Formative Albums, Part 2: Final Fantasy VI OST
Final Fantasy VI Original Soundtrack
I've long been a fan of video game music. I typically prefer original soundtracks to the remastered symphonic versions/OCRemixes/etc. My favorite soundtracks are usually from the NES through PS1 eras, and more often than not (at least in the SNES and PS1 eras) are from RPGs. In that cross-section of tastes you find everything from the first four Breath of Fire games through Chrono Trigger through Star Ocean 2 and more. They're just old and hardware-limited enough to have a nostalgic retro "this sounds like video game music" feel, something many symphony orchestra covers and later-platform modern games are perhaps arguably too sophisticated and "real" sounding to convey anymore. At the same time, within those bounds they capture the wide sweeping evocative range of moods in music that one finds in an emotional RPG plot--the adrenaline-pounding boss battle theme, the heartbreaking music box ballad for that one scene where that character you like dies, etc.
I own many such soundtracks, the "I like this game's music enough to want to pay $lots to import CDs from Japan" mood having struck many a time in my life. However, if I had to pick a single game to both represent/symbolize and be the number one all-time favorite champion of this entire genre, it would have to be Final Fantasy VI.
First off, at three disc's worth of tracks when you're talking about the real-life physical OST, this is quite a lot of music. Second, this is quite a lot of very excellent music. Nobuo Uematsu himself is said to consider the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack as his personal favorite "best work" he's most proud of, and that one is certainly up there, but I've always considered VI (followed in second place by Tactics and yes I know that one wasn't Uematsu) as my favorite Final Fantasy music. VI has so many standouts, from perhaps arguably one of the most famous boss battle themes in the entire series, to perhaps arguably one of the most famous endboss themes in the entire series (there is a lot of room to spill a lot of pixels arguing about Dancing Mad vs. One-Winged Angel, I think,) to the opera theme, my personal favorite chocobo theme rendition (even if I have friends who hate the car alarm siren effect,) and so many more. "Searching for Friends" is especially poignant now that we actually live in the World of Ruin.
In the days before importing soundtracks was a thing, I begged a friend at school who had the game (I didn't, but I was exposed to it from friends who did) to get a cassette tape and manually record a selection of my favorite songs. I listened to that tape... a lot. I may or may not still have it? I have a lot of tapes from back then but no means of playing them anymore so who knows what's on them. I don't remember every song I picked, but I know the Phantom Forest and Kefka's Tower themes were two of them. Of course, when acquiring the full real soundtrack did become an option, I think this might have been the first OST I ever imported.
To this day, the Phantom Forest and/or Figaro Castle themes inexplicably get stuck in my head whenever I'm working on my FF6-style woodling sprites. This is a cross-posted entry that originated from https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/468320.html. Please leave all comments there; I am no longer actively maintaining my LiveJournal blogs.