Formative Albums, Part 2: Final Fantasy VI OST

[kjorteo]

Final Fantasy VI Original Soundtrack

I've long been a fan of video game music. I typically prefer original soundtracks to the remastered symphonic versions/OCRemixes/etc. My favorite soundtracks are usually from the NES through PS1 eras, and more often than not (at least in the SNES and PS1 eras) are from RPGs. In that cross-section of tastes you find everything from the first four Breath of Fire games through Chrono Trigger through Star Ocean 2 and more. They're just old and hardware-limited enough to have a nostalgic retro "this sounds like video game music" feel, something many symphony orchestra covers and later-platform modern games are perhaps arguably too sophisticated and "real" sounding to convey anymore. At the same time, within those bounds they capture the wide sweeping evocative range of moods in music that one finds in an emotional RPG plot--the adrenaline-pounding boss battle theme, the heartbreaking music box ballad for that one scene where that character you like dies, etc.

I own many such soundtracks, the "I like this game's music enough to want to pay $lots to import CDs from Japan" mood having struck many a time in my life. However, if I had to pick a single game to both represent/symbolize and be the number one all-time favorite champion of this entire genre, it would have to be Final Fantasy VI.

First off, at three disc's worth of tracks when you're talking about the real-life physical OST, this is quite a lot of music. Second, this is quite a lot of very excellent music. Nobuo Uematsu himself is said to consider the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack as his personal favorite "best work" he's most proud of, and that one is certainly up there, but I've always considered VI (followed in second place by Tactics and yes I know that one wasn't Uematsu) as my favorite Final Fantasy music. VI has so many standouts, from perhaps arguably one of the most famous boss battle themes in the entire series, to perhaps arguably one of the most famous endboss themes in the entire series (there is a lot of room to spill a lot of pixels arguing about Dancing Mad vs. One-Winged Angel, I think,) to the opera theme, my personal favorite chocobo theme rendition (even if I have friends who hate the car alarm siren effect,) and so many more. "Searching for Friends" is especially poignant now that we actually live in the World of Ruin.

In the days before importing soundtracks was a thing, I begged a friend at school who had the game (I didn't, but I was exposed to it from friends who did) to get a cassette tape and manually record a selection of my favorite songs. I listened to that tape... a lot. I may or may not still have it? I have a lot of tapes from back then but no means of playing them anymore so who knows what's on them. I don't remember every song I picked, but I know the Phantom Forest and Kefka's Tower themes were two of them. Of course, when acquiring the full real soundtrack did become an option, I think this might have been the first OST I ever imported.

To this day, the Phantom Forest and/or Figaro Castle themes inexplicably get stuck in my head whenever I'm working on my FF6-style woodling sprites.

Comments

[chalcedony_starlings]

The chocobos are probably just grackle chocobos.

[kjorteo]

Grakobos?

Hmm... could be!

[xaq_the_aereon]

1% of my brain wants to try and argue in favor of other games' OSTs here.

The other 99% of it just blasts the volume on the theme tune of the world's greatest thieTREASURE HUNTER and drowns it out.

Alternatively, I could just claim that I hate the FFVI OST while letting Slam Shuffle play.

Either way, good times all around with this game's music. <3

[kjorteo]

Slam Shuffle is an oddity in that it is the only completely unused bonus track in the FF6 soundtrack, as there is no town or city in the game that uses it.

[penguinmayhem]

Weird how they'd put such a bad track in and then not even use it anywhere, isn't it?

[kjorteo]

I guess it's good that such an atrocious track never found its way into the game, at least.

Anyway, the time is a quarter 'til three.

[davidn]

(Three days later) Oh, I get it now

[kjorteo]

 

[dorchadas]

This is an amazing album.

Before the Hans Zimmerization of VGM, composers had to really play with the limitations to make something sound good, and most of the time that resulted in something that was both strongly melody-forward and memorable. I played 100+ hours of Dark Souls and I couldn't tell you a single thing about its music, but I can remember a ton of songs from the PS1 and earlier Final Fantasies.

The exception here is World of Warcraft, which has amazingly memorable orchestral music, though I guess 500 days /played will do that.

[kjorteo]

If it's an MMO you've been with forever, that has a way of earning a special place in your heart, I feel.

I can't even so much as pull up the game-launching loading theme from Istaria on YouTube without getting a strong a strong sense of "AWW YEAH HERE WE GO" just from hearing it. And an equally strong sense of "Man, I should like, log in for real, say hi and stuff even if I'm not really sticking around for a lot of questing tonight."

[davidn]

This is exactly what I attempted to articulate in my version of this as well! I would say that orchestral music might be memorable sometimes, but its purpose is to create a mood rather than to be memorable for its own sake. But the music that came out of the limited sound chips of the 16-bit era had to really stand up and shout to get attention :) And that energy and focus on melody was what influenced my musical taste for years to come.

(However, there are exceptions like Super Metroid which manage to create an incredibly oppressive atmosphere through synthesis alone...)

[kjorteo]

Are you familiar with the Darius series? Gradius/R-Type-like side-scrolling space shooters, Darius is notable for giant robotic marine life, introducing all its bosses with "WARNING: A HUGE BATTLESHIP [Name of boss, which is usually something very odd-sounding] IS APPROACHING FAST", and its music, which is often esoteric and vaguely club-like... except for Darius Twin (SNES) whose soundtrack shatters tradition by being Mega Man X.

Darius Twin is considered the odd one out of the series, but it was always my favorite.