02 Musical Notes

Final Fantasy Radio & TV Newsletter

“Square Music for a Round World”

February 18, 2011

News on the Console Front Everywhere

Normally we only talk about music here at the newsletter but there has been so many new announcements about gaming hardware this month. Take a look at our special page of the big news conferences. No matter what consoles make it out of these new wars, at least we know our music will be still be in the games we love.

Special note to those who use our forums there is a number of new changes we are doing. We are working towards a new template and color scheme to be launched next month.

Xenogears Myth February 23rd

Composed by Yasunori Mitsuda (who collaborated with Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu on the Chrono Trigger soundtrack and yes, Xenogears’ music is at least as good as that), Myth: The Xenogears Orchestral Album includes tracks voted on by fans, with Mitsuda making the final calls. In Japan, you can pre order the fully reorganized and re-recorded album. It runs about 3,000 yen — roughly $36 U.S. Click the video to hear some of the new music and see the composer.

For those who cant wait an another soundtrack of Xenogears was also composed and arranged by Mitsuda and was released as “Creid”. For this collection he expanded on the theme from the original album of having Celtic influences in “easy-to-listen-to” pop tracks, to create a sound of arranged Xenogears music with a more prominent Celtic style. The album contains a mixture of vocal and instrumental tracks, and combines Japanese and Celtic music together in its pieces. The album features five vocal tracks and five instrumental tracks. Since this is some what rare CD as bonus to our newsletter fans you can preview it here.

Xenogears Cried
As newsletter fans enjoy the preview of this great music.

Music and People Making News

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy IV and its sequel the After Years will be released on March 24th on the PSP. To celebrate the release of box set Square has began voting at their music website for favorite tracks. Vote at there website for the 5 special tracks that will be included in the soundtrack, see our article for details.

Full Voting Details

TV Channels Trivia Contest

If you are TV stream watcher you know about our Final Fantasy trivia with over 2000 questions in it to date. We have a new contest going on for you to post 3 more questions that we will add to the live shows. The prizes are PSP games or $20 cards for PSN/XBL, see post for details. Good luck every one who joins. We do these contests to show off our forums and get new members to register so please stop in and support the site.

See Contest Rules and Entry Links

Sound Bites

Video game composer Christopher Tin has been recognized with the first game song to win a Grammy Award! “Baba Yetu” has been performed in Video Games Live since the concerts started.
Lord of Arcana is a PSP action adventure title set in the same universe as Lord of Vermilion. There is one aspect to this game project that’s a bit unique though, sound duties are being handled by Final Fantasy impresario Nobuo Uematsu and longtime game-industry veteran Hitoshi Sakimoto.
On March 16, 2011, Dog Ear Records will release the debut album of Nobuo Uematsu’s new band Earthbound Papas “Octave Theory”. The band will be performing tracks from the album live in Houston, Texas at the Oni-Con anime convention in October.
Square Enix Japan has opened an official webpage the four-disc album for Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Three discs will cover the updated arrangements for the PSP release, while a bonus disc contains source material from the Super Famicom. Music is composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata of Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics.