Song of the Day: Small Recollections (by Uematsu Nobuo from Lost Odyssey)

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Arleigh

We’re now two-thirds into the 33-day Shigematsu Kiyoshi short story marathon and for the last third I decided to kick it off with my third favorite track from the Lost Odyssey soundtrack. The latest “Song of the Day” is the simple and playful tune “Small Recollections”.

This track gets used a lot in the game’s collected dream-memories. It’s usually used in concert with other music when the dream involves children Kaim has met through his 1000-year and more journey as the eternal warrior. I like this song for it’s simplicity. It’s a solo piece done on a calliope and made to sound like it’s coming from a child’s music box. It’s really quite a great use of this instrument and one I’ve rarely heard used in a soundtrack for a film or game.

It’s hard not to listen to this song and not think of the simpler times when one was a kid and the biggest worry in our mind’s was whether we’d get to eat ice cream, cake or both at a birthday party. “Small Recollections” is definitely something one can hear at a fair or a carnival and always something that would make one smile like a kid again.

Song of the Day: Eclipse of Time (by Uematsu Nobuo from Lost Odyssey)

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Arleigh

The latest “Song of the Day” is another favorite music track from the Lost Odyssey soundtrack by Uematsu Nobuo. The title of this particular track is “Eclipse of Time” and one of the most beautiful pieces in the game’s soundtrack.

“Eclipse of Time” becomes a sort of motif for one of the game’s characters, Queen Ming Numara who also happens to be another immortal like the game’s main protagonist, Kaim. We first hear this music playing when we enter her Ming’s room and it creates an ethereal musical backdrop which accentuates the Queen Numara’s eternal beauty. The track is quite simply played as a harp solo and it’s a rare thing to hear the harp as the main instrument in most game soundtracks. It’s Uematsu’s inclusion of such an instrument which raises the Lost Odyssey soundtrack to classic status.

This particular track reappears time and time again in different version and tempo throughout the game. It usually means that Queen Numara is either the focus of the scene or something she’s involved in a way. Unlike “A Return, Indeed…” this song doesn’t really appear in any of Kaim’s 33 dream-memories which is a shame, but understandable since the piece doesn’t really match the tone of Kaim’s dreams.

Of all the pieces of music in the Lost Odyssey soundtrack this is the one I can listen to over and over and not get tired of it.

Song of the Day: A Return, Indeed…(by Uematsu Nobuo from Lost Odyssey)

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Arleigh

One of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in the past ten years was from a title that was the creation of the man (Sakaguchi Hironobu) who made the wildly-popular Japanese role-playing game franchise, Final Fantasy, before he left to start up his own company. This company would be called Mistwalker and they would release two rpgs for the Xbox 360 between 2008 and 2009. The second of these two titles was Lost Odyssey and this was the title of which I spoke of above.

The title was a nice throwback to the classic Final Fantasy titles Sakaguchi was responsible for while dressed up in nextgen visuals. But what made this game so memorable an experience for me wasn’t just the visuals but the great storytelling and music it also had in great abundance. The music itself was the product of one (if not the greatest) of the greatest video game music composer in the industry, Uematsu Nobuo. It’s from Uematsu’s soundtrack for Lost Odyssey that I pick the latest “Song of the Day”.

“A Return, Indeed…” (“Kaette kuru, kitto…” in Japanese) is part of the game’s soundtrack which makes several appearances throughout the game, but it was during the first found dream sequence (the game’s greatest highlight and reason to play it) which really sold the song and the whole soundtrack as whole as being great. This version is the piano solo one which is really the best version which appears in the game. This piano solo version was arranged by Satoshi Henmi from Uematsu’s original composition and it fully convey’s the song’s sorrow melody in the beginning but gradually transitions into a sound full of hope before finally ending in a simple few notes. Those few notes giving a hint that hope is always a possibility but in the end always fleeting.

What better way to inaugurate 33 days of “A Thousand Years of Dreams” than the song which kicks it off in the game.

Song of the Day: Terra’s Theme from Final Fantasy VI (Uematsu Nobuo)

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Arleigh

For the latest entry to the “song of the day” feature I go back to my younger years. I’m talking about when I was still barely into my 20’s. My choice for the new song of the day is Japanese composer Uematsu Nobuo’s main title theme for the Squaresoft (before they became Square-Enix) fantasy role-playing game Final Fantasy VI.

The song is “Terra’s Theme” (in the original Japanese it was called “Tina’s Theme”) and starts off the game. The version above is the piano solo version which Square-Enix produced as part of the special “Final Fantasy Piano Collections” cd releases which took all the video game music for each game in the Final Fantasy series game and remade them into piano solo pieces. Uematsu’s original composition for Final Fantasy VI (also for most of the game’s in the series he composed the music for) were very heavily-influenced by classical music traditions and one can really hear it in this main theme.

While the piano solo version is quite a haunting melody which gives some clues to the character of Terra Branford. The two versions below are the original video game music which is really a well-done MIDI file to allow it to be encoded into the game cartridge when it was first released for the SNES system. The other one is a live recording of Uematsu himself conducting an orchestra. While all three have become one of my favorite pieces of music of all kinds (not just video game music) it is the piano solo which solidified “Terra’s Theme” as one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.

Terra’s Theme (Live Orchestral)

Terra’s Theme (Original Video Game Music)

Song of the Day: Suteki Da Ne (by Uematsu Nobuo)

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Arleigh

The newest Song of the Day is a favorite piece of video game music of mine.

“Suteki Da Ne” is the love theme to Square-Enix’s very popular and long-running rpg series Final Fantasy. The song would mark the point in the game when the lead male and female characters finally realize their love for each other. It’s become a favorite of many game score aficionados and especially those of Japanese game soundtracks. Some consider it one of the best pieces of video game music there is, but that would be going a tad too hyperbolic.

The song is composed by well-renowned game music composer Uematsu Nobuo. He had been instrumental in composing the music for most of the Final Fantasy games until he left Square-Enix in 2004. “Suteki Da Ne” also had other collaborators outside of Uematsu. The lyrics for the song was written by Final Fantasy X scenario writer Nojima Kazushige while the arrangement for the song was done by Hamaguchi Shiro. In the end, most of the credit for the song really belongs to Uematsu-san. He was able to compose a song that worked to not just score a lovely and emotional scene between the two leads in the game but also convey their feelings very clearly through the music.

The lyrics below includes both the original Japanese version as sung by Japanese pop-idol RIKKI and the English translation.