Final Fantasy XII’s rerelease has offered us the opportunity to communally review all of its aspects, some perhaps not as fairly considered as they deserved twelve years ago. From the moment of The Zodiac Age’s announcement I was always most anticipating how its soundtrack would be handled by SoundtRec Boston and gaQdan. The vast bulk of the score was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, with several contributions from Masaharu Iwata and Hayato Matsuo, and one piece each by Taro Hakase & Yuji Toriyama (as co-composers) and Nobuo Uematsu. A fact unknown to many, I think, is that XII’s in-game soundtrack was markedly different from the OST, and thus original, versions. In-game, it was a dramatic downgrade in every way, necessitated by the original files’ size which had too many instrumental channels for the PlayStation 2 to handle. Sakimoto often has been at the forefront of getting the best sound a console is capable of producing for a videogame, so it’s surprising that he would’ve so overestimated the PS2′s capabilities and required a sound engineer to reformat the files (congratulations should go to this person, whose name I don’t know (perhaps others do)). It’s possible that this divide between intended and actual soundtrack was a little responsible for the music’s less-than-enthusiastic welcoming by players who tut-tutted the melodies for being “unmemorable,” but this speculative route would quickly devolve into shoddy inexactitudes, and I’m not intent on criticizing fault-finders in this essay anyway.
It may on the face of it seem strange that TZA does not then offer, between its “Original” and “Remastered” audio options, the OST versions for the former. In a money-grubbing and, I suppose, realistic sense, this was done to get people to purchase the OST-included DLC. Within the game itself, I think it serves to highlight the majority-live orchestrations’ strengths. But this also speaks to the quality of Sakimoto’s original compositions; as excellently performed and faithful (but not dully so) as the orchestrations are, they hardly render the synthetic originals null. More than that, it’s pretty easy to entertain preferring certain original tracks over new analogs. Played live, for example, “Streets of Rabanastre” oddly has almost totally drowned out the constant, bright pizzicato dottings of the original. On the other hand, a number of live tracks have moments of melodic clarification, giving them a sharper edge, if that’s what you prefer (compare the last moments of both versions of “Into the Fortress”). Anyway, it’s a remarkable thing to say about tracks ostensibly intended for a console released in 2000, and I have a new respect for the effort and skill Sakimoto et al devoted to this project settled within an industry marked by frankly unethical developmental schedules.
What, to me, makes TZA’s soundtrack the definitive version, though, is the addition of several new themes, all composed by Sakimoto. Judging by their placement, their function is to add some diversity where once a prior-heard piece was reused. People familiar with the game and who pursued its optional offerings will maybe be happiest to know that these replacements extend to the Pharos’ sub-levels. Here, the bolder, latter half of Ashe’s theme played to exhausting effect (my guess is that it was used on account of the whole theme having little showtime throughout the game; as situational music, it is maybe only heard once or twice, and as environmental music its former-half is paired with the first, very brief part of Giruvegan), but now it only appears for the Pharos’ ultimate optional boss, the Shadowseer. In its stead is “Gloom”, a pretty piece that, like a few other newcomers, retreats and allows a lot of the space to be filled by sparkle-strung washes of subtle color. It’s not thrilling music, but it’s lovely, much more appropriate for long times spent among dim dungeons. Similarly minded substitute tracks include “Lying in Wait” and “Memories Eternal”, both exemplary of Sakimoto and demonstrative of his creative growth since XII’s release. “Memories Eternal” to my ears sounds like some of Jeremy Soule’s muted explorative themes for the Elder Scrolls series, and not just for surface ensemble-based parallels: it has that similar dew-wilted overlay and a quietly unknowable, tragic pulse below.
“Tchita Uplands” is the one replacement I could do without. Past a promising introduction, there’s just not a lot here aside from a general urgent tone, some unpleasantly strained brass melodies, and an over-reliance on tempo, loudness, and quick string-work for excitement. This might be an okay boss theme; among a large, verdant landscape, it quickly grows tiring. I switch to the original audio or just the music off when visiting the Uplands now. But if we’re going to talk about missteps or failures, it’s worth saying that XII’s score is, as is often the case with Final Fantasy games, enormous – the original contains a hundred pieces – and holds nearly nothing that betrays boredom or a paucity of ideas (exceptions: “The Dalmasca Westersand”, “Portent”, “Battle Drum”, “The Zertinan Caverns”, “The Feywood”, and “The Mystery of Giruvegan”). Due to its omission of randomized battles (all traditionally matched to one theme over the game’s entirety) and an overworld (a trend initiated by FFX), XII sets the stage too for an entry whose musical web emotionally coheres not by a few pieces’ frequency or the assignment of a theme to every character, but by a common orchestral palette and a set of elastic melodic motifs. As with a few other things already mentioned, whether you like this or not will come down to what you’re looking for and/or are open to; I happen to think it’s great and a motivator for revisiting locales, spending time there, looking and listening.
This time around I was also very impressed by four of Hayato Matsuo’s seven total pieces: “On the Bridge of Leviathan”, “Defying the Empire”, “The Forgotten City”, and “Realm of Memory.” During my original playthrough I think these didn’t quite register because of their sparser makeup; that, and I was probably less equipped to enjoy the first two’s modernist, fractured aggressions. As different as they are from the rest of the soundtrack’s material, they’re very good on their own and fine fits for those militaristic and morbid contexts. I’m not sure if Matsuo’s inclination to write darker music would’ve fit XII’s blue-skied world, but the idea of this soundtrack having been helmed by him rather than Sakimoto is interesting. Since every Final Fantasy starting with X has featured a new composer or group of them, I wonder if Matsuo will have his chance in the future. My thoughts here are further led to TZA’s orchestrations as a whole, as Matsuo’s tracks are partly distinguished by string leads employing vibrato, in contrast to the technique’s utter absence among the strings of Sakimoto’s originals. This is a quality that defines the latter’s orchestral style, one which may not be explicitly recognized despite being heard over and over again, but one which I believe gives his work added longevity. To this day, the only synthetic videogame track I’ve found to have even vaguely convincing violin vibrato is SaGa Frontier 2′s “Trübsal.”
So with FFXIII and XV’s abundant violin vibrato, and the technique’s overall popularity (to the point of misuse, in my opinion), I was a little worried, despite my anticipation, about self-satisfying interpretations muddling things. I’m pleased to say that everything was handled more or less in a manner that suits the music’s character. A number of tracks, true, do pursue vibrato for string-work – “Sorrow: Resistance”, “On the Riverbank”, “Nalbina Fortress”, “Cooperation Resistance”, and “Respite”, to name a handful – yet the effect rarely feels like it usurps the melody’s enunciation for the sake of glitz (”Nalbina Fortress”’ opener kind of pushes it by squeezing oscillations into such brief spans and risks sounding too cheeky for its own good). I don’t know how Sakimoto would describe himself stylistically, and I don’t think there is a single coherent label that would cover even most bases, but one of his hats certainly is a sort of neo-medievalism (fun fact: his soundtrack for Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is one of two videogame soundtracks – the other is Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles – I’m aware of which uses a crumhorn). It might then be advantageous for future interpretations of Sakimoto’s work to acknowledge its pre-baroque derivations and be very careful about applying vibrato to the violins, as if it were virtuosic Italian music for a royal court.
Anyway, I wore myself out writing. Here’re some of my favorite tracks.
I just saw this quote from James Baldwin and I think he puts it very poetically
Reminds me of a story I heard once. I couldn’t find the origin but it goes something like:
There was once this famous violinist and whenever a new violin player would ask what they thought of their playing, the famous violinist would always say “You should quit”
Years later, someone comes up to the famous violinist and says “thank you for telling me to quit all those years ago, I found something that I was truly talented at instead”
Then another person comes up to the famous violinist and says “ When you told me to quit it lit a fire under me and I never gave up and now I’m a professional violinist myself!”
so…I guess what I’m saying is just keep at it!! If you want to improve you’re going to improve
(also should go without saying but you shouldn’t tell strangers to quit art. That’s very rude)
The only thing I would add from my own experience is start an art inspiration folder and save things that represent where you want your art to move toward so you can look at it when you’re feeling a bit lost.
I also love the idea of mermaids! What a great idea!
The technical level of animation on display in NGE is still impressive today.
I’m really fond of the shows’ penchant for showing viewers incidental details like the elevator gauge, lock-bolts, and complex maps and diagrams. Anno liked showing the viewer aspects of a scene rapidly through quick cuts tightly focused on the primary action. Sometimes cuts happened so fast you could lose your sense-of-place in the scene, but I stayed engaged because these shots were so visually interesting, and that was what made this style so successful.
You could tell the people who made this show were into it. That kept me watching, even if it ended up being kind of a mess.
Looking towards the coming year, we’re rallying around the idea of bringing change through our own individuality. Internally, this is summarized in our team motto as ‘Be personal for change.’ Now when people think of the idea of individuality, it’s often framed in terms of straying away from social norms and the everyday rules of day-to-do living. People often refer to Atlus’ philosophy as a developer in this sense, although it’s also not without some negative connotations; dangerous people, for instance, are often viewed as having a sense of individuality that makes them go too far. But to me personally, individuality is as much about the good as it is the bad and as we display it towards other people, it affords an opportunity for our words, our thinking processes, our conduct to change. Individuality, for me, is most strongly about that power of human potential.
In recent times especially, there’s a pervading sense of oppression for many people at an existential level, but so long as we as a species are able to form relationships one another in this world, we’ll always have the ability within ourselves to be able to break free from such restraints, both as individuals, but especially for groups that have a strong sense of self. In making a new proper numbered entry in the Persona series, we’re hoping to bring those issues to the forefront and are working tireless on it to make it happen, so be sure to keep an eye on more information about Persona 5 in the coming months.
