• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Final Fantasy Tactics has an amazing OST.

entremet

entremet

Member
Disclaimer: I only rented the game and never beat the 3rd mission, so I didn't see or hear much.

I never bought the game proper because its slow paced battles didn't draw me in, honestly. I know it's beloved by many, but I preferred the Ogre Battle series.

However, I bought the OST years ago after listening to some samples. I haven't listened to it ages.

To get some new blood in video game music rotation, I started playing it.

Track after track and no stinkers.

Here are some of my favorites:

Tutorial

Random Waltz

Apoplexy

giphy.gif


It almost makes me want to play it, but it didn't really grab back in '97.
 
Yup, it's my favorite OST of all time. Hitoshi Sakimoto, man. He's good. Really love his work with all of Vanillaware's titles as well.
 
Some of the hard violin-synth drives me nuts when I listen to the whole OST in a sitting, but it really is really, really good.

Chapel gets my vote for one of the better tracks. I also love the shop songs, oddly.
 
I always wondered how someone would have the idea to name a song "bloody excrement". Sounds really unpleasant. But yeah, it's a great OST for sure. I particularly like the final boss tracks.
 
This applies to practically all Final Fantasy entries.

Everything else can be debated, but Square Enix never fails when it comes to an OST.

It's one of the only things you can still feel very confident in SE for.
 
Once you're more than a few missions in and start tinkering around with the class system the game eventually clicks. First play throughs for FFT are universally brutal. It's got a great port on iOS and Android so there's no excuse not to give it another go (aside from the price tag).

Great soundtrack though, for sure. I think I prefer the OST for Advance 2, but only by a little bit.
 
The music lent such weight and tension to each battle.
I don't claim many things to be the best, but this is the goddamn best OST.
 
One of my favourite soundtracks as well. I loved the wide variety of tracks used for battles that I wish more games followed suit, especially ones that focus on fights as much as Final Fantasy Tactics did.
 
Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story pop into my rotation a lot. I yearn for a spiritual sequel game with the same style of music
 
Sakimoto is like the Japanese Jeremy Soule.

Consistently awesome, but definitely settled into a style that makes it obvious within seconds that you're listening to his work.

I'd love to see both branch out more.
 
Big fan of FFT & Sakimoto. One of my highlights at E3 this year was getting to meet him.

My favorite soundtrack of his is the one for Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. So many amazing tracks (and if you like FFT, you'll definitely notice some similarities with some of them).
 
Reading this thread, I think it is a little unfortunate that everybody seems to sleep on Masaharu Iwata so much.

Although I think Sakimoto's work is stronger on this OST - by virtue of scoring the bulk of the score and composing the main theme (which he consistently beats you over the head with) - Iwata had some VERY strong contributions. My absolute favorite pieces in the score were written by Iwata.
 
Yep, one of my favorite soundtracks of all time! Aside from the ones already mentioned and posted, I really love the Credits theme. Really makes you feel like you just finished an awesome fantasy movie.

I would post it, but I'm on my phone and busy at work.
 
This made my top 10 for the sotg thing we got going.

But the thing beyond even his patented drums of war or his amazing theming but also his absolute mastery of movements. Theyre not just a musical swerve; they are THE perfect handoff. (On my phone but look up apoplexy or delitas theme to hear it in action)

Also do not sleep on Iwata; night attack or the tutorial theme are amazing.

Vincent Grayson said:
Sakimoto is like the Japanese Jeremy Soule.

Consistently awesome, but definitely settled into a style that makes it obvious within seconds that you're listening to his work.

I'd love to see both branch out more.
Click to expand...

He never went watery tho.
 
Easily my favourite Final Fantasy soundtrack. I'm just much more of a Sakimoto fan than I am a Uematsu fan. It's definitely Iwata's best work (with only Baroque coming close), but Sakimoto has done other amazing soundtracks since like Breath of Fire V, Vagrant Story and the Valkyria Chronicles series, which are all on the same level as this, to me. I'd say that this is their most memorable soundtrack though, with most of the songs instantly recognisable when you listen to them. I wish this game got all of the fanservice the mainline titles got; live symphonies, rearrangements and the like. FFT always gets ignored by Square despite being the best soundtrack. Weird.

Vincent Grayson said:
Sakimoto is like the Japanese Jeremy Soule.

Consistently awesome, but definitely settled into a style that makes it obvious within seconds that you're listening to his work.

I'd love to see both branch out more.
Click to expand...

Have you listened to Gradius V? Or Breath of Fire V? Or Opoona? Or Armed Police Batrider? Or Terra Diver? Or...the list goes on and on, it's just that people normally listen to his SRPG/traditional RPG works which are the most popular, but he's actually worked in a lot of genres and on a lot of different types of games. He's even worked on the Tekken series as composer. His background was actually in arcade game music and old Japanese PC games before transferring to this RPG music sound that he is known for now.
 
I had found a copy of the game's soundtrack years ago, at this small import shop that was having a fire sale. I still pop it in my CD player to listen to it from time to time.
 
Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the best SRPGs ever made, but its music is down on the list of reasons why for me. That prep screen music is just so grating.
 
FreedomFighter said:
Reading this thread, I think it is a little unfortunate that everybody seems to sleep on Masaharu Iwata so much.

Although I think Sakimoto's work is stronger on this OST - by virtue of scoring the bulk of the score and composing the main theme (which he consistently beats you over the head with) - Iwata had some VERY strong contributions. My absolute favorite pieces in the score were written by Iwata.
Click to expand...

In complete agreement about Masaharu Iwata. The work he did for Children of Mana was unbelievably strong for a DS title and it's never on anyone's radar either, shame.
 
One of the greatest video game OSTs of all-time. Sakimoto & Iwata are masters. I imported the physical disc and don't regret it at all. It has some nice artworks in the liner notes too.

My favourite tracks (that haven't been mentioned already):
Backborn Story (why was this intro movie missing from War of the Lions?!)
Trisection
Battle on the Bridge
Unavoidable Battle
Desert Land
Back Fire
Run Past Through the Plains
In Pursuit

Also love Antipyretic, The Pervert and Decisive Battle too, but didn't want to be redundant. ^^

GrumpyAlien said:
I always wondered how someone would have the idea to name a song "bloody excrement". Sounds really unpleasant. But yeah, it's a great OST for sure. I particularly like the final boss tracks.
Click to expand...
Haha I always wondered the same thing.
 
I honestly think Pray is such a powerful theme considering it's only a minute long, one of the best opening scene music pieces I've ever heard, added to the opening piece of dialogue which is all the more chilling for people who have played through the game already and know what's about to go down in the storyline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNtGwBgP28o

Game also has the best tutorial music of all time.

LeoDiBlack said:
We need more of Ivalice Alliance...
Click to expand...

We do. But it is coming up to the anniversary soon and FFXII HD will be announced, so at least there's that.
 
i remember ordering the OST on CD a few hours into the game in 1998. it came with a moogle card. the whole package was beautiful. iwata and sakimoto are a great team.
 
Apoplexy is so good.... I love Sakimoto's style, he surely loves his string synths but that's good enough for me, I love them too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Hironobu Sakaguchi has been impressed by an AI-generated remake of Final Fantasy VI
Opinion Game Dev 
2
91
consoul replied
Final Fantasy X - 25th Anniversary
2 3 4
155
927
Signalis replied
Final Fantasy VIII Remake AI fan movie
Analysis  2
67
481
Rentahamster replied
Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles | Review Thread
Opinion Review  2 3
133
4K
demigod replied
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS: The Ivalice Chronicles - Gameplay Trailer
Trailer 
16
1K
SomeNorseGuy replied
Top Bottom