For my cash, one of the crucial fascinating elements of a recreation’s creation is the composition and orchestration of its music. With Closing Fantasy, that’s doubly the case as a result of for me, and I think about for thus many others, the music of this sequence is considered one of its greatest elements. Be it lo-fi channels, new preparations, compilations, piano variations, or one thing else, Closing Fantasy music makes its means into a lot of my playlists.
That’s why I used to be so excited to talk with composer Masayoshi Soken about his rating for Closing Fantasy XVI. You would possibly acknowledge his title as he’s additionally the composer of Closing Fantasy XIV. Nonetheless, for those who don’t, there’s an opportunity it’s a reputation you come to recollect following the discharge of FFXVI, as a result of after greater than three hours of hands-on time with the sport in Sq. Enix’s Tokyo, Japan, workplace, I’m assured we’re about to get a banger of a rating.
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Closing Fantasy XVI Composer Masayoshi Soken
In speaking with Soken, I wished to talk to him about a number of the main themes and melodies of any Closing Fantasy recreation – issues just like the Prelude, the primary theme, the Victory Fanfare, and extra – and he had lots to say. On this four-part sequence, I’ll be breaking down completely different elements of the music that excite me and hopefully you too.
The Music of Closing Fantasy XVI Half 1 – Creating The Prelude
The Prelude is a chunk of music, or fairly a melody, that’s appeared in nearly each Closing Fantasy recreation in a method or one other. It’s a comparatively easy sequence of arpeggios that famed Closing Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu created in simply 10 minutes for the unique recreation. There’s no means Uematsu might have predicted the legacy of this melody within the Eighties when he created it, however he and lots of different composers have remixed, recomposed, reorchestrated, and composed new iterations of it for different video games within the sequence and extra. In case you don’t acknowledge it primarily based on the title – Prelude – there’s nonetheless probability you’ve heard it.
Try the unique Closing Fantasy Prelude beneath:
I used to be curious how Soken created the Prelude for FFXVI, which some might need observed is in a minor key. However earlier than diving into its creation for this recreation, I requested Soken the place he begins and the way he charts a course towards creating what’s now a 200-plus monitor rating for FFXVI.
“Early within the venture, I had a whole lot of backwards and forwards with foremost state of affairs author and the artistic director [Kazutoyo Maehiro] and he would give me suggestions on what he wished within the recreation to suit his story,” Soken tells me inside one of many recording studios the place he works. However Maehiro grew too busy and FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida, who is identical Yoshida that’s director of FFFXIV, stepped in to assist information Soken.
“They wished to have this very grand classical really feel to the general soundtrack,” he says. “What’s most essential within the recreation is the sport expertise and what gamers are going to really feel after they’re taking part in the sport. It’s as much as you [himself] to have music that matches that have completely and enhances it and doesn’t really feel like a separate factor. It has to suit the world, it has to suit the characters and the kind of characters they’re and what they symbolize. And since we now have a really darkish and heavy story, a whole lot of the music [that we end up creating] has that very darkish, heavy, stoic really feel to it.”
“All of the samples that we acquired from him [Yoshida] have been very, very critical and direct. Once more, what you’ll name that basic, classical sort of music and [he] actually didn’t need us to have an excessive amount of enjoyable with it. I don’t know if that’s a great way to say it, however once more, he wished it very critical.”
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Closing Fantasy XVI Producer Naoki Yoshida
With that tone and course in place, Soken was capable of start creating a number of the must-have components of a Closing Fantasy, just like the Prelude.
“This was one of the crucial tough issues I needed to do on this venture,” Soken tells me after I ask how composing a brand new Prelude went. “You’ve gotten this very recognizable melody that Uematsu-san composed, however as you already know, it’s in a serious key. And since we have been aiming for one thing that was darker, that main key didn’t actually work. You’ve gotten this glorious main key melody that’s vivid, like a crystal, however we have to make it darkish, so the very first thing we needed to do is change that melody from a serious key to a minor key.”
Soken teases that there’s “truly a whole lot of completely different music that we had taken from older Closing Fantasies” and integrated into the rating for FFXVI. However like with the Prelude, many needed to be reworked right into a minor key.
Whereas FFXVI’s official Prelude monitor has but to be launched (and admittedly, I don’t know if that’s within the playing cards, however most Closing Fantasy soundtracks are available on streaming companies at this time so I think about it’s), you’ll be able to hear a style of it within the background right here:
This Prelude represents the darker, extra mature tone FFXVI has displayed to date (and it aligns properly with the sport’s M score, a primary for the mainline numbered franchise). If Soken’s FFXIV Prelude is crystalline, nearly heavenly in tone, then his Prelude for FFXVI is infernal, and I can’t wait to listen to it extra in-game.
For extra in regards to the recreation, head to Sport Informer’s unique Closing Fantasy XVI protection hub by clicking the banner beneath.
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