Nobuo Uematsu’s had a long history in the game that any composer would be proud of. After most have worked Final fantasy games to some extent, he has a wide range of RPG hits such as Chrono Trigger, Lost Odyssey and The last story.
Recently, he has been working with Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi again, working exclusively on Apple Arcade Fantastic to create a 60-orchestrated soundtrack.
During an interview with Mobile Syrup, Sakaguchi said that this could be Uematsu’s last final score and said:
Before we approached him to work on Fantasian, he went through some health issues, and there were concerns about whether he would be able to put it all together, or whether it would even be possible for him to work on it.
I think he hinted that Fantasian might be the last game he does from end to end in terms of a complete soundtrack.
Uematsu never disclosed what specific illness he was suffering from, and confirmed earlier in September 2018 that he was taking the rest of 2018 off to recover. Since then, he has had individual tracks such as Final Fantasy VII Remake’s main theme, so it does not necessarily mean that he is just retiring.
Sakaguchi confirmed that Uematsu gave everything to Fantasian. He goes on to talk about the soundtrack and indicates that the composer poured ‘his heart and soul’ into the game, revealing it ‘almost made me tear up a bit’.
It’s just a shame that Fantasian (at least at the time of writing) is not coming to Switch, because we would like to see what these two legendary figures have put together for this upcoming RPG. Whatever happens next in his career, we will pray for Nobuo Uematsu’s health and success.