The Music Of Ultimate Fantasy 16: Half 1 – Creating The Prelude

For my cash, probably the most attention-grabbing facets of a sport’s creation is the composition and orchestration of its music. With Ultimate Fantasy, that’s doubly the case as a result of for me, and I think about for therefore many others, the music of this collection is certainly one of its finest elements. Be it lo-fi channels, new preparations, compilations, piano variations, or one thing else, Ultimate Fantasy music makes its means into lots of my playlists. 

That’s why I used to be so excited to talk with composer Masayoshi Soken about his rating for Ultimate Fantasy XVI. You may acknowledge his title as he’s additionally the composer of Ultimate Fantasy XIV. Nonetheless, in case you don’t, there’s an opportunity it’s a reputation you come to recollect following the discharge of FFXVI, as a result of after greater than three hours of hands-on time with the sport in Sq. Enix’s Tokyo, Japan, workplace, I’m assured we’re about to get a banger of a rating. 

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Ultimate Fantasy XVI Composer Masayoshi Soken

In speaking with Soken, I wished to talk to him about a few of the main themes and melodies of any Ultimate Fantasy sport – issues just like the Prelude, the principle theme, the Victory Fanfare, and extra – and he had a lot to say. On this four-part collection, I’ll be breaking down completely different facets of the music that excite me and hopefully you too. 

The Music of Ultimate Fantasy XVI Half 1 – Creating The Prelude

The Prelude is a chunk of music, or relatively a melody, that’s appeared in nearly each Ultimate Fantasy sport in a technique or one other. It’s a comparatively easy collection of arpeggios that famed Ultimate Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu created in simply 10 minutes for the unique sport. There’s no means Uematsu might have predicted the legacy of this melody within the Eighties when he created it, however he and lots of different composers have remixed, recomposed, reorchestrated, and composed new iterations of it for different video games within the collection and extra. If you happen to don’t acknowledge it primarily based on the title – Prelude – there’s nonetheless probability you’ve heard it.

Take a look at the unique Ultimate Fantasy Prelude beneath:

I used to be curious how Soken created the Prelude for FFXVI, which some might need observed is in a minor key. However earlier than diving into its creation for this sport, I requested Soken the place he begins and the way he charts a course towards creating what’s now a 200-plus monitor rating for FFXVI. 

“Early within the mission, I had a number of forwards and backwards with primary situation author and the artistic director [Kazutoyo Maehiro] and he would give me suggestions on what he wished within the sport to suit his story,” Soken tells me inside one of many recording studios the place he works. However Maehiro grew too busy and FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida, who is identical Yoshida that’s director of FFFXIV, stepped in to assist information Soken. 

“They wished to have this very grand classical really feel to the general soundtrack,” he says. “What’s most essential within the sport is the sport expertise and what gamers are going to really feel once they’re taking part in the sport. It’s as much as you [himself] to have music that matches that have completely and enhances it and doesn’t really feel like a separate factor. It has to suit the world, it has to suit the characters and the kind of characters they’re and what they characterize. And since we’ve a really darkish and heavy story, a number of the music [that we end up creating] has that very darkish, heavy, stoic really feel to it.”

“All of the samples that we received from him [Yoshida] have been very, very critical and direct. Once more, what you’d name that basic, classical kind of music and [he] actually didn’t need us to have an excessive amount of enjoyable with it. I don’t know if that’s a great way to say it, however once more, he wished it very critical.” 

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Ultimate Fantasy XVI Producer Naoki Yoshida

With that tone and course in place, Soken was in a position to start creating a few of the must-have components of a Ultimate Fantasy, just like the Prelude. 

“This was probably the most tough issues I needed to do on this mission,” Soken tells me once I ask how composing a brand new Prelude went. “You might have this very recognizable melody that Uematsu-san composed, however as , it’s in a significant key. And since we have been aiming for one thing that was darker, that main key didn’t actually work. You might have this excellent main key melody that’s vivid, like a crystal, however we have to make it darkish, so the very first thing we needed to do is change that melody from a significant key to a minor key.” 

Soken teases that there’s “truly a number of completely different music that we had taken from older Ultimate Fantasies” and included into the rating for FFXVI. However like with the Prelude, many needed to be reworked right into a minor key. 

Whereas FFXVI’s official Prelude monitor has but to be launched (and admittedly, I don’t know if that’s within the playing cards, however most Ultimate Fantasy soundtracks are available on streaming companies at this time so I think about it’s), you’ll be able to hear a style of it within the background right here: 

This Prelude represents the darker, extra mature tone FFXVI has displayed to date (and it aligns properly with the sport’s M score, a primary for the mainline numbered franchise). If Soken’s FFXIV Prelude is crystalline, nearly heavenly in tone, then his Prelude for FFXVI is infernal, and I can’t wait to listen to it extra in-game. 

For extra in regards to the sport, head to Recreation Informer’s unique Ultimate Fantasy XVI protection hub by clicking the banner beneath.

Supply: Recreation Informer

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