe. you can't make me commit.
 

Gravijah

Member
Dark Schala said:
Some examples include:
  • Jailed (doesn't do much with intended genre, one motif, monotonous; even in-game it makes the dungeon even more boring because the dungeon sucked)
  • Junction (4 chords on... 14-16 bars of a solo synth harp melody... for an entire dungeon... oh god)
  • Blue Fields (repetitive underlying bass and poor synth... compared with other world map themes in the series like Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII, Crossing Those Hills, Terra's Theme, Four Valiant Hearts, Main Theme of Final Fantasy IV, Eternal Wind, Main Theme [of Final Fantasy] and Main Theme [of Final Fantasy II], this is extremely lacklustre)
  • Fear (short development, repetitive harmony, poor synch, poor atmosphere, uninspired)
  • Unrest (poor bass, boring strings, boring)
  • Rivals (ambience is appreciated with strings and woodwind, but it doesn't match the tone of the scene it's used in and it's rather repetitive as well)
A lot of these tracks are boring because they are extremely repetitive and/or they have poor synth. A lot of tracks can be listened to out-of-game and they aren't as repetitive at all, but take some of these examples and it's kind of mindboggling how poor these compositions are in comparison to the other heights the soundtrack demonstrates. The soundtrack simply lacks cohesion. Edit: the time signatures don't bother me, because I like awkward time signatures, lol. For a soundtrack that fixates itself so heavily on bass, I'm a little disappointed (because bass is my favourite kind of sound, even moreso than the guitar (my instrument of choice... though I have played bass before from time to time)).

There are other examples, but I really don't want to get my head chewed off because I get the feeling that some of the tracks I want to mention are popular, lol.

But like you once said to me, it wouldn't be fun if everyone liked the same thing! :p


i meant to respond to this earlier: i love quite a few of those songs and some of the reasons i love them are... the instruments. ;p can't believe you don't like the bass in unrest!
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Gravijah said:
i meant to respond to this earlier: i love quite a few of those songs and some of the reasons i love them are... the instruments. ;p can't believe you don't like the bass in unrest!
It's bad synth and somewhat boring compositionally in that they can sometimes be repetitive. I can't get past that. Listen to a real bass performing that BGM and it's unreal how bad the synth is in the original. FFVIII's poorer quality tracks would have been enhanced so much if better synth had been used. Upon reflection, Uematsu thrives on strange time signatures, so it definitely isn't the odd time signatures at all.

I'm afraid to reveal the rest of the tracks I dislike because I now know that people heavily favour them.

lol, my boyfriend and I went through the soundtrack track-by-track last night to discuss what was wrong with the instrumentation in some of the tracks. He plays the keyboard, so half the time he was like, "Oh God, this is how it should've sounded!" I didn't have my guitar on me to make similar comparisons. :/

Here're a few themes I do like, though!
Under Her Control
Dance with the Balamb Fish
Silence and Motion
Movin'
SeeD

And I maintain that all of the battle themes on the FFVIII soundtrack are exceptional. I love them all.

Aeana said:
Wut. The FF6 boss theme is my favorite in the series. So ls the fierce battle music (Ultima Weapon fight).
And Grand Finale part 2 COME ONNnn.
Sorry, dear Raichu. I'm siding with Aeana here. :p

As much as I love Dancing Mad (and it's my favourite final boss theme in the series), however, I can't help but to feel that Final Fantasy V - The Decisive Battle never gets the recognition it deserves. In fact, the bulk of Final Fantasy V's soundtrack never really gets the recognition it deserves. Not even the Dear Friends album, which is really enjoyable.

But FFVI's soundtrack is still my favourite.
 

Gravijah

Member
next you're gonna tell me you dislike the snyths used for the ffvii soundtrack. oh, my poor heart!

the gba versions of the ff5/ff6 soundtracks are still better than the snes versions~
 

Emitan

Member
Gravijah said:
next you're gonna tell me you dislike the snyths used for the ffvii soundtrack. oh, my poor heart!

the gba versions of the ff5/ff6 soundtracks are still better than the snes versions~
the gba version of ffvi has inferior sound. you can't even debate that.

next you're going to say you liked the trumpet samples used in pokemon r/s/e
 

Gravijah

Member
Billychu said:
the gba version of ffvi has inferior sound. you can't even debate that.

next you're going to say you liked the trumpet samples used in pokemon r/s/e

alright, you have to cheat and toss it in an emulator and fiddle with some settings, but i definitely prefer the instruments used in the gba versions. then again, i'm somewhat of a gba sound fanboy. and i devour experimental electronic music, just to give even more insight into my odd tastes.
 

Negator

Member
Gravijah said:
the gba versions of the ff5/ff6 soundtracks are still better than the snes versions~

What the fuck am I reading?

The drop in audio quality of FF6 GBA is the number one reason why I cannot play the GBA version. I was shocked when my roommate told me that it sounds exactly the same, and told him he needs his ears checked.
 

Roto13

Member
Gravijah said:
the gba versions of the ff5/ff6 soundtracks are still better than the snes versions~
Ok, Final Fantasy V Advance is remarkable in the fact that the audio quality is actually shockingly good. But VI? No. Shut up. There's no way anyone with ears can say the GBA version sounds better than the SNES version.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Gravijah said:
next you're gonna tell me you dislike the snyths used for the ffvii soundtrack. oh, my poor heart!
Some of them, a little bit... they are kind of anachronistic. I've heard worse, but they could have been better. But they work. Because Uematsu has employed MIDI (recall that he worked directly with the PSX's MIDI) instead of samples, the number of futuristic, synthetic sound patches used in the soundtrack is rather small. I can deal with it.

"You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet" is actually one of my favourite themes on the soundtrack.

the gba versions of the ff5/ff6 soundtracks are still better than the snes versions~
What are you saying, man?

4YPsd.gif


We've gotta fight now.

YXAe6.gif


I have friends.

soHFd.png


But enough talk, have at you!

Final Fantasy VI SNES/SFC Ver Tracks Condensed

oh god what did they do to the final battle theme those channels ahhhh
Dancing Mad GBA Ver Part 1
Dancing Mad GBA Ver Part 2
Dancing Mad GBA Ver Part 3
Dancing Mad GBA Ver Part 4

Final Fantasy VI SFC - Dancing Mad (entirety)

It's my favourite piece in all of FF because of, in short, its layers and intricacies. So I tend to be a lot more critical when I hear it rearranged for something or remixed.

oh god why
Final Fantasy VI GBA - Searching for Friends
Final Fantasy VI SFC - Searching for Friends

the worst offender to my ears
Final Fantasy VI GBA - The Serpent Trench
Final Fantasy VI SFC - The Serpent Trench

terra what have they done with your soundscape
Final Fantasy VI GBA - Terra
Final Fantasy VI SFC - Terra

:(
Final Fantasy VI GBA - Kefka's Tower
Final Fantasy VI SFC - Kefka's Tower

the fanatics have gotten so fanatical that they killed the theme
Final Fantasy VI GBA - The Fanatics
Final Fantasy VI SFC - The Fanatics

There are so many more that I can choose, but I really dislike the arrangement, the tinny instrumentation, the fact that the composition no longer flows correctly between notes and bars, and some of the added stuff. I completely understand that it's due to the sound chip. But I really dislike the instrumentation changes overall. The only exception might be Aria di Mezzo Caraterre, because I thought the changes were kind of cool.

With regards to Final Fantasy V's soundtrack... it isn't as jarring, really... for reasons Aeana explained months ago. There are a few things that bother me about it, but there are some things that I kind of like. But the sound quality is really good because the original music's instrumentation isn't exactly complex, so they could do much more with it for the GBA version.

Final Fantasy V SFC Ver Tracks Condensed

But man, the Final Fantasy VI soundscape on GBA really really bothers me.

*goes back to listening to Streets of Rage 2's soundtrack*
 
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