Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard.
Where anything goes.
-//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7
|
|
Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard. Where anything goes. -//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7 |
|
|
Tuesday, February 10, 2004 And now for the next installment of my ceaseless griping and whinging and whining and blathering and babbling and blubbering and blustering and complaining and blabbering and minging and proselytising and ranting and ... *gasp* ... out of breath. Anyway, it's so crude and hideous that maybe I should call it "Final Rant-tasy" or "Final Fan-nasty" or something like that, except that it's not the final one. Hopefully the next should do it. But until then I bid you caveat emptor. And remember that all opinions are sorely, er, solely my own, and if you disagree then tough. Well, you could always tell me you disagree, and I won't stop you from disagreeing, but I'm not changing my mind. So there. Best Fight Music "Okay ... as I said, I was going to think about music because, well, just about half of Square's successes in this day and age are thanks to Uematsu Nobuo, that nice man who composed all the music ever since, well, since FF3. Which means that all music created in all the games I'm looking at would have all been created by him, so it's not a ranking of 'best music', but more the 'best attempt at music' since it's by the same person. And I promise all this will be short because ... how are you supposed to describe how you like music? I'm not a musician, so unless I compared 'badabum bum bum!' to 'tan tara!', which I won't, it would be hideously difficult for me to say why I like it. So I shan't. First, the average walkabout fight music with non-boss monsters because that is probably the tune you hear most often in the game, and it has to be good otherwise if you hated it every fight would be insanely irritating. And I'm not writing the 'titles' of the songs because they're monstly in Japanese, the kanji of which I can't read." 6. FFVIII "Since you hear the fight music so often, it's probably something that sticks on your head for all the time you play the game and for ages after. And I can get the first few bars of every single fight music ... except for FFVIII's. The problem, I think, is that many tunes in FFVIII start with 'preludes' that you don't hear again for as long as the music repeats ... a good example would be the various character themes in FFVI ... However, those beginnings are memorable, while those of FFVIII just aren't and so you can't remember the song. And FFVIII is the only FF to have two regular fight musics, and unless you are a rabid fan of techno music you will agree that the Laguna battle music is one of the most singular and monotonous songs ... in FFVIII, at the very least. It has a beat, at least, but don't all battle musics have that?" 5. FFVI "Um, FFVI has one of the shortest battle music loops of all. It gives a nice metallic feel to the battles, which, after all, take place in a world devoid of magic and overrun with technology, but otherwise it just doesn't last long enough to merit more than a passing mention." 4. FFIV "FFIV's battle music propogates the precursor to many other fight musics in the games after that ... start with bass and then bring in the instruments (it actually began all the way from FFII), so I guess it deserves merit for being popular enough to merit being featured again in the other games, FFVI, FFIX, and the first few bars of FFVII. I though the music 'expanded' too quickly into loud chords so it can actually get tiring listening to it over and over again. Especially when you are getting the nonsense beaten out of you in the Land of Summoned Monsters or the Sylph Cave." 3. FFV "This is unparalleled. The fight music actually has a melody! This is the song I remember the most in FFV, although on hindsight I feel it certainly isn't the best. But ... it has a melody! Other fight musics simply serve as background for you to, well, waltz along to on the field, but this one takes centrestage. Fight music may be addictive, but if you actually walk around humming it you've either been playing far too much FF, or you've been playing FFV for half an hour." 2. FFIX "Uematsu really perfected the theme that started in FFII with the FFIX battle music. It builds enough, is climatic enough, and one might even say trance-inducing, and it sounds great even repeated many many times especially during irritating super-monster non-boss fights, like Tantarian. I lavish absolute praise on this. The only problem is that it doesn't really conform to the cutesy nature of all the FFIX characters ... it's difficult to imagine, oh say Vivi, Garnet, Quina and Eiko beating up evil monsters to that tune as they bounce around." 1. FFVII "Right, I lavish absolute praise on FFIX's fight music but the FFVII one takes the cake. For starters, it has two drumbeats! The star feature of fight music just got better. The same stuff, great building, great climax, a joy to hear even many many times. The best part of all is, the midi instrumental used in FFVII is strangely synchronous to my ears ... though the instruments are artificial, it evokes as much feeling as a real instrumental. Furthermore, you can play the music on your computer just as you hear it in the game, with no quality loss, since all computers can play midi. Isn't that the best?" Best Boss Music : "Okay, this one will be short, since it's basically just evaluating a different set of fight music. Simply saying that one game has better fight music than the other would be rather misleading since although it is the most common tune, it isn't the only prominent one that appears, in the case of boss fights." 6. FFVIII "This is strange. I find this one of the best pieces of music in FFVIII, which I don't particularly favour the music of very much, because it is endowed with a great melody all throughout its length ... the longest boss music of all, which doesn't make you feel bored. The problem? Perhaps the game's directors thought so little of it that it hardly ever appears in the game itself, the real fights often displaced by the sorceress music Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec. What a waste. But it's largely techno, so there it goes." 5. FFVII "Oops, the other way around. No, it's not because the music is bad, but ... in comparison to the other great tunes you find in this musical game this is one of those that stand out the least. And the boss theme is supposed to be more impressive than the average fighting music, but it isn't ... really ... and you don't hear it much after the first disc." 4.FFIX "Again, another game where the boss music was really great but oftentimes was displaced by some other piece. Bonus points for sounding really profound and threatening, although one must note that just as FFIX's battle theme was partly lifted off FFIV's, FFIX's boss theme was also partly lifted off FFV's. But the few times that you do hear it, for example the Black Waltz fights, make it memorable and exciting enough to deserve a higher placing." 3. FFV "For some reason the FFs after FFVI made much less use of 'boss music' than the others, so this is the category where the older FFs are unfairly ahead, isn't it? Anyway, just as FFV has the most evil villain of all it also has the most evil boss music of all. Well, actually FFIX's is more evil, but it was lifted off of FFV's, which did very well to strike a balance between the challenge of fighting and the harrowing feeling of confronting a big boss. Of which there were many." 2. FFIV "Just as FFV provided unorthodox fight music, FFIV's boss music was unorthodox. It wasn't fierce or harrowing at all, in fact it was a pretty "fun" sounding boss music. Um ... thinks FFIX characters hopping along to that, maybe. I'm easily swayed by things in FF that put the fun factor above all, so this would be one of it. It's too bad that Cecil remains all stony-faced despite being surrounded by all manner of goofy and wacky personalities for much of the game." 1. FFVI "This also gets the merit of the shortest boss music of all. However, unlike the fight music, they squeezed so much rhythm and harmony into such a short piece that you find yourself enjoying it, yet when it begins to repeat you can't remember just what it was that was so great as you begin to enjoy it again. Not simply value for space, but for the general thrill as a whole." Best Villain Music : "I've already gone through all of this so I'll just put it down again to be sure. The results, of course, don't conform with my 'favourite villain' rankings since they're based on something else altogether, however, they are a major factor in determining just how great the villain really is. 6. FFVII : Sephiroth "You know, people old enough to play FF won't be scared by that kind of music any more. It makes you feel as if you're watching a B-horror movie. Also, I recently realised that the beginning of the actual music was partly lifted off of ExDeath's music. Sad, huh?" 5. FFIX : Kuja "Nice piano (I always enjoy piano in any game music) but not much else. It sounded like a great piece of FF music, the problem is that like so many parts of FFIX it was just bits of FF throughout the years pieced together, without necessarily making the whole any superior to the mere sum of its parts. And there are better tunes in FFIX." 4. FFVIII : Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec "Haha ... like Edea hypnotising the innocent citizens of Deling City this song will put you into a trance-like state. Plus, it is one of the few songs with voices in FF that I actually liked (no, I do not like Garnet singing, sorry!). You can even dance along to it, it makes a great cha-cha, I think. But you-know-who had to come along and spoil the great sorceress love affair, and no we are not talking about Squall or Ultimecia here." 3. FFVI : Kefka "Uwee-hee-hee! Funny evil villain music. Like him, the music is really funny while at the same time not the most pleasant thing in the world. Methinks that Yuffie's music in FFVII was lifted off Kefka's, since it uses the same instrument (and Eiko's was, in turn, lifted off Yuffie's). Villain music so good it merits a double (or triple) feature. The problem is, however, it's funny not so much because the music itself will make you laugh out loud, but it's rather Kefka doing what he does with the music playing." 2. FFIV : Golbez "This should be the ultimate evil villain music after Darth Vader's Imperial March ... well, since they're as good as the same person. The only reason why it's topped by ExDeath is because Golbez's song expresses only one emotion ... typical of the single-mindedness of the mind-controlled, while on the other hand ExDeath ..." 1. FFV : ExDeath "This evil person has two great pieces of music all for him, one when talking to him and when fighting with him. People who enjoy twisted music will savour this, since it blends the evilness of Darth Golbez and the mischievous nature of Kefka to create a truly warped piece of music that brings out both his destructiveness and his wickedness. One of the best pieces of music in a game with some of the best music of all." EDIT : Somehow, a typo went unnoticed for a week. What a shame. posted by Charlotte | 3:27 pm
Comments:
Post a Comment
Disclaimer : The Slayers and Filia Ul Copt and all images thereof are the property of Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I don't own any of them, although if I had a choice I would want Filia ... ~//n_n\\7 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
 |
|||||
|
||||||
