Character Themes

January 10, 2008, 9:27 AM

I was comparing the styles of the different FF composers, in light of the critical eye cast on Sakamoto's score for FFXII and of course Uematsu's work on the many FFs he composed for. One big major difference I've found is that Uematsu seemed to use a lot of character themes, really memorable pieces of music that you could relate to a favourite character, aswell as pieces for specific places. Sakamoto seemed to cut out character themes altogether, and just went with place themes that would crop up randomly in cutscenes.

This to me seems like one of the major reasons why Sakamoto's music didn't come off so well against Uematsu's. I for one love a good character theme because they are always much more memorable than a flat ambience music or a place theme. Discuss.

January 10, 2008, 4:15 PM

Yeah, I was somewhat disheartened that character themes didn't show up in FFXII (and if they did, I didn't realise)

Not that the music in XII was bad, it wasn't.

But Uematsu is the better composer in my opinion, the character themes he's created are among the most memorable out of all the FF music, especially Sephiroths and Aeriths themes.

I do want to see more of Sakamoto because I think he can probably come up with some amazing music. I would like to see character themes reintroduced though.

January 10, 2008, 7:22 PM

I've never seen any FF music compilation as bad - just some are better than others. Sakimoto has had plenty of experience and a lengthy/successful career with the likes of FFT, FFT Advance, Vagrant Story etc.

However, I like Uematsu's pieces better because he is more experienced and has also had more of an input towards FF titles and Chrono Trigger. Though I do agree about character themes and I am glad he will be the one doing the XIII composition.

January 11, 2008, 9:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkAngeal

I've never seen any FF music compilation as bad - just some are better than others. Sakimoto has had plenty of experience and a lengthy/successful career with the likes of FFT, FFT Advance, Vagrant Story etc.

However, I like Uematsu's pieces better because he is more experienced and has also had more of an input towards FF titles and Chrono Trigger. Though I do agree about character themes and I am glad he will be the one doing the XIII composition.

Wow seriously? That's gonna be awesome yay for Uematsu!!

I agree with you both, Sakamoto's music is not bad. In fact I liked a lot of the FFXII music, it's really grown on me. But I did get the feeling that by sticking to place themes and general stuff that he was playing it safe- perhaps he was kinda nervous about it. But what he does he does brilliantly and I'm sure he'll get even better. Like you say he's done plenty of music before.

There's definitely room for character themes, they really are much more memorable, and it's a direction Sakamoto should take. So far I haven't found any in Tactics WOTL, though again the music there is not bad. Can you imagine how a Balthier or a Basch theme would sound?

Thanks guys this discussion is helping me with my studies