I stumbled across this article today, and thought it worth sharing:
I love game music. If I could only listen to three composers for the rest of my life, I’d be happy with Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoko Shimomura. Of course there are other greats, both in the game industry and in the rest of the music world, but those three shaped my music sense in ways only Mannheim Steamroller, Enya, Mozart, Beethoven and Bach can match.
Uematsu is particularly important because of his work on the Final Fantasy games, which had a marked influence on my spare time as a teen and my present career in video games. I’m not making epic RPGs, but I see good potential in games, which is why I’m doing what I’m doing instead of pushing for a career animating in movies, like I thought I would when I was a child.
Anyway, here are a few of my favorites from Mr. Uematsu. Easy picks, perhaps, but still, ones I’m very fond of.
To Zanarkand (the simple piano version is still my favorite, though the orchestral version is really good, too)
Aeris’ Theme (one orchestral version is here)
FFIX Overworld
Piano arrangement of Fisherman’s Horizon (the original game music is good, but I really love the guitar and piano arrangements, and the orchestral pieces are most excellent)
Terra’s Theme
Troian Beauty
And then there’s this gem, which isn’t entirely in English. I actually prefer game music with lyrics to be in languages that I don’t understand. That way I listen to them purely as music. This one isn’t even Japanese.
Home Sweet Home
[…] example. Yet, we really started talking with the mp3 era and it were giants such as Nobuo Uematsu (happy birthday!) for the Final Fantasy series, who brought the booming choirs and orchestras, forever altering the […]