Square-Enix Piano Collections pt.3: Ten to Ten-Two
Although I had heaped much praise on the first six Piano Collections albums, all was not quite that well in the Final Fantasy world. While there was a clear progression with each album, keeping an arranger for three albums straight was bound to cause some stylistic repetition as resources became exhausted. For one unfamiliar with the source material, many of the songs between the albums could easily be mixed up on early listens.
Even more of a concern was the root of the music, Nobuo Uematsu, who had seemed to be running out of ideas. The music was always good on its own, but it was clear that many songs were drawing on others, even capturing entire phrases of previous songs and simply reworking them (a prime example of this would be Aerith’s and Celes’s themes). This seemed to reach its peak with the score for Final Fantasy IX, which contained elements of all of the Final Fantasy scores that preceded it. Sure, it may have been intended to be a throwback (there are many other elements of the game that also drew from predecessors), but there was no denying that these grounds were well tread, and growing stale. Surely, the series with the name “FINAL Fantasy” needed to come to an end.
But it was not so. Final Fantasy X was the first in the series to be released on the PlayStation 2, with critical reception on par with the previous entries. The music was noted as being fresh and well varied, but this was not due to Uematsu’s hand alone. For this project, they had decided to hire on two more composers to assist: Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu. Where Uematsu was known for writing pop-like melodies for his compositions, Nakano specialized in ambience and atmosphere, while Hamauzu handled some of the more foreboding, dramatic tracks. A few months later, a “Piano Collections Final Fantasy X” album was released, solely arranged by Masashi Hamauzu.
Square-Enix Piano Collections pt.2: the Other Shiro, Mr. Hamaguchi
Final Fantasy VII was released in 1997 to critical acclaim around the globe. It was hailed as a landmark game that was more or less revolutionary in its utilization of the available technology. The music was received just as well, with the audio capabilities of the PlayStation bringing out new elements and dimensions to Nobuo Uematsu’s music.
Where, then, was the Piano Collections album?* With the previous games, the Piano Collections album was released less than a year later. Perhaps the OST was deemed strong and fleshed out enough on its own that a Piano album was not necessary? Whatever may have stalled it, it didn’t stop the release of Final Fantasy VIII two years later, which was released to more widespread acclaim. And not even a year after that, a “Piano Collections Final Fantasy VIII” was announced and published. Like the reprints of the previous albums, this album (and all hereafter) were also released with the CD and sheet music separately. The first-press of the CDs came in a slipcase, while the later re-issues come in regular jewel cases without the slipcase.
There was a lot of speculation as to why there was no piano album release for “FFVII”, and at this point there is still no clear answer. What we do know is that they went on and released an album for “FFVIII”, and it was fantastic.
Square-Enix Piano Collections pt.1: Shiro Satou’s Triad
Square-Enix’s ‘Piano Collections’ series is in its twentieth year now. Featuring piano arrangements of songs from popular game series, the series has been through many arrangers, performers, and styles. Many websites offer reviews for each album, but I thought it would be good to talk about each album with respect to the other albums as well, since they can differ a lot from each other. Many people also have differing opinions based on their music background, and many arrangements have certain classical influences. Here, I will talk about these albums on all grounds, although not by going through a track-by-track review.
Piano Collections – NieR Gestalt and Replicant
In the last few years Square-Enix broadened their Piano Collections series to include the Kingdom Hearts series, a welcome move that produced decent results, which were damped perhaps a bit by the choice of arrangers. This year they opened the door to include NieR, which had a universally acclaimed soundtrack, even spawning two arranged/tribute albums. With a new set of arrangers and performers on this Piano Collections, did the album live up to the great expectations following it?
The Marion(ette) 