Nobuo Uematsu Splitting With Square Enix 93
FreyarHunter writes "According to Gamespot, Nobuo Uematsu and Square will be separating. Nobuo was the person responsible for the mostly awe-inspiring music for the Final Fantasy games.
The report indicates that he will be moving to a company called "Smile Please". While this was first thought to be a rumor it was later announced on Uematsu 's fansite that it is true.
He states that it isn't "quitting", but more of a graduation. There are hints in this article saying he will still do work for Square, but at his own pace. The good news is that he still plans to write more music for video games, perform more concerts, and produce the second Black Mages Album."
Video Game Music - Remixed (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Say What Now? (Score:2, Informative)
Info [gamesarefun.com]
purchase @ Amazon [amazon.co.jp]
purchase @ Yesasia [yesasia.com]
Hope this helps
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Video Game Music - Remixed (Score:4, Informative)
Jeremy Soule [jeremysoule.com], the man behind other notable game soundtracks such as Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, and Morrowind, put together a very nice arrangement of one of Nobuo Uematsu's works. In a geeky sort of way, its pretty cool to see one good composer pay this sort of homage to another.
Re:Say What Now? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Remembrance (Score:3, Informative)
Final Fantasy: The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra and Chorus Perform The Music of Nobuo Uematsu [amazon.com]
There's also a bunch of other soundtracks for the individual games at Amazon, though they're mostly imports.
Uematsu is founding Smile Please. (Score:5, Informative)
Many ex-Square composers are now freelance.
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Xenosaga, etc.)
Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics, Breath of Fire V, Gradius V, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, etc.)
Yoko Shiminoura (Legend of Mana, Parasite Eve, Kingom Hearts, etc.)
Kenji Ito (Romancing Saga, Saga Frontier, etc.)
Re:Remembrance (Score:2, Informative)
You'd be much better with "The N Generation" and "The S Generation" albums - compilations of songs from several arranged japanese albums. They were domestic releases, so finding them at decent prices through eBay is not too hard. Heck, I've seen new copies of them in my local SamGoodie: look for them in the soundtrack section.
If that doesn't work, then your best shot is going to Animenation.com or some other import store and look for the compilation albums. lav-chan's suggestions are pretty good (I'd go with 20020220).
Re:Video Game Music - Remixed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Say What Now? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm surprised no one's given a link to his (English) homepage [square-enix.com] yet. He's popular enough that Square-Enix's homepage [square-enix.com] contains it as one of nine navigational links on the top of their page! (His Japanese site [square-enix.co.jp] is, not surprisingly, far more up to date.)
His site includes an English webpage for the Black Mages [square-enix.com] with more information, including two official samples (requires Flash).
If you're interested in purchasing the disc, I would highly suggest using Froogle [google.com]. You can get it for quite a bit cheaper than the $20 people have been linking to.
Now for my brief review:
If you aren't into Final Fantasy and Nobuo Uematsu's music, the disc is nothing special. It sounds like "80's synth" music. Most of the music has no meaning unless you can tie it in with the game when it played, so if you haven't played the games that go along with the music it's nothing special. If you are into Final Fantasy music, though, this disc is excellent.
If you have the complete Final Fantasy soundtrack for every Final Fantasy from I to XI (guilty, excluding X-2), then you should go get this disc. It's worth the money, and you'll enjoy every track. (Except, possibly, Dancing Mad. It's long and practically straight from the game.)
If not - then it's probably not worth it.
(Also, there are previews for the second disc on his Japanese site [square-enix.co.jp]. Thankfully the site is half-English. :) Note that they're webpage doesn't return proper MIME types for the Windows Media files if you're using Firefox.)