PSCN-5001~3: FINAL FANTASY VI ORIGINAL SOUND VERSION

[GoldfishX]

I never bought into the whole "retro" thing with Final Fantasy IX. The idea was good, but I felt like they tried too hard to make the characters "likable" (which the 8/16 bit eras FF's certainly didn't do). And as much as I HATE Nomura's regular designs, the character designs for IX were off-putting and downright freaky. Amano's art was fine (long a series highlight), but the final in-game models were just awful to me. Also coupled with the fact that the gameplay was VERY slow, a side-effect of the advanced graphics on the aging Playstation. FFX's quick battles were a welcome change.

I played FF1 back in the NES days. It was quite the adventure and I found it was rewarding because of the difficulty. Newer versions toned down the difficulty considerably from what I heard, so I wonder what the point in playing an "easy" version of this one. Never liked 2 or 3.

FFVII was great, ending aside and considering most of the cast simply stopped developing towards the end. The materia system is the best sub-system in FF history (yes, better than Espers) FFVIII, on the other hand, I simply ended up enjoying it more than I should have. Drawing spells was an awful mechanic (maybe giving you an option to buy spells would have worked better?) and there was too much 'change for the sake of change', but the story was JUST good enough to get to the end (um, except for that whole 'orphanage' plothole...Is like they weren't even trying with that one).

FFIV and FFVI, I played them to death when they were out (helped in no small part by the lack of other RPG's at the time) and looking back, have done nothing to fall from grace. Uematsu in his prime, Amano artwork, well-told stories, rewarding endings (AHEM, FFVII) and good FAST battles. FFIV can be bashed for being linear (even if it can be finished in a tidy 20 hours or so, which is a relief from 40-50 hour epics), FFVI can be bashed for starting up the whole "every character can cast every spell" seen in later games (yes, I hated that about the game, but thankfully they had other individual skills to compensate) and I thought the ending could have used a BIT more closure, but I'm nitpicking at that point. But they are in no danger of being dethroned. At one point, when I was smitten with FFVII, I was like, "WOW, this game is awesome...but it's no FFVI".

For me, the "series" effectively ended when Sakaguchi left and Uematsu stopped being the primary composer, not to mention the blatant milking attempt with X-2 and SE's focus on "polymorphic content". Nowadays, it seems to be more about girly men, giant swords, giant summons and SE's stock price than the actual games.

[Hellacia]

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

the story was JUST good enough to get to the end

??? You mean the story where you walk around as a detestable brick wall that shows no respect or likability to anyone, responds "..." to half the dialogue (riveting conversations there, Squaresoft!) and literally has no development for (at least) an entire disc of gameplay? (Because after I finished disc 1, I promptly got RID of that game.) Even Cloud, who plays his hardass "it's a job and I don't care" thing pretty well, obviously cares about some things and some people. There was not a single occurrence on the entirety of the first disc that made me believe Squall cares about anything or anyone, even himself, and that's really pathetic. And a whole disc of that crap is a long time.

The story in Final Fantasy VIII was a joke because the characters were a joke; they were caricatures if anything, and not just Squall. Zell was absurd, the stereotypical loud/wild character, Selphie was dumb, the stereotypical ditzy/cutesy girl, Seifer was lame, the stereotypical cool/badass character... oh wait, wow, all these characters are stereotypical. Including Squall, the stereotypical "antihero". Give me a break with that game, man, it was terrible. And not just the storyline, the gameplay was a drag. Battles were dull, junctioning was beyond broken, and enemies leveled up with you so actually leveling up was a bad thing. I spent a good deal of my time turning enemies into cards so they wouldn't level up and thrash me with some dumb new skill. Smart design!

The best Final Fantasy games are VI and VII. Surprising as it may seem I never cared for IV, it's too "classic RPG" and a little boring in that aspect. And I played it during its time so it's not like I played it later on and couldn't appreciate it because new games were out - there just wasn't enough depth to the game to keep me interested. Final Fantasy VI at least had Espers (no, FFVI is a generation-spanning champion of RPGs.) The rest of the Final Fantasy titles aren't even worth mentioning, simply because they're not at all memorable. It's actually a really bad series of games, but I got sucked into it because VI was the first one I played, followed by IV (never finished) and VII. I thought the series was godly after VII, and then... I started playing other games. I don't even know why I bothered to try as far as XII... it's like I just can't learn my lesson. I swear I will never play XIII (because luckily I don't even own a console that can play it! Yay!).

[GoldfishX]

Lol, okay let's replace the word "story" with "the series of events that occurred up until the end of the game" and you probably have a better idea of what I tried to say. The garden battle, the whole assassination episode and the final location were some of the cooler FF moments for me. I was also rather pleased with the ending. Lowpoints include the failed rivalry with Seifer (which fell flat after a promising start), the orphanage thing and the whole "love" theme, which felt forced. And yes, I had the same issue with the characters as I did with FFVII...lack of development.

Thing is, I got through it. FFIX, I had to stop after 10 hours.

[Hellacia]

Getting through it could say something... or you just really did end up enjoying it more than you should have, and you actually should never have beaten either game

Oh and you (and Mortavia) are right, Materia was better than Espers. Not like I'm saying this makes VII better than VI - too hard to pick. But yeah, Materia was the coolest. Getting Master Materia was like... epic. Why wasn't there a Master Esper!! (Okay, that would have been stupid.)

[Mortavia]

Originally Posted by Dag

You could also add another tracklist but that's a bit too much I guess.

Hey, I thought about this Dag, and we could have a tracklist called English (Localized). This allows translated tracklists to still contain original names, and pleases those who would rather see names from the version of the game they played. Of course, maybe it's like you said and people don't play the games and/or don't care for the localized names anyway, but I considered it as a solution. If it's overkill, that's fine, the thought just occurred to me.

I still don't think we should mix the methods though, it should be one or the other. I don't mind if we choose to go with all original names.

[GoldfishX]

Usually, I have to be compelled to complete an RPG through to the end. I'd say 8 had just enough. IX, on the other hand, felt like the group was aimlessly going from place to place and I didn't like the battle system at all (too slow for something so basic). Like most RPG's in the PS1 era, VIII didn't exactly have a lot of replay value, while I've replayed IV, VI and VII many times.

[Apocalypse612]

This OST is amazing hell yeah

[Megavolt]

Originally Posted by Dag

So when people say it's their favorite OST ever, I can't help to raise an eyebrow.

I'd be tempted to raise both eyebrows when told that FFVIII is someone's favorite FF OST. I think FFVIII has a deeply flawed score with about 5 to 10 tracks that are any good to me (and I actually like those tracks quite a bit, but the rest of the score is either irritating or forgettable). But the insinuation there (which isn't just questioning someone's taste, but also someone's listening experience and ability to critically analyze a musical work) wouldn't be fair to the person, just as yours isn't. Your Vagrant Story comparison illustrates this perfectly, because although FFVI is my favorite OST, Vagrant Story is my second favorite. Going by what you've said, my opinion wouldn't make any sense. Clearly, there's more to it.

I think that both of my favorite soundtracks fit the context of the game experience remarkably well (thinking about the subtle ways in which Vagrant Story's music fits the game adds just as much to the music as the musical elements themselves) and I think that they both succeed outside of the game as well, albeit for somewhat different reasons (Vagrant being more about moodiness and complexity, FFVI being more about melody and emotional resonance).

As for the guy who says that context is irrelevant, I couldn't disagree more. Score music is created to accompany and capture context. The aural experience is enhanced by knowing what sort of context a particular track is aiming for.

That being said, there IS a difference between listening to music casually and listening to music in order to take in the nuances and the purpose of it. Those who suggest that FFVI works within the game but not without it as a means by which to drop it down a notch are confusing one with the other. Even if you do not personally value the contextual aspect of the overall, shall we say, "texture" of a musical work, those who do and who factor context into how they rate it are not wrong to do so. There are plenty of other VGM tracks that I listen to more frequently (casually, if you will) than most of the tracks from FFVI, but I would never rate them as being better for that reason. When I do take the time to listen to FFVI, I'm still thoroughly impressed at how good the music is at telling a story (and the music is pretty darn good on its own as well).

Oh yeah, and the favorite game=favorite music idea... This does tend to be true and it speaks to the value of what a good game adds to music and to what good music adds to a game. It's not always the case, of course. There are some great games with not so memorable soundtracks and there are some great soundtracks to games which I didn't think were all that great.

[Xenofan 29A]

Originally Posted by Megavolt

I'd be tempted to raise both eyebrows when told that FFVIII is someone's favorite FF OST. I think FFVIII has a deeply flawed score with about 5 to 10 tracks that are any good to me (and I actually like those tracks quite a bit, but the rest of the score is either irritating or forgettable).

Of all of Uematsu's FF scores, I think FFVIII is my favorite. Got your eyebrows raised yet? That said, I agree that it has some very dull music on it ("Intruders", "Jailed", "Rivals", "Heresy"), but that's outweighed by how great the rest of it is in my opinion.

[student41269]

Originally Posted by Xenofan 29A

Of all of Uematsu's FF scores, I think FFVIII is my favorite. Got your eyebrows raised yet? That said, I agree that it has some very dull music on it ("Intruders", "Jailed", "Rivals", "Heresy"), but that's outweighed by how great the rest of it is in my opinion.

The FFVIII soundtrack is my favourite FF soundtrack too, or at least such a close tie with my other favourites that any gaping flaws in its execution are certainly not apparent to me. When I listen to it, I generally make time to sit through all four discs back-to-back, and am always engaged when each track starts - even the four you mentioned, which I do think sound less committed, but still have interesting rhythmic or atmospheric elements.

Blue Fields, Force Your Way, Tell Me, Premonition, Movin', Drifting, Fisherman's Horizon, The Salt Flats, Compression Of Time... just some of the tracks I continually go back to this soundtrack for, as well as some of the less obvious cuts like Fear and Truth.

It also has my favourite FF game over music in The Loser.

Add to this the fact that it is (if I recall correctly) the only FF game with a truly integrated, diegetic theme song, and it's a winner for me.

[Xenofan 29A]

Originally Posted by student41269

I generally make time to sit through all four discs back-to-back, and am always engaged when each track starts - even the four you mentioned, which I do think sound less committed, but still have interesting rhythmic or atmospheric elements.

I feel "Intruders" isn't really bad on its own, but after Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec it feels like a letdown by comparison.

Originally Posted by student41269

Add to this the fact that it is (if I recall correctly) the only FF game with a truly integrated, diegetic theme song, and it's a winner for me.

IX's is as well, but Uematsu was interested in integrating the theme song into the game. It's why there wasn't one for VII, although it was requested. X's may not be a part of the game's world, but it feels like part of it, unlike those for XII and XIII.

[GoldfishX]

I recently went through some of my FF soundtracks. I can probably count on both hands the amount of tracks that I gave an average rating to from FFVI. Offhand, I know Cyan's Theme (never cared much for it), Figaro Castle (the reprise is better), Setzer ($*&# this song, overkill from the game), Narshe (it's okay, sets the stage fine), the Esper Cave / Dark World (not for me, great for what they are) and track 2 on disc 3 (when you are confronting Kefka on the dark continent). Maybe a moody theme and a couple of military themes (I forget if there was anything besides Troops Marching On). But everything else, I consider essential. And those tracks I mentioned aren't cuts, they're simply "average" within the context of the score.

For FFVIII and FFIX, I had trouble picking out a single disc's worth of material from each. Mind you, the disc or so of music I picked out of each is downright excellent (even if it is very battle theme-heavy) and is a great representation of why I love Uematsu at his best. But that leaves about 5-6 CD's worth of filler to me (or in the case of "Eyes on Me"/"Melodies of Life" and their endless reprises, junk). I am so thankful Uematsu left the vocal songs out of his earlier works.

And FFVII is probably closer to 2 discs once I trim the fat, but I admit I have a soft spot for that score.