Nobuo Uematsu: Genius or "Whatever"?
 

Just so you know, Nobuo Uematsu is the composer of most of the music in the Final Fantasy games. Personally, I think his music is just amazing. When I hear each song, they not only bring back fond memories of playing some of my favorite games, but they stay embedded in my brain like any really catchy song would. The most notable songs that always get stuck in my head are Kefka's theme song (FF6), Celes' Opera song (FF6), and the song that plays when the President and his son visit (FF7 - The happy "patriotic" song, not the "evil-empire" song). I dunno; music from other games only remind me of the actual games they originated from. They're not something I would listen to as a stand-alone song. Nobuo Uematsu's music has been just about the only exception.

What is your opinion on his music? Am I crazy, or is there really something great about it?

You are not crazy. He has some great work out there. Alot of full orchestra stuff too. I don't have links right now, but I'll edit when I find them again.

If your a big fan, get his rock/techno band doing the battles themes from FF games. The band is "The Black Mages" and if you look around, can usually find it on a anime import site if you look hard enough.

Here's a page with some info about the CD and band:

http://www.square-enix-usa.com/uemat...ges/index.html

He's a great musical composer, the FF games have possibly the best sounding music in any game I've ever played.

koji kondo takes the crown for "game music" in my book, within the context of a game his music fits the musical genre the best. but uematsu's compositions better bridge the gap between the game and purely listening crowds.

i can play a lot of his stuff on the piano and am thinking of playing one for a recital here at the university. those music profs have probably never heard of him and would probably be thrown for a loop.

Haha yeah. My aunt has a piano and whenever I visit her, I'm caught trying to play the Cosmo Canyon song. :p

I know, I'm such a nerd. :crazy:

best videogame soundtrack ever for me is castlevania sotn. Try finding "crystal teardrop" and "dracula's castle" on kazaa. Yuzo koshiro who made the music for street of rage is pretty good too.

Love his music. For the early final fantasy games his music is what showed the emotion of the game. When some dramatic happened you couldn't see any expressions on those 16 bit sprites but the music would tell you something dramatic would happen. His music is probably what helps me remember what happened in the ff games. Whenever I hear just a little part of the song, I remember what part of the game that was from and even want to play it again(rarely happens)

Final Fantasy does have some nice compositions in it I admit, but 'that great game music' for me would have to be the Halo 1/2 music. I just can't get enough of that. I bought the CD.

I thought he was a good composer compared to the technology he had to use.

Excellent composer. He accomplished the goal of his work very well; which is to create music that accurately and effectively conveys the emotion of the situation that the player is in. He does that very well.

He's a good composer, because he takes cues from Wagner. If you watch a Wagnerian opera, every character has a theme. Places have themes. Uematsu uses this to his advantage to create a melody for each character, town, ect... The tunes themselves are mostly simple, short and repetative, given the nature of the medium (ie the videogame)

There have been better composers, but none greater, or more sucessful in the domain of videogames.

Also, the Black Mages Rock.

Uematsu-san is fucking amazing. That guy understands fucking orchestral music. Nobuo Uematsu is a vagina orgasm.

In all seriousness, though, Uematsu is an excellent composer who really knows his shit. For me at least, he ranks up there with other modern composers like Don Davis, John Williams, Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman.