DISSIDIA Final Fantasy – OST
Dec 28, 2008 Featured, Games, Music, Reviews
DISSIDIA Final Fantasy — Square Enix’s tenth anniversary, in honour and tribute of their most successful series, Final Fantasy. Honestly, they’ve pretty much sent hardcore FF fans shrieking to the four corners of the world when they released the teaser trailer for this PSP game (this humble reviewer included).
Now, author Kai may have a few qualms and whatnot about the game, but I’m going to be talking about the music.
Ah, music — Any FF fan who does not know who on earth Nobuo Uematsu is needs to have serious remedial lessons on every Final Fantasy ever. And then lessons in worshipping this god of music. And then only he or she can be truly recognized as a hardcore fan of Final Fantasy. In Dissidia’s OST, however, Uematsu does not make a comeback; here it is Takeharu Ishimoto, well-known for his compositions for Kingdom Hearts II and the recent Crisis Core.
Playtime in total is about 2 and a half hours; with 74 tracks plus 1 bonus track. The original compositions no doubt belong to Nobuo Uematsu, but just as with Crisis Core, Takeharu Ishimoto manages to rearranges the pieces nicely and make it more outstanding, as the previous tunes from the good old days were nothing more than itsy-bitsy MIDI files. In this OST, fans will be able to recognize songs from the olden times in a newer and much more dramatic way — and it’s easy to tell if the song has been arranged or left in its original form — it’s stated in the OST list.
I’ve only played a handful of the Final Fantasy series — VII, VIII and IX, so quite a number of the songs here are new to me.
Now…
From what I gather, they took three songs from each Final Fantasy, one to act as the menu/battlefield for said FF protagonist (this is usually the Main Theme), and then one battle song, and one boss song.
I realize this is going to be long, so I shall wrap this up into a few categories :-
Old Favourites : -
- Those Who Fight Further - One may argue that I am biased towards FFVII, but then again they ARE the darling of the series. If not for them, the FF series as a whole would have died off. This song is definitely one of the catchier tunes in the OST.
- Don’t be Afraid FFVIII - The battle theme song for FFVIII, in a more rock style way. Sweet drum rolls, sweet guitars, a bit lacking in the bass, but overall my favourite remix so far.
- Battle Theme FFIX - This song has a more ethereal feeling to it, which makes it nicer than the sharper tones of the original song. Two thumbs up for me.
- One-Winged Angel FFVII – Who can resist not commenting about this song? Love it or loath it, it is the ultimate song ever and is considered Nobuo Uematsu’s greatest composition for the series. (Also, Sephiroth is one badass boss, and everyone knows it, and thus you end up with a song worshipping his very name.) In this one, however, it comes close to sounding like the one from Advent Children, except with the original lyrics. Still my favourite.
New Favourites :-
- The Opening song for the kickass opening scene. Needless to say, the opening song is kickass as well.
- Clash on the Big Bridge and Battle 1 from FFV. It’s catchy and fast paced and makes me want to dance.
- The Decisive Battle from FFVI – This song has been stuck in my head for the past 10 minutes. It is a good thing, I assure you.
- Preparation for Battle – This has a nice military patriotic “get ready to fight for your country” kind of style which gives me goosebumps all the way. I’m in love with it.
- A Moment of Rest and The Order that must be Protected – Sadly, the only two original piano compositions of Takeharu Ishimoto. Both, however, are extremely well done and moves me to the point of near-tears.
Usuals : -
What is Final Fantasy without its traditions? There is the Prelude theme, present in almost every Final Fantasy, in the opening screen usually, and this one seems to be a bit overdone. Too much reverb effects in my opinion. The Victory Fanfare, also present in every Final Fantasy and other games like the Chocobo series, is split into two themes this time, the Cosmos side and the Chaos side. The Cosmos Victory is more recognisable than the Chaos one, which employs the use of electric guitar and violin. The tone is slightly mellower, as though unsure it should be a victory fanfare or not.
And there is also the Mambo de Chocobo theme, which makes me laugh because I picture chocobos in coconut leaves and dancing in Hawaii. Listen to it, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me; it is delightfully fun. Finally, the Final Fantasy, the MAIN theme of all Final Fantasies, usually present at the ending of the game sync-ed in with the main theme of said game, was shorter than usual, clocking it at a little over 2 minutes. Masterfully done, but not quite the best yet.
And there are the ickys :-
FFX To Zanarkand, renamed Sprouting - I don’t know why they renamed it that way, because it didn’t seem like Sprouting to me. Only a slight addition of strings, a bit of the reverb effect, nothing overly special.
FFI Battle Theme 2 – Weird cut-off at 1.08, for some reason.
Blue Fields FFVIII – Ick. No. Not well done at all. The original is way better. This is the only song I don’t like in this whole OST.
FFX Otherworld – I got a shock of my life when I heard this song. This is okay up till the part the vocal does a weird Chester Bennington imitation and scares the crap out of me.
Cosmos and Chaos – Two vocal songs. I don’t particularly like it, but their voices are good. The melody seems to be rather simple, though. And it’s in English. It’s not supposed to be in English!!
My other qualm is that they seemed to have gotten lazy toward the end of the soundtrack. There’s like 8 original songs here from FFXI and FFXII. The Extreme from FFVIII and the Boss Battle theme from FFIX also makes a comeback, untouched at all, which may or may not have been for the best. Personally I’d have liked to hear something different and yet familiar all at once, like the previous songs mentioned.
Overall? I’d give it an 8 out of 10. I may be biased, but there you go.
Note by admin (Kai): Give a warm welcome to Yunyun. This is her first post on Ink-Cafe.
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