Distant Worlds isn’t so distant
At the beginning of the week, Square Enix announced that they would be conducting a new world tour in honor of the 20th anniversary of the original Final Fantasy release. The new tour, “Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY” will feature music from all the numbered games up to XI (excluding X-2). To keep from writing it all again, here is the news post I made on Square Haven:
The first performance will be held in Stockholm, Sweden on December 4th 2007 and performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Choir. During the performance, large screens will display videos and art stills to help enhance the experience.
The tour will then make its American debut in Chicago on March 1st 2008. Both concerts will be conducted by award-winning music director and conductor Arnie Roth.
“I am excited to be conducting Nobuo Uematsu’s captivating music once again and to collaborate with him in this exciting new production.” Roth said when asked about the experience. Roth has worked with the Final Fantasy catalog before during the Dear Friends tour.
Prices for the Chicago performance range from $35 to $150. However, the $150 ticket also includes a meet and greet with Nobuo Uematsu himself, a copy of the “Distant Worlds” album, and a special tour program book.
No other dates have been announced as of this article
Concert Program Not in concert order, subject to change:
- FINAL FANTASY series: Main Theme, Swing de Chocobo
- FINAL FANTASY I-III: Medley
- FINAL FANTASY III DS: Opening
- FINAL FANTASY IV: Theme of Love
- FINAL FANTASY V: Dear Friends
- FINAL FANTASY VI: Opera “Maria and Draco”
- FINAL FANTASY VII: One-Winged Angel, Opening - Bombing Mission, Aerith’s Theme
- FINAL FANTASY VIII: Liberi Fatali, Fisherman’s Horizon, Love Grows, Don’t be Afraid
- FINAL FANTASY IX: Vamo’ alla Flamenco
- FINAL FANTASY X: To Zanarkand
- FINAL FANTASY XI: Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds
Along with the concert premiere in Stockholm, a new album bearing the same name as the tour will be released. The music was performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Choir and will feature much to the music from the two hour concert. There is no word yet on how much the CD will retail for.
Track Listing Run time 75min:
- Opening - Bombing Mission (FINAL FANTASY VII)
- Medley (FINAL FANTASY I-III)
- Theme of Love (FINAL FANTASY IV)
- Liberi Fatali (FINAL FANTASY VIII)
- Aerith’s Theme (FINAL FANTASY VII)
- Swing de Chocobo (FINAL FANTASY series)
- Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds (FINAL FANTASY XI)
- Opera “Maria and Draco” (FINAL FANTASY VI)
- Love Grows (FINAL FANTASY VIII)
- Don’t be Afraid (FINAL FANTASY VIII)
- Fisherman’s Horizon (FINAL FANTASY VIII)
- Vamo’ alla Flamenco (FINAL FANTASY IX)
- One-Winged Angel (FINAL FANTASY VII)
I am extremely excited about this. I was never able to attend the Dear Friends or More Friends concerts, so having a new tour gives me another opportunity. I’d love to attend the Chicago one if possible and do the full Meet & Greet. Uematsu has been one of my heroes for a very long time, and even though I probably wouldn’t stand out in his mind, it would be a wonderful memory for me. If I do get an opportunity to attend, I will do a full write-up for VGMe about the experience as I know there are thousands of people out there who would love to attend but simply can’t.
The concert has brought up something that I may make into a post series in the future about my beliefs on what makes a good soundtrack. For every exceptional soundtrack I have heard, there are three or four that are mediocre or simply terrible. There are a lot of things that can make the soundtrack good or bad and so I’ll probably explore them in further detail in upcoming posts. For now though, I’ll leave you with concert-versions of Final Fantasy music to commemorate the news.
MUSIC
As the name would imply, 20020220 is a live recording of a Final Fantasy performed on February 20th 2002. This was the first live recording of its type for the Final Fantasy franchise and was wildly popular among fans. It features music up to Final Fantasy X, and many of the tracks used in the program have found their way into subsequent concerts such as "Liberi Fatali" and "One-Winged Angel."
Being the fan of Final Fantasy VIII that I am, I love this track and especially this live rendition. The choir is powerful and spot-on. Every piece of this song falls into place nicely and the natural draw of a live performance only enhances the emotion behind the composition. Hamaguchi's orchestral arrangement does what it needs to keep true to the original song while enhancing it through a full orchestra. It's an impressive start to a wonderful album.
Nobuo Uematsu - Scene I Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite
The Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite is the grand-daddy of orchestral Final Fantasy albums. Originally released in 1989, Symphonic Suite features the music of the first two Final Fantasy titles arranged for orchestra by Katsuhisa Hattori and his son Takayuki. The tracks were performed by the Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra and conducted by Katsuhisa Hattori as well. An interesting thing about the album is the naming scheme used for the tracks. None of them feature the names given to the originals for the soundtrack and instead follow a numbered sequence prefixed by the word "Scene."
Scene I is the main theme of Final Fantasy II, and a wonderful version at that. For being the original, Hattori did a splendid job of transcribing the 8-bit composition to a fully-fledged orchestral masterpiece. There is not much to say other than every time I hear it, I have to stop for a moment to fully enjoy it.
J is for Just Released
There are few game characters that amass a huge cult following without having to do anything. The most recent, and one of my favorite (non)characters is simply a box. More specifically, it’s a Weighted Companion Cube. For fans of the game Portal –released as one of the many titles included in Valve’s recent Orange Box– the Weighted Companion Cube is more than just another ordinary cube. It is something to love and cherish. Aside from my beloved, though, there are many things that have happened since my last post.
The biggest news for the site is the new look. I decided to take the site away from a template and build a new look for it. I’m still working out a lot of the bugs for it, so bear with it for a while longer. Also, in site news, I’m looking for writers who are willing to contribute weekly to VGMe. If you are interested, drop me a line at dastafarin@gmail.com using the subject “Writing for VGMe” so that I can find it amongst all the spam.
Now, on a completely random note, I want to bring up something that I was talking about today and that is the complete impatience I find in other players online. Recently I’ve been playing a lot of Gunbound again, after having been away from it since the original version entitled “Thor’s Hammer.” After going back, I’ve found a lot of people on the game are anywhere between somewhat impatient to extremely impatient. It’s disturbing and extremely annoying. As soon as I log into a room, it’s almost guaranteed that at least one person will spam my username about 50 times and tell me to ready up within the first 10 seconds. Now this game is a lot worse than many other online games in those regards, but the same still holds up in some capacity for many online titles. Sometimes telling a person to “Ready up” is warranted and necessary, but 99% of the time it’s simply irritating. I know to get ready, I’ve played the game before. I don’t need someone “yelling” at me to hurry things up and forgo any preparations I may wish to make before entering into a match.
MUSIC
Jet Set Radio garnered a good amount of press and recognition back during its release for its (then) cutting edge use of cel-shading, its unique gameplay and its soundtrack. The game was originally released for Dreamcast, but also made appearances on the Gameboy Advance and the Xbox.
The track selected is the title track from the game. The artist behind the song, Hideki Naganuma also did many of the other tracks for the game along with a collection of licensed music. The song uses a sample from the old BBC Radio comedy Hancock's Half Hour (wikipedia). It is house electronica and is very enjoyable. Although the style is one that garners either love or hate, it is a definite winner for most who enjoy the genre.
Jack Wall - Anthem of the Tyrant Jade Empire Original Soundtrack
While I've used Jade Empire in a previous post (What about the yankees?), it is one more the better soundtracks on the Xbox, and in the J category quite simply.
Unlike the previous song posted, "Anthem of the Tyrant" has almost no Asian influence on the composition. It is fairly straight forward Western Classical, but still quite good. As can be inferred from the name of the song, it is one of the darker, more “epic” tracks from the album. It uses a lot of deep, guttural horns along with almost-screeching strings.