Final Fantasy is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and owned by Square Enix that includes video games, motion pictures, and other merchandise. The series began in 1987 as an eponymous role-playing video game developed by Square, spawning a video game series that became the central focus of the franchise. It has been described as being "as recognizable in gaming circles as the Super Mario Bros. theme or Sonic the Hedgehogs title screen pop". The piece, described as "a fanfare to impending doom", is said to not "follow any normal genre rules" and has been termed "possibly the most innovative idea in the series' musical history". Uematsu has claimed several times that the music of IX is his favorite work, as well as the one he is most proud of. The full official soundtrack with all 104 tracks from the original version of XIV was released in a single Blu-ray compilation on August 14, 2013. Titled Before Meteor: FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack, the disc contains all of the music composed by Nobuo Uematsu for the original release, as well as music added on subsequent patches by Uematsu, Mizuta, Yamazaki, Sekito and Soken. Uematsu, along with Calloway and Koji Fox, also returned for the title theme to the game's 2015 expansion, Heavensward, titled Dragonsong. The majority of the music for updates to the game since 2014 has been composed by Soken, and soundtrack albums have been periodically released collecting the additional tracks.

The music for Final Fantasy XV (2016) was composed primarily by Yoko Shimomura. Having previously worked on the Kingdom Hearts series, among various other titles, Final Fantasy XV was her first project for the series. Shimomura was brought on board the project in 2006, when it was a spin-off title called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and stayed in her role during the game's ten-year development cycle. Final Fantasy XV was expanded into a multimedia project dubbed the "Final Fantasy XV Universe", for which other composers were hired; John R. Graham composed the music for the film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, with additional tunes from Shimomura. Yasuhisa Inoue and Susumi Akizuki of Righttrack wrote the music for the original net animation Brotherhood, while a team from the music studio Unique Note, who also worked on the base game, handled the mobile spin-off title Justice Monsters V. English indie rock band Florence and the Machine collaborated on three songs for the game, including a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me", which acted as one of the two official theme songs. Later contributors to the soundtrack, via downloadable content packs, were Keiichi Okabe, Naoshi Mizuta, Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu, Tadayoshi Makino, and Taku Iwasaki. Multiple albums have been released containing music from Final Fantasy XV and its spin-off media. The songs from Florence and the Machine were released in August as digital singles under the banner title "Songs from Final Fantasy XV". The composers had previously worked on Final Fantasy XIV. The ending themes were "Tsuki Wo Miteita – Moongazing", written and performed by Kenshi Yonezu, and "My Star", written by Soken and performed by Amanda Achen. "Tsuki Wo Miteita – Moongazing" was released as a digital single, and albums were released for the game and its DLC.

Spin-offs

Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII is the formal title for a series of games and animated features developed by Square Enix based in the world and continuity of Final Fantasy VII. Spearheaded by Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase, while Lightning Returns resulted in a preview album, a soundtrack album, and an arranged album. Other games in the subseries are Final Fantasy Type-0, Final Fantasy Agito, and Final Fantasy Awakening.

Tactics and Ivalice Alliance

The Final Fantasy Tactics series is a spin-off of the main Final Fantasy series, consisting of primarily tactical role-playing games with heavy thematic similarities to the main series. After Final Fantasy XII was set in the same world, Ivalice, as the two games in the series Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) and Tactics Advance (2003), all future games set in the game world became part of the new Ivalice Alliance subseries. These games to date include Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (2007), Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (2007), Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (2007), and Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System (2007).

Sales

By 2010, at least eight Final Fantasy soundtrack albums had debuted in the top ten of the Oricon albums chart: Final Fantasy VI Original Sound Version, Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy IX Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy X Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy X-2 Original Soundtrack, Final Fantasy XII Original Soundtrack, and Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack, the latter debuting at #3 on the chart. As of 2010, the only Final Fantasy albums that failed to reach the top 30 of the Oricon albums chart were the soundtracks for the Final Fantasy Tactics series and Crystal Chronicles series.

"My Hands", the Leona Lewis theme song for the North American and European versions of Final Fantasy XIII, was not released as a single, but the album it originates from, Echo (2009), sold over 1 million copies in Europe, including over 600,000 in the United Kingdom. Ariana Grande's "Touch It" (orchestral remix), which is featured in Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, was not released as a single, but it originates from Dangerous Woman (2016).

Legacy

Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy music has appeared multiple times in the annual top 300 Classic FM Hall of Fame, including five appearances in the annual top 20. In 2012, "Aerith's Theme", written by Uematsu for Final Fantasy VII, was voted into the number 16 position in the annual Classic FM (UK) "Hall of Fame" top 300 chart. It was the first time that a piece of music written for a video game had appeared in the chart. In 2013, music from the Final Fantasy series received even greater support and was voted into the third position on the Classic FM Hall of Fame. Uematsu and his Final Fantasy music subsequently appeared at number seven in 2014, number nine in 2015, number 17 in 2016, and in the top half of the list for every subsequent year through 2019.

Notes

References

</references>

  • Official Square Enix Final Fantasy music site
  • Nobuo Uematsu's official website
  • Masashi Hamauzu's official website
  • Hitoshi Sakimoto's official website