"There is a fine line between genius and insanity... that line is probably somewhere in Japan." "This takes place in a world that is exactly like ours, except that 70% of the population is cute 18-year-old girls, giant monster attacks are a regular occurrence, and military hardware is powered by arcane shit from some medieval grimoire instead of physics. BECAUSE." _______ _ __ |__ __| * | | / / ____| |____ | |__ / / |____ ____| ___________ | _ \ / / | | |___________| | | \_\ / / | | | | /_/ __| | | | _ \___| |_| |_| ============================================= DR. JIM'S FANTASTIC FINAL FANTASY JUKEBOX By Jim Waterman, 7-19 December 2022 for WOOT! All music originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu, 1987-1994 ============================================= * Yes, otakus and weebs, I KNOW, this is an obsolete katakana character. Trying to use "modern" katakana didn't look right, and was rather difficult to translate into ASCII art. Hence, I have rejected modernity and embraced tradition. DEAL WITH IT. Anyway... Two years ago, the excellent music of Gargoyle's Quest was converted into a series of PLAY statements that are unique to the 128K Spectrum models... now it's time for my attention to be turned to the stupendously brilliant series that really puts the "J" into "JRPG", and featured an enormous cast of memorable characters along the way. I've only ever played the first six games, and have no intention of going any further. FF7 aficionados, address your complains to that brick wall over there, the one that surrounds Castle Cornelia. I'm only interested in the NES and SNES (well, Famicom and Super Famicom, technically...) games, and their later GBA, DS and PSP remakes. Hence, this is an attempt to bring the brilliant works of Nobuo Uematsu to the Spectrum, and do so in BASIC, without the use of Vortex Tracker which could undoubtedly do a far better job. The Famicom was released in 1983 and the technology of the time allowed for three sound channels - two square waves and a triangular wave - which makes transcriptions of Famicom and NES music to the Spectrum rather easier than it is for its 16-bit successor, where the transcription is more down to my interpretation. All the Famicom Final Fantasy games were later re-released for more advanced systems, with upgraded versions of all the music involved, so I've used the Famicom version as the base for all of these, even if in many cases I prefer the reorchestrated remake. In all cases I've kept the musical score as-is, unless there are some obvious mistakes that my ears alert me to (e.g. in the FF1 Main Theme towards the end). Sensei Uematsu occasionally dropped a bum note in there himself (e.g. FF2's Rebel Army) - maybe he thought it sounded correct on the Japanese hardware, maybe a bit was dropped when translating to the Western NES, maybe he just got it wrong briefly... but who am I to argue? FINAL FANTASY I (Famicom, 1987 - NES, 1990) =========================================== "No one touches my princess!! LIGHT WARRIORS?? You impertinent fools. I, Garland, will knock you all down!!" - Garland Prelude: https://musescore.com/user/8946456/scores/2057116 It was fitting to include the first piece of Nobuo Uematsu's music that was ever heard by anyone outside Square's offices. This tune occurs in every game, but this early version sounds different to the rest; it's the same series of arpeggios, played over each other, two notes out of step. The more you know... Main Theme: https://musescore.com/spovox/final-fantasy-main-theme As with the Prelude, there are variations of this in every Final Fantasy game, and they're all slightly different. Usually, it'll occur near the beginning of the game, and in the case of FF1 it's after your party has whacked Garland at the Chaos Shrine (the first time, at least...) and crossed the bridge away from the initial island that functions as a training camp. Chaos Shrine: https://musescore.com/user/18384491/scores/6762417 Spoiler alert - this is where the game begins, and ends. The Chaos Shrine will be your first hurdle when your party is weak, has pathetic weapons and armour and can barely beat a few Imps. And it is also the gateway to the final boss, who's the same as the first boss... only very much stronger. So this tune acts as a fine bridge between both ends of the game. Matoya's Cave: https://musescore.com/user/28463374/scores/6274878 This is another area encountered early on in the game, and it might seem fairly nondescript, but it gets a boost in the later GBA and PSP remakes with two ocarinas (is that you, Link?) carrying the tune - even if that does make it sound like it should be playing while visiting a village rather than a witch's cave. FINAL FANTASY II (Famicom, 1988) ================================ "Guy speak beaver." - Guy The Rebel Army: https://musescore.com/user/28463374/scores/6748687 FF2 is the least popular game out of the first six - that it was only released in Japan initially and has a bizarre level-up system doesn't help its cause - and a lot of Western players might not have played it much, if at all. Along with the regular battle theme, this is the tune every player is guaranteed to have heard, as it plays while visiting the Rebel Army base in Altair, where the game properly starts. There are a couple of bum notes in this one, but those are genuinely in Nobuo Uematsu's original, and Sensei will chop my head off with a Masamune if I attempt to correct him. Or maybe he'll set the monks from Fabul in FF4 on me. All together now: "ACHOOO!" FINAL FANTASY III (Famicom, 1990) ================================= "What is it, young man? Embarrassed to be seen walking around with an old crone like me?" - Unei Chocobos!: https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0056211 If I'd wanted to put in a second tune from FF2, I might have opted for the Chocobo theme's first appearance in the game nobody likes - but then, only half of what we now all recognise had been written, and FF3 completed it. It was a split decision between this and the FF4 version, which required more work to bash it into a Spectrum-suitable shape. Sailing Enterprise: https://musescore.com/user/33605901/scores/7763411 Forbidden Land: https://musescore.com/user/28463374/scores/6268387 These two have been lumped together as, much like Matoya's Cave in FF1, their rehashed versions in the DS and PSP remakes are where they really shine. Sailing Enterprise, the theme for sailing the seas of the Floating Continent in the Enterprise (imagine my shock!) is given a majestic "we're really sailing away on an adventure now!" makeover, while Forbidden Land - the theme tune for the (you guessed it!) Forbidden Land of Eureka, where the game's best weapons are obtained - has become the soundtrack for an epic Lord Of The Rings-style film. FINAL FANTASY IV (Super Famicom and SNES, 1991) =============================================== "You spoony bard!" - Tellah Particularly un-spoony bards are the "video game metal" band, Powerglove, whose medley of FF4 music titled "Red Wings Over Baron" was what first drew my attention to this series of games. It's probably the game of the first six that has the best-known soundtrack, so the original version of everything I've picked here is likely to be well known. Prelude: https://musescore.com/user/28463374/scores/7044805 I've included this second version of the Prelude as the Super Famicom's extra sound capability - eight customisable channels instead of the fixed square, square, triangular and noise on the 8-bit hardware. The doubled-up arpeggios had been replaced by an echo effect in FF2, but FF4 now added the extra melody over the top which has become the canonical version we all know. Red Wings: https://musescore.com/user/28463374/scores/7044806 Start your game, and this is what plays over the very memorable opening sequence which surely, SURELY, everyone reading this is more than familiar with. The actions of the Red Wings certainly won't come back to haunt Cecil at any stage during the game, will they? Cecil certainly won't wash up on a beach and have to go crawling to the town he just firebombed, will he? There's a reprise of the opening part of the tune during the end sequence as well, just so you know who the hero was all along. Battle 2: https://musescore.com/user/1984081/scores/5168645 I may have mentioned Powerglove's FF4 medley, but before I dived into the Final Fantasy series, I'd played my way through Super Mario RPG which I hadn't been aware of in my younger days, mainly because it wasn't released in Europe. Culex, a Final Fantasy-style optional superboss made specifically for Super Mario RPG, was a jarring visual contrast to the cartoony Mushroom Kingdom, this was the soundtrack for the fight, and it's very, VERY much harder than taking on Mist Dragon, which is where you'll first hear this battle theme right near the beginning of FF4. If anyone ever asks me if I have a favourite FF battle theme, this is it. Victory: https://musescore.com/user/10026641/scores/2667536 Come on, you didn't think I'd include a Final Fantasy battle theme and NOT put the Victory theme in as well, right? It was a straight choice between this one, and the variants from its two successors. Incidentally, I blame the discordant fanfare and the replacement of the subsequent victory theme for killing my interest in FF7 before it ever started. In the 8-bit and 16-bit eras I will remain. The Final Battle: https://musescore.com/user/29606925/scores/5924183 Proof that Powerglove made all the right selections, SPOILER ALERT (for a 31-year-old game...): the final sequence involves Battle 2 as FuSoYa and Golbez thrash Zemus, Battle With The Four Fiends as Zeromus wreaks dreadful revenge on everyone, the main Final Fantasy theme as Cecil and his four accomplices are scraped off the floor and regenerated, and then THIS! Sensei must have known that the 16-bit hardware would raise the bar of what was expected of him to make a fitting final battle theme, and he rose to that challenge admirably. FINAL FANTASY V (Super Famicom, 1992) ===================================== "Let her go, you addle-pated foul-complexioned scofflaw!" - Faris Of the three games of the 16-bit era, FF5 is the one that the fewest number of people will have played; that's a travesty because it's crammed with brilliant music. The game has a much lighter tone than the two better-known games either side of it; this is probably why there are so many tunes with compound rhythms, of which I've featured three. Harvest: https://www.scribd.com/document/317211964/FF5-Harvest4FlutePiano-SCORE (preview only) Harvest first appears in the second town in the game, Carwen - and reappears later in Istory and, on the second world, Quelb. If it sounds not-so-vaguely Celtic, it's apparently in the style of a Welsh folk tune (admit it, you all thought it was Irish, so you did, now). Both sheet music and MIDIs for this one are few and far between - so I had to transcribe it by ear, isolating the individual sound channels on SNES9X. It was worth it, though, even if I've had to be very selective in which of the seven sound channels I had to cut down to three. To The North Mountain: https://musescore.com/user/30856753/scores/6318361 Immediately after restocking your supplies in Carwen, you'll be sent up the North Mountain - full of petrifying monsters and poisonous plants, but accompanied by a second top-notch tune with a compound rhythm in a row. Is it just me, though, or does it sound like it could also herald a news report from a rural radio station, somewhere like Mississippi or the Australian Outback? Fire Ship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOBf-Ua73Bw Reflecting FF5's lesser-known status, the best score I could find for this was on a YouTube video - though that's better than having to rely on my (still very accurate) ears. You'll hear this any time you're below deck on the Fire-Powered Ship, whether it's while fighting your way through it as a dungeon or when it's scuppered under Crescent Island for Cid and Mid to plunder for spare parts. Battle at the Big Bridge: https://musescore.com/user/4462906/scores/3721636 If ever there was a heavy hitter that says FF5 has the best soundtrack of the 16-bit FFs, this is it. You'll have to play right the way through the first world to hear it, mind - it's effectively Gilgamesh's personal theme, first appearing when he's confronted by our heroes on the Big Bridge at the start of the second world. Fortunately, he will return for more later in the game so it's not a one-off. FINAL FANTASY VI (Super Famicom and SNES, 1994) =============================================== "Hee, hee! Nothing can beat the music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison!" - Kefka Good gods... Kefka. If anyone, anywhere, ever, wants a definition of what absolute, limitless EVIL looks like... dressed as a jester, here it is. It's as if Square took all the Hitlers and Stalins and Pol Pots and any other notorious authoritarian dictators, and all the most unhinged and depraved serial killers fetishised by Marilyn Manson, cranked the insanity up to eleven, put them all in a blender and let rip. It's fortunate for all of us that Kefka is fictional... for now. Anyway, this is not hundreds of voices screaming in unison, it's three voices on an AY-3-8912 bleeping together to form something that approximates to some highlights of the FF6 soundtrack. And rather annoyingly, some of the best tunes are utterly unsuitable for a Spectrum conversion; Magitek Research Facility, for example, just doesn't work without all the metallic clanks running through it. Terra: https://musescore.com/user/34640724/scores/6066356 FF6 - Terra's theme / Overworld Terra is the first of the fourteen main characters we meet in the game (alongside two disposable Empire soldiers), all of whom get their own personal theme tune, so it's only fitting that it's Terra's theme that plays over our initial forays in the Overworld. The same tune is used in The Awakening, which is a more maudlin version with tinkly scales in the background that's usually played when Terra starts to realise who she is, and why. Incidentally, this tune is written in G# minor, with five sharps, which is a bit of a pain... Slam Shuffle: https://musescore.com/user/6587591/scores/6755017 Zozo is no ordinary town, because it's full of monsters and qualifies as a dungeon instead. Still, if we want to find Terra after she flies off in a frenzy, we have to visit Zozo, supposedly where all the poor and destitute people from posh and expensive Jidoor decamped to. All the monster encounters will keep on interrupting the twangy, bouncy Slam Shuffle that tells us this isn't somewhere nice and wholesome like The Decisive Battle: https://musescore.com/user/29606925/scores/6317007 I may prefer FF4's regular boss battle theme, but this one is still memorable. And as with FF4, we'll hear it as soon as we've encountered the training boss - Whelk, Ymir, "that snail that zaps us with lightning if we hit the shell with our Magitek weaponry" - whatever we're calling it. Searching For Friends: https://musescore.com/user/29606925/scores/7452422 Celes has escaped from a lonely island and collected the Figaro brothers, Setzer has been whacked out of a drunken stupor, and has taken control of his dead girlfriend's airship that he recovered and repaired without ever telling anyone. We're taking to the skies again to get the rest of the gang back, and this is the theme of hope for a future that isn't indiscriminately torched by Kefka's Light of Judgement. This one has quite a few apparent bum notes in it, but the score I took it from has been analysed by a music nerd who concluded that Sensei meant everything he wrote. Long, sustained notes at different volumes and with different synthesised instruments can disguise those dischords a lot better than a bare AY-3-8912 running on the Spectrum's 128K BASIC can...