Masashi Hamauzu (#145)

[Xenofan 29A]

For those of you who may not have heard (he didn't publish it on his website until just recently), Masashi Hamauzu's father passed away last August. His father, he says, is one of his primary musical inspirations, and the passing means a great deal to him.

[Jormungand]

Hamauzu is confirmed to return as "composer" (of new music) for FF7R2. No mention of Suzuki. That's interesting, certainly. The recent interview made it sound like he has a bigger role here, but there's a lot of seesaw-speculation you could engage it to explain that (e.g. it's because there's more "non-OG" material in Remake Part 2). I don't buy that, based on developer comments about the trilogy's plot trajectory from even before R1 released.

Of course the simpler explanation is that Kitase has always favored Hamauzu for some time now, and it's not like Hamauzu never delivers. He is reliable and familiar, so it's hardly a surprise.

I hope there is a notably smaller line-up of arrangers this time. FF7R OST was "good" as a quality product generally; but it was very corporate-sounding (no pun intended).

And dear god stop arranging the battle and boss themes, they really messed it up in Part 1, they remixed those themes waaaaaay too many times and now they are ruined for the whole trilogy 😂