The incredible box art for FINAL FANTASY II's Famicom release in Japan. This blog is mainly about Uematsu so far, but Amano is another incredible artist helping to define this series.
For this game, I listened to FINAL FANTASY II (Original Soundtrack), links below so you can listen along:
Released almost exactly one year after FINAL FANTASY, the Famicom release of FINAL FANTASY II was never ported to the NES likely because the NES port of FINAL FANTASY arrived so late: by 1990 (the North American release date FF1), Squaresoft was well in development of FINAL FANTASY IV and so they skipped the remaining Famicom/NES games. FF2 would not see release in North American until 2003 when the WonderSwan Color remake was ported to the PlayStation and released overseas.
Let me tell you from personal experience: that was an awful way to experience this game. The loading times as the battle music spun up for every random encounter was dreadful, even if the game was very bright and colourful. A fan translation of the Famicom version was also shared in the late 90s, which is probably the first way that many tried to play this game; in my case, quite unsuccessfully. All that to say, I have only completed this game once, but I remember the soundtrack has some bangers in it and I'm looking forward to revisiting them.
This is also the first FF game that has defined characters (OK, I guess FF1 had Garland but uh... pretty slim pickings), with your main party all having names and a backstory, while a rotating cast fills in your fourth party slot. The increased focus on story really leans upon Uematsu's score to help fill in the emotional texture of the game; dialogue was still limited because this is a Famicom game, so the music really does set the scene and helps fill in the melodrama by telling you how to feel in key moments, something that would become more and more a part of the series as it went on.
Lastly, we have some improvements to the usage of the NES sound chip. I'm not sure if it's a technical limitation, or just some better techniques shared between developers of the era, but while the constraints remained the same, there's a noticeable improvement to the fullness and tonal variance of the main audio channels. The plinky sounds from FF1 were used effectively in that game at various times, but the music sounds a lot smoother across the board here, and it's really noticeable how much further they could push against the technical limits of the console.
Alright, enough preamble, off to the rankings:
Prelude
We get a slightly shinier prelude! A much brighter version this time around, gone are the faux strings, this time we have a bubbly synth. I never cared that much for the medieval aesthetic in the first game — FF is at its most interesting when it departs that genre — so I prefer this version. Still, it’s the Prelude again, it’s not going to shake up the rankings.
Ranking: 6/21
Battle Theme 1
Often ranked among the worst battle themes in the series by the fandom, I might not go quite that far, but it’s not nearly as impactful as our first one. There are some fundamentals here that are solid: we get our intro bassline again, and it does build to a nice little crescendo as the song starts looping, but the almost playful, jaunty beginning of the song hits the wrong tone – especially since this game starts with the series’s very first no-win battle – and it’s made worse by that weird sort of vibrato horn-like sound that grates the ears; the NES sound chip just wasn’t able to make that sound good.
It’s really too bad because battles take forever in this game, a really strong battle theme would have helped a lot, but alas.
Ranking: 12/22
Revival
A simple repeating arpeggio that plays while Firion is mended by the Rebel healers, there’s nothing too interesting here, it’s not really even a song.
Ranking: 23/23
Reunion
An expression of joy as Firion emerges from the healers’ room to find his companions Maria and Guy survived the attack by the Imperial Army. A very short composition, it still manages to evoke a feeling of joy alloyed with the loss of a friend, Leon. It’s kind of hard to rank songs as short as this one, but I appreciate it more than the “bad” songs, so...
Ranking: 19/24
The Rebel Army
A composition that sounds almost timeless in its beauty, this is easily one of the top tracks from FF2 and could maybe even stand toe-to-toe with some of the series’ best were it not so short. It taps into something almost classical in its style, like this song has existed forever. It presents itself as a marching anthem, that both has the weight of a fictitious history behind it, and a nostalgia from a time before the Empire devastated the world.
We know Uematsu was exploring the works of some classical composers (more to come on that next time), and I think I can even point to a specific inspiration — the Prelude from Georges Bizet’s L'Arlésienne — I can’t hear that song without thinking of The Rebel Army and vice versa. They’re so intertwined in my mind that when I played Dungeon Encounters — which uses Bizet’s composition as a victory song — I thought it was this track for nearly an hour and was puzzled why they put Final Fantasy music in there (by the way, you should go play Dungeon Encounters, it rules).
If it’s not clear already, this is one of my favourite NES-era tunes, which makes it the Greatest Final Fantasy Song so far!
Ranking: 1/25
Town
A very good town theme, just the right amount of complexity to be interesting so that it’s not so peaceful it becomes sleep-inducing, but it also slows the tempo down right at the end to keep things interesting. Probably the biggest beneficiary from the smoother tone they were able to coax out of the NES sound chip, this track is much stronger than Town (FF1). Very important since there’s no shop or menu theme (thank god) in this game, you have to listen to this one when you’re gearing up your party and it works well for that.
Ranking: 13/26
Main Theme
Our overworld theme for this game is filled with melancholic beauty, and the perfect song to set the tone for this game. Especially given the constraints, this song has to do so much heavy lifting; this is our first FF with real protagonists with names and histories, and all we know about them is that they were orphaned by this war and want to fight the Empire. The melody from this track tells us a story about a world that might have once been beautiful, but is now filled with sadness, of a place that might have been joyful for Firion and company, were they not forced to suddenly become freedom fighters to avenge their families. The darkness to this track is necessary for the darkness of the story to come through, and it achieves that objective perfectly.
It’s also just a simple melody that feels haunted, and maybe brings a bit of discomfort along with you (which is good, because if you go the wrong way, you are going to get killed before you even have a chance to run away). Perfect mood-setter for this game.
Ranking: 5/27
Castle Pandemonium
Not sure why the final dungeon is once again on the first half of the OST when everything else is more-or-less in the order that you encounter them. Anyway, this is a solid dungeon track but the melody is not the most memorable. It does feel epic and final in the exact way that you want a final dungeon to sound, but it really does feel a bit lesser than the excellent melodies from Chaos Shrine/Sunken Shrine in our first game. Not mad about it, but nothing to write home about either. It belongs right in the middle.
Ranking: 12/28
The Imperial Army
Oof, this one hurts, especially given how often it’s used in the game, both for story moments and in dungeons. The bizarro version of The Rebel Army in that it is both representing the evil faction and pretty bad musically, it’s just a minor key march with very little tonal variation. We have a slight key change and then a little flourish at the end before it starts all over again. You know when he was putting it together, Uematsu wanted it to sound scary, like a driving march, but it really comes out more plodding than anything else.
Ranking: 27/29
Chocobo Theme
Finally, we have arrived at the chocobo, which was not featured in the first game but has been featured in every other game in the series. Strangely, it arrives with little fanfare. The chocobo is not necessary to complete the game, and the song is not even done at this point. We have the first half of the classic chocobo melody here, and the fact that it loops so quickly really makes it annoying rather than fun. Credit where it’s do, the little snippet we got is fun in a way that we haven’t really heard in Final Fantasy yet, but it will become so much more.
Lastly, I do have a grudge against this song for being in Theatrythm Final Bar Line where you just play through this loop what feels like 30 times to clear the song. It’ my ranking, I can be as petty as I want.
Ranking: 23/30
Those are our ten songs for the week, join us next time when we wrap up the rest of the FF2 OST (minus a couple of stragglers).