According to several sources around the internet, Nobuo Uematsu‘s score for the not-yet-released Final Fantasy XIV game has been leaked. Apparently, the 72-track score was ripped off of the alpha version which was recently distributed to select testers. This is also coming on the heels of another recent leak of Sonic 4.
This is an unfortunate blow to Uematsu and Square Enix who have always made the soundtracks to their games a large part of the attraction to the series.
[Editor’s Note: Shota and I had a blast at the Distant Worlds performance in San Francisco earlier this year, but unfortunately we couldn’t make it this time around. We were, however, able to send contributor Brian Davis, who had also attended the Distant Worlds US debut in Chicago in 2008. He comments on the new “Dancing Mad,” “J-E-N-O-V-A” and Final Fantasy XIV segments that we’ve been talking about for months, so read on!]
The Final Fantasy-themed concert series Distant Worlds has enthralled fans of the series since its inception, and the performance on December 12th, 2009 in Chicago was no different. Arnie Roth once again directed the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra and the Elmhurst College Orchestra through a set that encompassed music from Final Fantasy games old and new, and I braved the beginnings of another Chicago winter to see it. The show took place at the Rosemont Theater as it did last year, and featured the same large screen over the orchestra to show game footage and video during the show.
Read on for our impressions of this special performance that featuring music from Final Fantasy XIV and other special segments. (more…)
What do these three items have in common? Well, they’re all debuting at the upcoming Distant Worlds concert that’s set for December 12, 2009 in Chicago. It’s really not fair that Arnie Roth unleashes all this awesomeness over in his home base of Chicago, as I never get to see these shows!
To pre-emptively answer your next question, yes, Nobuo Uematsu will be there as well. And so will we! While I’m of course unhappy that I won’t be able to make it there myself, OSV will be there, and we’ll have impressions of the new “Dancing Mad” and “J-E-N-O-V-A” arrangements (the latter of which should be pretty interesting with an orchestra), as well as the world premiere of music from Final Fantasy XIV. Should be an awesome show. And I hope they tack on the rockin’ ending to “Dancing Mad,” although I’m pretty sure they won’t.
For more information, visit the official Distant Worlds website.
Will you be making it out to the Distant Worlds concert in Chicago? Of the three premieres, which are you looking forward to the most?
Alright people, in case you haven’t seen this yet, check out the new trailer for Square Enix’s upcoming MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV, scored by series veteran Nobuo Uematsu.
The trailer has new music, including a great battle theme (or what we presume will be a battle theme at any rate). Frankly, I’m getting to the point where I’m itching to know just how much music Uematsu has written for the game’s initial release. Will the OST be one disc, or two, or even three? I can’t wait to hear it all!
Given Square Enix’s talk about the game’s release window, hopefully we’re now less than a year away from this game’s release (and, hence, the full soundtrack release). But it could come as late as December 2010. Hopefully more trailers like these will come to hold us over.
A lot of new games were unveiled at this year’s E3. Some of them were completely new to us, and others were just surprise localizations. Some of the games announced feature some fantastic composers with a long history of good VGM. After the jump, we’ll highlight some of the new games and the composers working on them.
Sony let the cat out of the bag on Square Enix’s new MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. The press sheet released alongside the announcement later that day (Tuesday, June 2), listed Nobuo Uematsu as the composer.
However, many people we spoke to on the show floor were skeptical. “Oh, he probably just wrote the theme song, or a small portion of the soundtrack.” Nope, nope, nope! For the first time since Final Fantasy IX (which came out nearly a decade ago), Uematsu is writing the entire score of a Final Fantasy.
This information was not revealed at Wednesday’s press conference (June 3rd, noon PST). The information came from a reliable source at Square Enix. In a complete coincidence, Mike Tidwell (of RPGamer) and I met up with a member of the FFXI team (now on the FFXIV team), and we picked his brain for information. We asked about the Uematsu listing on the press release. Apparently, Uematsu was offered the opportunity to score the Final Fantasy XIV soundtrack, and he happily agreed to write the full score. No, Uematsu is not back under Square Enix: he’s still an independent artist under his own “SMILEPLEASE” company. And there’s no guarantee that other composers won’t contribute additional music. But at this point, Uematsu is the sole composer, and the plan is for him to score the entirety of Final Fantasy XIV, at least for time of release (as for expansions, that’s too far in the future for anyone to predict).
The only music you can hear from the game presently can be found on the game’s official site, as well as the trailer. We look forward to hearing more Uematsu music as he makes his glorious return to the series that he helped to define so many years ago.
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