Final Fantasy IV Piano Collections
This piano collection opens with the twinkly-sounding prelude to the Final Fantasy series, following which is one of the central themes, the “Theme of Love,” which does a good job conveying romance throughout the game. Then comes the prologue theme, another of the main themes of the Final Fantasy franchise, followed by the peaceful town theme. The overworld theme comes next, as does the chocobo theme, which has its own twist in this particular album. The main dungeon theme, “Into the Darkness,” further does a good job conveying the enigmatic nature of the fourth entry’s dungeons.
Next is Rydia’s theme, which somewhat sounds like the main theme from the movie Summer of ’42, but definitely fits the character. After that is the piano version of Gilbert/Edward’s theme (I always thought this name change was odd since there’s already a character named Edward Geraldine, or Edge), which in its original incarnation was renditioned with a harp, but has its own beauty. Golbez’s theme follows, having a nice satanic disposition, with the Troia Castle theme coming afterward, having its own sense of beauty like many of the other themes.
The various battle themes heard throughout the game are combined in a medley that sounds nice, with the epilogue pieces following, collecting remixes of tunes such as the love theme and the Red Wings track, the latter sounding like it came out of the Star Wars franchise, the album concluding with a brief orchestrated version of the theme of love. Overall, this is an enjoyable piano collection that fans of the game and classical-sounding piano music in general will likely appreciate, with this reviewer definitely thinking that many of the works of videogame composers are on par with that of classical musicians.