Final Fantasy/Awesome Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


"Love goes away, like night into day.
It's just a fading dream.
"


As we brought out a masterpiece to the world [...], we asked ourselves, "Can we really fight 24 hours?" And the answer was, "We will fight 8,760 hours!"
Nobuo Uematsu on the music in Final Fantasy V

General


Final Fantasy I


Final Fantasy II


Final Fantasy III


Final Fantasy IV


Final Fantasy V


Final Fantasy VI


Final Fantasy VII


Final Fantasy VIII


Final Fantasy IX


Final Fantasy X


Final Fantasy X-2


Final Fantasy XI


Final Fantasy XII

  • Most of the Final Fantasy XII soundrack was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto. It includes The Empire's Theme, the Necrohol of Nabudis gives a great feeling of desolation and loneliness, there's Giruvegan, and the Feywood is good as well, especially when you see Judge Ghis' fleet for the first time. The Esper Battle music is the perfect epic theme for just how important the game makes your battles against the giant cursed creatures.
  • Giza Plains, a perfect companion to any start of a journey. It's almost as if the composers knew you were going to start a fight at the exact moment the song goes from adventurous and free-spirited to badass and rowdy.
  • The Battle For Freedom is the most epic, being the final boss song. Starting of as a tranquil strings, it later builds up the tension with percussion, and more strings. The buildup was so intense that when it comes to the centerpiece, you just had to prolong the battle to listen to the entirety all over again.
  • Esper, an epic remix of the aforementioned Esper Battle.
  • Boss Battle, especially the midparts.
  • The vocals make Abandoning Power soothing and divine.
  • Fight to the Death accompanies epic fights against Vossler and Gabranth.
  • The Royal City Of Rabanastre, a go-to track when convincing people that Game Music is a legitimate form of musical expression.
  • The Sky Fortress Bahamut is just perfectly suited to the events that accompany it, but it's amazing to listen to on its own
  • Eruyt Village is a just background music for a few towns. But it's so hauntingly beautiful and calming that it needs to be included here. It's the perfect theme to go with some of FFXII's most visually stunning locations.
  • Being the first location that Vaan can go to outside Rabanastre, the Dalmasca Estersands' theme conveys a real sweeping sense of freedom. Appropriate, given the comparatively open feel of FFXII's gameplay as compared to previous games in the series.
  • Kiss Me Good-Bye is the gorgeous and emotional theme song of the game. Luckily for us, it comes in two languages.


Final Fantasy XIII

  • Some of the first tracks released for the game: "Defiers of Fate" and "The Promise."
  • The Battle Theme, "Blinded By Light." With one of the most epic violins worth of note. The even more awesome "Long version" can be heard here.
  • Kimi ga Iru Kara, the J-Pop Award Bait Song.
  • "My Hands", the song "set to defile the English version" is quite moving and very fitting, especially when it played in the game's international trailer.
  • Here is the game's jazzy Chocobo Theme. It's so... catchy...
  • The themes for all the main characters:
  • The Prelude (a departure from the standard Final Fantasy prelude) and Cavalry Theme.
  • Saber's Edge, especially once the brass section kicks in. Oddly for a battle theme, it's in waltz time.
  • Fighting Fate, this Boss Battle theme in particular. Fits very nicely when fighting Galenth Dysley.
    • The non-battle version of this theme, Ragnarok, which plays when the party is turned into l'Cie by Anima, is also good, as well as very haunting.
  • Born Anew is incredible as well. Nothing matches the adrenaline rush you get from 0:15-0:33 especially, which plays as Orphan rises out of its pool to battle you. The buildup on Nascent Requiem was quite exhilarating, and somehow the playful theme seems to be mocking the players.
  • The Vestige and Gapra Whitewood.
  • The Sunleth Waterscape. Take the game's leitmotif tune, speed it up to a bubblegum pop rhythm, and throw in upbeat lyrics. This is what you'll get.
  • Atonement is a beautiful track that plays when Hope reconciles with Snow, and later on, when Snow reaffirms his commitment to save Cocoon. Other great tracks include This is Your Home, which plays when Bartholomew tells Hope that l'Cie be damned, Hope is his son...and that their home will always be a sanctuary for him, no matter what.
  • Eidolons and Test of the l'Cie, which play during the battles with the Eidolons, depending one which one you're facing, make this list easily.
  • Dust to Dust, the track that plays when you explore Vanille and Fang's hometown, Oerba, and find that everyone there is either dead or has been turned into a Cie'th. As if to emphasize the sorrow, it plays during battles instead of the regular theme, too.
  • Will to Fight was a perfect piece to play in Palumpolum after Hope realizes just how feared he is as an l'Cie. It truly evokes the emotions of how painful it must be for him to be looked on as a monster by his neighbours.
  • The Battle Results theme which plays after the game's victory fanfare is too awesome to be left out! (Normally, you guys'll just skip the results after each battle, shame that you missed such an alluring music...)
  • This list ain't complete without Desperate Struggle. Only plays during a handful of boss battles, but they're also some of the most intense battles in the game. Thus it doesn't matter when Cid Raines kicks your ass for the 100th time, because it just means you get to listen to this badass music even more.
  • The Archylte Steppe welcome players with a another use of the game's leimotif. Not only is it quite peaceful, but it conveys quite well the feeling that you are exploring a new, open-ended area, on top of being a new WORLD, filled with its own active fauna.
    • Neighboring area, the Yaschas Massif, rather clashes with the more serious feel of the steppe's theme, instead sounding rather cheerful and oddly elevatory. As with the steppe and its theme, this one makes exploring its own large area pleasant, to say nothing of the Scenery Porn.
  • This troper would like to nominate the Piano Collections version of the Sulya Springs theme. Absolutely beautiful. Heck, this troper also nominates the rest of the piano collections for this game as well. The way they transform the original songs into something very different, while still keeping the core melodies, and still sounding just as good, if not better.


Final Fantasy XIII-2


Final Fantasy Type-0

Final Fantasy Versus XIII


Final Fantasy XIV


Ivalice series


Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles


Spin-offs, Prequels and Sequels


Final Fantasy Music

  • The album Final Fantasy: Pray. All of it. It's essentially tracks from Final Fantasy games remixed and set to vocals. Just one example of the awesome is Pray, based on Prologue. Yes, they made the freaking PROLOGUE more awesome than it already is.
  • The Black Mages, Uematsu's rock band. They've produced some utterly amazing remixes of pretty much every track mentioned above, and then some.
  • Distant Worlds: Music From Final Fantasy, taking various tracks from all across the FF series and orchestrating them to awesome proportions. The whole soundtrack qualifies, but the ones of note are One-Winged Angel, Swing De Chocobo, Medley, and last but most defenetly not least, Memoro De La Stono.
    • Many of the arrangements found on Distant Worlds first appeared on 20020220 Music from Final Fantasy, the live recording of a concert held in Tokyo in 2002. These arrangements would go on to be performed during the Dear Friends - Music from Final Fantasy concert tour in 2004 and 2005 and then used again during the Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy concert series from 2007 to 2010. Which then brings them to the CD for Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy.
    • Distant Worlds II and its subsequent world tour have brought an even greater selection of music to the orchestra hall, including the above-linked "Dancing Mad."
  • Heavy Metal Arrange Album GUARVAIL, taking tracks from a ton of the games and turning them into metal of awesomeness. The whole album is pretty sweet, but the ones of the most note are the arrangements of The Extreme, The FF Main Theme, Battle Scene A, and last but most definitely not the least, Dancing Mad.
  • Nearly all of Love Will Grow, the Spiritual Successor to the aforementioned Final Fantasy: Pray album, belongs here.
  • The remixes from Sega Fantasy 6, a parody video taking the 7th Gen console wars and fitting them in flawlessly into Final Fantasy VI's last battle, deserve mentioning here.
  • CROW'S CLAW, known for its Touhou arranges, has also done some awesome remixes of Final Fantasy songs.
  • While most of his other work has been humorous, Brental Floss' take on the main theme is nothing short of masterful.
  • Final Fantasy Song Book: Mahoroba is the the sort-of-but-not-quite spiritual successor to Pray and Love Will Grow, being stylistically a bit different. And fantastic. (Examples including Evanecense (Home Sweet Home) and Maybe, Goodbye having the most unlikely theme, VII's "Farm Boy."
  • This is what happens if Chocobo meets operatic rock: Awesomeness ensues.
  • Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec. This album as a whole is one of the better arrangement albums by Shirō Hamaguchi, including "Liberi Fatali" and the complete ending theme with the reprise of "Eyes On Me" (as well as the original)...but it also gives us the above-mentioned "Don't Be Afraid," "Fisherman's Horizon," "The Oath," and a Tear Jerker string-quartet rendition of "Fragments of Memories." Definitely a Crowning Music of Awesome in its own right.

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  1. being written by a Canadian band helps.