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Originally Posted by Psychonotes
The boss battle theme, as another example, has too many alterations and added gestures made to claim it's simply reproducing the original music with higher sample fidelity. Right at the start, the arranger reinterprets the iconic FF two-note battle bassline as an electric guitar riff, which changes the vibe and is a choice I don't agree with, and then substitutes solo violin for the original's string section to carry the melody, which is a choice I hate. He then throws in a hammond organ, almost like a winking meta-reference to Uematsu's penchant for using it in other works, that was never present in this track and adds a different color that wasn't there.
I don't think these are bad tracks overall, but they add up to a very different vision of the OST, far too heavily inflected by the arrangers' own tastes.
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Thank you Psychonotes, I find this to be a very astute and articulate breakdown. These additions and substitutions make it clear that the music direction for FF4 wasn't merely to produce live versions of the original arrangements. With FF1-3 it is ambiguous how well the new tracks would have matched Uematsu's original intent (outside of FF3 Legend of the Eternal Wind), because they obviously were not instrumental to begin with. Despite my general enthusiasm for the FF1-3 soundtrack remakes, I had worried about that the treatment for FF4 may be divergent. That is--if I had gone into the Pixel Remasters hearing FF1-3 and thinking they are extremely faithful to the original intent of Uematsu (my own fault), I might have expected the same for FF4-6. I'm not saying we are owed that; just that I set up the wrong expectations for myself.
I haven't listened to much yet as I plan to play the games 100 years down the line when they come to console; but I did sample that boss theme (and Mysidia too--seems like they wanted to dip into the sound of Celtic Moon) and it really does have a different identity than the original. I still have hope for the rest of the OST which I won't spoil myself on yet, but y'all who have heard it are free to spoil it for me.
And I just want to repeat this:
Quote:
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the arranger reinterprets the iconic FF two-note battle bassline as an electric guitar riff, which changes the vibe and is a choice I don't agree with
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This is very on-point. I have observed that the remade battle themes throughout FF1-4 are way too heavy on the electric guitar stuff! Such riffs don't automatically make something sound like a battle, or "cool", or whatever the intent was. It's a completely mismatched energy.
Again, I'm not suggesting we are owed something specific here; recreating FF1-6 with (mostly) live instrumentation is a colossal undertaking. But I admit I wanted, finally, a "Definitive Edition" version of the FF1-6 OSTs, borrowing Xenoblade's language. i.e. same arrangements with live instrumentation. Simple, but it would sound soooo good.
That said, I'm 100% on board with more Pixel Remaster style games of Square's 2D library--just go a little lighter on the music arrangements, please!