A large chocobo appears, and for some reason it gets its own song. Unfortunately, despite the ridiculousness of its presentation, the song is kinda good.
Last time, we ended with the proper form of our chocobo theme. This week, we begin with a big chocobo theme and also end up listening to some new firsts: boss battle, and character theme, and good airship theme (sorry to the airship lovers out there, I cannot betray the truth of my heart).
For this game, I listened to the FINAL FANTASY III (Original Soundtrack), here are the relevant links:
FINAL FANTASY III (Original Soundtrack):
The Ranking
Big Chocobo!
Not nearly as memorable as the Chocobo theme, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for this silly song. Yes, it’s ultimately the musical version of a joke about how funny it is that there’s a fat chocobo who eats your stuff. But I like the little fanfare to start it off, and the discordant notes at the end of the phrase. And unlike later versions, this one is not being too ham-fisted by using a tuba-like instrumentation. It’s cute, and such an absurd thing to help resolve inventory management.
Ranking: 26/61
Tower of Owen
A really interesting composition that doesn’t really cohere to me. I kind of like all the individual sections, but glue them all together and it doesn’t really fit. I do really like how the time signature changes between the intro and the main section (side note — is this the first time we’ve seen this so far? I definitely didn’t notice it if there was an earlier instance). The constant vibrato is a bit much, but the climactic clanging at the end works pretty well. But when you put them all together, you have a nice intro of creeping tension, followed by a climax that then just loops endlessly. In this case, the whole was lesser than the sum of its parts.
Ranking: 41/62
Vegies of Geseal
Not sure why the name of Gysahl Greens is so mangled for the title of this song, but cute. Anyway, this song is annoying! I can’t quite figure out why I dislike this one when there are other silly songs I like. Maybe because Gysahl isn’t as weird a place as the gnome/mini city, and I feel it fits less? The melody is kind of meh as well, and the resolution sounds a bit off to me. The worst town song in the series so far? Probably.
Ranking: 52/63
Castle of Hain
Incredibly fun dungeon theme. The opening section builds some tension and then it just explodes into this incredible flourish, following through with a bit of calming and a nice little sliding melody to get us back to the beginning of the loop. The dungeon itself is kind of whatever, which is why that little flourish stands out so much. You didn’t need to go so hard, but you did and we love you for it.
Ranking: 9/64
Battle 2
God I love this battle theme. The driving beat kicks us off right into an otherworldly melody, we then have some falling scales (this is a mini-motif that comes up a lot in this game, it seems), and into the main section which has a galloping rhythm, some screaming waveforms, and a lovely lilting back-and-forth counter melody that I adore. Our first real Boss Battle theme in the series, and just absolutely knocked it out of the park.
I’ve said often that you can hear Uematsu straining against his limitations in this OST, but this song is almost the perfect example of how constraints can actually allow you to focus your creativity in interesting ways. I say that it’s almost perfect, because the perfect example of this is coming in the next week or so — stay tuned.
Ranking: 2/65
The Requiem
Our game over song, which sounds like it’s going to be extremely basic at first, but then the lovely rapid organ-like section comes in to surprise and delight. The only thing I can really point to that hurts here is that it’s not really that tragic. I think the other Game Over themes were a lot more on target with that sense of loss, but this is still very good.
Ranking: 39/66
Go Above the Clouds!
Hey, it’s an airship theme that I quite like! It really feels like you’re sailing free in the sky, off on another grand adventure that no-one has ever quite experienced like this. I think the little rising rubber band noise that denotes taking off is kind of endearing, actually. I say this often, but I just want to point out again how much inter-weaving is going on between the three main audio channels here. All three are doing something interesting, even on a track that could have just been fairly boilerplate and carried by the strong melody. So much care went into these songs, it’s crazy.
Ranking: 15/67
The Boundless Ocean
I love how harmonic and echo-ey this song sounds. It really feels like you’ve landed on a mysterious new world, one that’s just covered in an endless oceanscape flooded by darkness long ago. Mysterious and sinuous, it’s a perfect combination to sell this new, weird place to explore. Not the most exciting composition, but it still fits really well thematically.
Ranking: 27/68
Elia, the Maiden of Water
A beautiful waltz to help make up for the awful one we heard earlier, this one is technically the first character theme in the series, I think? Which is kind of interesting because she doesn’t spend much time with the party at all before she’s killed by one of Xande’s minions. Luckily, the song works really well as both an introduction and a farewell. It sounds as though it’s a dance with water and a lament all in one. This is all on the strength of the melody with it’s beautiful glides and sudden stops. Beautiful song.
Ranking: 12/69
Town of Water
Another town song, this one is not as fun as most of the others, but it also strikes a more serious tone. Love the main melody, especially later in the song as a pretty, quick flourish plays before we loop again. The bass line is a bit boring and stands out a bit too much, which unfortunately hurts the song, I think.
Ranking: 24/70
A wide variety of music this time, and mostly pretty good, I thought. Next time, we have a lot of interstitial and odd music, but also at least one banger, so please look forward to it!