Welcome to Morning Music, Kotakuan ongoing hangout for people who love video games and the cool sounds they make. I’m going to wonder today how wonderful it is Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s music is, and specifically some of his new tracks that were not in the original version.
It took me a while to get in Final Fantasy VII Remake (Youtube / long play / VGMdb), and even longer to perform its complex adaptations of the original, often astonishingly simple and deeply affective PlayStation tracks. But in the end, both won me over. The music, just like the game, is taken like layers of sedimentary rocks that take years of history and are neatly displayed so that you can appreciate, analyze and digest them in the present. Here is the new version of “Brilliant beacon of civilizationWhat first plays out when Jessie explains the layout of Midgar to Cloud following the game’s initial bomb mission:
If you have read any of me previous Morning Music entries you know I’m a sucker for melancholy tracks and ‘Shining Beacon’ nails the techno dystopia of the original as I show the emotional resonance of watching the same human tragedies unfold after decades of repetition Final Fantasy VII.
But I said I’m here to talk about some Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s original scores, and so will I. In the years since the game’s release in 1997, Square Enix composers Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki have stretched their wings with their own projects. Their work on the Final Fantasy XIII especially the trilogy was an extremely important point for the series’ music after the departure of composer Nobuo Uematsu from the original series in 2004, and both brought the same flair and growing refinement Final Fantasy VII Remake. Here is Hamauzu’s “Moonlight Thievery, ”Which plays out early in the game when you have the task of breaking into Jessie’s parental home to steal her father’s Shinra key card.
It’s chilly and relaxing, and yet there’s so much going on, from drums and maracas to harps and chimes. The remake is about exploring the roads left in the original voyages, and ‘Moonlight Thievery’ is a perfect tablecloth to sail up into Midgar’s suburbs and see the other side of the classic corporate metropolis gorge. After all, there is a reason why Shinra has so much free government to destroy the planet and grind the poor to dust: it makes the lives of many other people extraordinarily comfortable.
Then there is “Cemetery train. “I was originally taken aback, because in the original play” Shining Beacon “the whole section plays through. For the remake, however, Hamauzu’s new track is ideal. It shows his superb and subtle piano work and his penchant for lifting even the gloomiest tracks with glittering harp sticks and bells. It reminds me a lot of his underestimated work on Dirge van Cerberus.
Suzuki’s contributions are a bit more quirky and upbeat. His jazzy turn on the “Wall Market”Theme is completely different from the original, but still excellent. My favorite is’Folded in highwayWhich plays out as Cloud and Aerith make their way through the tunnels connecting Sectors 5 to 6. The kokyū strings kick it off, followed by a windy electronic section, with the melody ending in a synthetic frenetic exposition that makes you feel like you ‘play through the slums of an ancient arcade again (fit, because it’s the part where Cloud has to navigate old robot arms like a crane game to help the way).
Okay, these are a lot of tracks, but I have to mention one more before I leave you: ‘Proper compensation. “It is based on Nobuo Uematsu’s original composition for Wall Market called”Oppressed people, ”With the new version arranged by Naoyuki Honzawa. It’s so different from the original that I consider it a new original piece of music, and it’s a bonafide banger:
It’s perky and full of mini-vocal monsters, with all sorts of other stuff mixed in there too. The regular version is a nice downtempo ride to walk Midgar’s bottom, but the battle mix takes it to another level. More club music in me Final fantasys please. I claim no less than an entire DJ mini-game as soon as the sequel takes us to the Gold Saucer.
And that’s it for today’s Morning Music! How I wrote about a bunch of new Final Fantasy VII Remake music and do not mention Uematsu’s “Hollow, ”The only new track he composed? I do not know. Shame on me. This is excellent. The man is a master. Imagine creating one of the best soundtracks of the video game ever and then coming back decades later to add an equally amazing and just as appropriate new, fully processed song to it. I can not either. And yet he did it. Which Uematsu track guides you through the day?