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

  For my cash, one of the vital attention-grabbing facets of a recreation’s creation is the composition and orchestration of its music. With Last 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 one among its greatest components. Be it lo-fi channels, new preparations, compilations, piano variations, or one thing else, Last Fantasy music makes its means into a lot of my playlists. 

That’s why I used to be so excited to speak with composer Masayoshi Soken about his rating for Last Fantasy XVI. You would possibly acknowledge his title as he’s additionally the composer of Last Fantasy XIV. Nonetheless, should 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. 

        <img src="https://www.gameinformer.com/websites/default/information/types/body_default/public/2023/05/15/97c7f4f4/soken_1.jpg" alt="" class="image-style-body-default" />

Last Fantasy XVI Composer Masayoshi Soken

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

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

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

Take a look at the unique Last Fantasy Prelude beneath:

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

“Early within the venture, I had quite a lot of forwards and backwards with fundamental state of affairs author and the inventive director [Kazutoyo Maehiro] and he would give me suggestions on what he needed within the recreation 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 similar Yoshida that’s director of FFFXIV, stepped in to assist information Soken. 

“They needed to have this very grand classical really feel to the general soundtrack,” he says. “What’s most vital within the recreation is the sport expertise and what gamers are going to really feel after they’re enjoying 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 got a really darkish and heavy story, quite a lot of the music [that we end up creating] has that very darkish, heavy, stoic really feel to it.”

“All of the samples that we acquired from him [Yoshida] have been very, very severe 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 needed it very severe.” 

        <img src="https://www.gameinformer.com/websites/default/information/types/body_default/public/2023/05/15/5bef4504/yoshida_2.jpg" alt="" class="image-style-body-default" />

Last Fantasy XVI Producer Naoki Yoshida

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

“This was one of the vital troublesome issues I needed to do on this venture,” Soken tells me once I ask how composing a brand new Prelude went. “You’ve gotten this very recognizable melody that Uematsu-san composed, however as you already know, 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’ve gotten this excellent main key melody that’s vibrant, 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 quite a lot of totally different music that we had taken from older Last 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 observe has but to be launched (and admittedly, I don’t know if that’s within the playing cards, however most Last Fantasy soundtracks are available on streaming providers right this moment so I think about it’s), you possibly can hear a style of it within the background right here: 

This Prelude represents the darker, extra mature tone FFXVI has displayed so far (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 recreation, head to Recreation Informer’s unique Last Fantasy XVI protection hub by clicking the banner beneath.

Supply: Recreation Informer

Publish Views:
38