Episode Details

This week, we continue with our Spotlight on Nobuo Uematsu. Enjoy!

PART II

Last week we looked at the beginnings of Nobuo Uematsu's career, from being hired at Square Co. to his first two masterpieces that we can agree on with his soundtracks of FF4 and FF6. As a reminder, this is a special kind of Spotlight, one where you sit back, and enjoy the music.

Let's continue from 1995. Chrono Trigger, the one fucking game that we need to play but can't because of the official order of things, was a gigantic project for Square, and is often cited with FF6 as the greatest RPG game ever. Most of the music was composed by veteran composer Yasunori Mitsuda, but Nobuo would leave his mark on the classic game as well, composing 8 of the tracks for the game. Here's the haunting theme "Silent Light":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T4WB2zfmps

No, no no no. Silent LIGHT. Not Silent night… Jesus.. That was Josef Mohr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ccv48ZiX1I&index=10&list=PLTHOcnhIuPOvEJd8WJI6kaJbQG0NeKtaY

1996 would be kind-of a dud year for Uematsu. The little known game "Dynami Tracer" would be his only solo work in 1996, and it's definitely not one of his better soundtracks… But we wouldn't wanna keep you wanting! Here's a little piece called...music factory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-T4JU01UoA&list=PL70567EDAFF96BD39&index=3

We're not gonna even bother with his next work, contributing to the album for Front Mission: Gun Hazard with a half a billion of other Square composers. His next game was 1997's fucking Final Fantasy 7. We can't give you just one. Here's his band, the black mages' version of perhaps the most popular FF7 song One Winged Angel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHzEaKFqboI

One of the most beautiful pieces from the game, Aerith's theme, taking a cue from Terra's theme in the last game, here's an orchestral version of that song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU0TcnsLop8

We can't forget Kaleb's favorite. This is Cosmo Canyon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBk58XDx5gY

His next game would be that of FInal Fantasy 8. Nobuo has stated that with 8's soundtrack, he worked hard to reflect the charcter's emotions at certain parts of the game. It would be one of the more successful FF soundtracks with what is now as of 2016 the second-biggest video game music single ever, Faye Wong's "Eyes on Me" selling over 500,000 copies.

Now… Final Fantasy VIII… This is a tough one because neither of us really care for the soundtrack of FF8. There's something about the tone of the instrumentation and the terrible engrish lyrics of "eyes on me" that leaves us with a bad taste in our mouths, but no one can deny the power of the opener, Liberi Fatali!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4MMhY4RyxQ

Eh, fuck it, we'll give you "Eyes on Me".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANw53vQFJeM

Along this stream of Final Fantasy games, the often-underappreciated Final Fantasy IX would follow. FF9 would take a departure from the previous games with the soundtrack offering a more medieval scottish highlands inspired milieu. Nobuo would do the entire 160 tracks on his own for this game. He