I can’t believe nearly five years have passed and I am only now digging into Final Fantasy VII Remake! This ambitious project focused and expanded upon the events of Final Fantasy VII within the confines of Midgar, roughly the first third of the game. So, how much music would you expect to accompany this remade chapter of Final Fantasy VII? Three, maybe four hours? Five if you tack on a bonus disc?
Nope. The full soundtrack clocks in at nine hours across seven discs, with a bonus disc eight “Jukebox Selection CD” included with the ~Special edit version~ [Limited Edition] OST, placing it at nearly ten hours. Okay, that’s a ton of music. How did they do it? And, perhaps more importantly, was it worth writing this much music for Remake?
Many of the answers I sought digging deep into this soundtrack surfaced when I saw who was at the helm. The three main composers for the team were Masashi Hamauzu, Mitsuto Suzuki, and (of course) Nobuo Uematsu himself. Uematsu’s original compositions serve as the template for roughly half of the music across the OST. This means many classic Final Fantasy VII tunes were sourced for motifs and variations across the Remake soundtrack. For example, the boss battle music “Those Who Fight Further” finds new life in boss-specific forms all over the place. We find it mixed with a flurry of orchestral madness (courtesy of arranger Shotaro Shima) with the first boss “Scorpion Sentinel,” then in an epic rock, choir, and orchestra rendition (courtesy of arranger Tadayoshi Makino) in “The Airbuster.” Remember those baddies from the original game? They essentially served as tutorial bosses early in the Mako bombing missions? Now, the team outfitted these robotic monstrosities with epic battle music, and each variant runs a full seven minutes in length without any looping! Perhaps now, you’re starting to see how this soundtrack became so massive.
Before I continue on, I wish to impress upon the reader just how solid these arrangements are. “The Airbuster,” in particular, I’ve listened to at least 20 times in the past month. This may as well have been a track off of a “Black Mages” or “Earthbound Papas” arrange album; had it been, it would be one of the most celebrated tracks on said albums. This version of the boss theme takes you on quite the journey. And the production value? Don’t even get me started.
One interesting aspect of the source material use is that tracks not originally used in the Midgar scenario worm their way in. The chief example here is “One-Winged Angel – Rebirth.” What is OWA doing this early in the game? Well, play it, and you see Sephiroth already looming large this early in the remake plot. This particular version is bigger and more bombastic than previous iterations, including my personal favorite from the film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. This version actually features additional composition and arrangement from Hamauzu and Octopath Traveler composer Yasunori Nishiki! Too many cooks did not spoil the broth on this one.
The updated JENOVA battle theme, “J-E-N-O-V-A – Quickening,” starts with the slower incarnation of the melody, as I imagine her stirring to life in Hojo’s lab at Shinra HQ where Red XIII was also held. The volume kicks up with big choir and orchestra accompaniment, but the tempo holds back for most of the song’s length. Then, right at the four-minute mark, that unmistakable synth line jumps in alongside a pulsing four-on-the-floor kick drum. The remainder is good, and it leaves me wanting more, which I’m sure I’ll get when I finally move on to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
I also found a variant of the ancient city music “You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet,” oddly enough, right after that One-Winged Angel variant. The track is called “Seven Seconds till the End,” and it too features additional work from Yasunori Nishiki. This ominous little tune illustrates just how well Uematsu’s source material from OG FFVII can change and grow to create many new expressions and evoke so many emotions for lifelong fans.
All of the other Uematsu source compositions are handled with care, even in the more upbeat and synth arrangements (those done Mitsuto Suzuki and/or the ones found on the Jukebox). One theme I noticed getting a lot of attention was “Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII.” Because it served as the world map music in the original game, it is *technically* out of place in Final Fantasy VII Remake since players wouldn’t have heard it until after escaping Midgar. Given it is also a key melodic motif, finding it sprinkled all throughout this OST is fully unsurprising.
Other commonly used motifs include Shinra and Turks music, character themes (especially Tifa and Aerith), and the environment themes initially written for the various sections of Midgar. Even the weakest of these new arrangements still elevate Uematsu’s source material to something fitting for the remake. At their best, they are poignant emotional reminders of what has been and what will be, not only in the story of Cloud and friends, but in our own memories. One of my favorites is “Aerith and Marlene – A Familiar Flower” (disc 5, track 20). Utilizing Uematsu’s classic character theme for Aerith, Masashi Hamauzu adds a counter-melody and reharmonizes to create something new and magical.
I am still uncertain, however, which I like more. Am I more enamored with the great re-use of classic Final Fantasy VII melodies? Or do I favor the original compositions for Final Fantasy VII Remake, primarily written by Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki (and nearly a dozen other composers pitching in)?
This is a tough call. I have always loved Hamauzu’s work. His history with the mainline Final Fantasy series has been on point, with his contributions to Final Fantasy X and his lead work on Final Fantasy XIII standing out as some of the best. Interestingly, this isn’t Hamauzu’s first take on the expanded FF7 world. His underrated soundtrack for the Vincent spinoff Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is a personal favorite. Even so, I would argue that Hamauzu put a great deal more time and attention into his key compositions for Final Fantasy VII Remake than DoC.
Let’s start with one of my favorite character themes. “Jessie’s Theme” is a sweet, soft, mid-tempo piece performed primarily on acoustic guitar in its base form. I loved Jessie as a character in the original game, and the added attention she and the rest of the Avalanche team got in Remake was, in my opinion, quite warranted. While I wasn’t quite taken with every piece of original music written for Avalanche, Jessie’s Theme stands out as, paradoxically, both memorable and ephemeral.
Should you want to hear Hamauzu bring the brisk tension of orchestral padding, surprising synth blips on the musical radar, and impressionist structure, you need to check out his environmental and cinematic tracks. Chief among them? “Target: Mako Reactor 5” on disc 3. This music sets up the tension before the second bombing mission extremely well, and even outside the context of the game, the production quality is up there with some of his best Final Fantasy XIII work.
If you want a wholly orchestral Hamauzu original, I would recommend “A Broken World” on disc 6. If you want just the intense synth stuff, skip ahead a few tracks on the same disc and enjoy “Infinity’s End.” Finally, if you need some Hamauzu original battle themes, head straight to the end! On disc 7 there are three tracks in a row, the “Arbiter of Fate” trilogy (“Advent,” “Rebirth,” and “Singularity”). These tracks, especially “Singularity,” have that Hamauzu final boss style through and through. Compare it to the Yu Yevon battle in Final Fantasy X or Orphan in Final Fantasy XIII. You could even compare it to “Todesengel” in SaGa Frontier II or “The Star Graal” from The Legend of Legacy. Again, if you know the impressionist works of Debussy and Ravel, the approach Hamauzu uses in these battle themes feels very familiar. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll enjoy them all a great deal!
Looking at contributions from other composers, I’d like to start with “Scarlet’s Theme.” I love that one of the supporting villains in the Shinra cast got her own soulful, vocal jazz theme (performed by Al Copeland, who also did “Stand Up” for the Honeybee Inn). This number has composition and arrangement credits including Mitsuto Suzuki, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Nozomi Toki, and Ayumu Murai. Plenty of work went into this polished-up tune. The jazz vocals alone would make it a standout, but adding a slick violin solo as a bridge leading into the last refrain was a great choice.
Mitsuto Suzuki’s primary contributions are the bulk of disc 4. He wrote nearly every track on this disc. And what is the music we find here? It’s—well, how should we put this—it’s the silly interlude in the Midgar sequence. We are talking about the Wall Market, Don Corneo, and more minigames than you can shake a stick at! These tracks tend to have a lot of great beats, wild synths, and plenty of vocals (recorded and sampled). The aforementioned “Stand Up” is here, as are some other short dance “house” numbers like “Funk with Me” and “Sync or Swim.” While these tracks may not be as powerful or evocative as what we find on the remainder of this massive OST, they serve as a much-needed musical breather with all of the intensity going on elsewhere!
There is so much more I could dig into, one track after another, but given there are a total of 180 tracks (including the “Jukebox” arrangement tracks), I don’t think that would be prudent. I tried to center around tracks that are representative and indicative of the overall quality of this OST. I would encourage fans to listen to this album on any of the several streaming services that host it before locking in a purchase. But I do think, even after the hype has died down, the Final Fantasy VII Remake Original Soundtrack warrants a purchase, whether digital or physical, for fans to keep in their collections.
