A Medieval Otaku, After All': Legendary Final Fantasy Composer... 'i'm

To celebrate last year's 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy 9, Famitsu (via Automaton) spoke with its creators about the lasting impact of FF9's return to more traditional fantasy. Looking back on its production, legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu said FF9 features some of his favorite compositions—even if he's convinced it's more popular outside of Japan.

"When I go abroad, I get the impression that there are a lot of FF9 fans," Uematsu said. "I feel like people overseas mention FF9 more often than people in Japan."

Asked whether he believes FF9's medieval fantasy setting—following FF7 and FF8 skewing toward a more modern, belt-heavy aesthetic—is responsible for its greater popularity abroad, Uematsu only said "I wonder." But its middle ages theming did help him produce some of the best videogame music he's composed.

"Personally, I think there are a lot of songs from FF9 that I like," Uematsu said.

That might not sound like strong praise for his own work, but Uematsu said listening to his own work as it plays in-game generally makes him miserable.

"I can listen to something that someone else has arranged for an orchestra, but when it comes to the music that plays in the game, I'm not satisfied. From the moment I make it, I don't want to listen to it anymore," Uematsu said. "It's too embarrassing and I can't bear to listen to it. I listen to it so much during debugging."

Given that he's his own harshest critic, it says a lot that Uematsu thinks FF9's "melody and chord movement are good." He also expressed a particular fondness for its final boss music, which features the results of some unconventional music direction.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

"I wanted the voice of the dead at the beginning, so I asked the synthesizer operator, Keiji Kawamori, to 'go to hell and record it,'" Uematsu said. "He said, 'Okay,' and the next day he came up with something amazing."

While he said it had been "fun to shift gears" for Final Fantasy's sci-fi departures—unsurprising, given his recently-shared frustration over game music getting "less weird"—FF9 offered a welcome return to form.

Source: PC Gamer