After scoring all nine of Square's ever more complex and relentlessly produced Final Fantasy games, culminating in a gargantuan five-disc, 150+ track score for Final Fantasy IX, for the 10th installment and debut of the series on PlayStation2, series composer Nobuo Uematsu evidently and sensibly decided to hell with tradition, it was time for a little help.
Uematsu reached his apex for me with FFVI and has since struggled to varying degrees. I found VII generally excellent, but with some misguided and failed efforts at experimentation, VIII wildly inconsistent - several inspired tracks nestled among many more intolerable ones - and IX more assured and well crafted, but a bit shallow and workaday. However, IX evidently cost him far more of his energies than he could recover in time for X. The decision to bring on co-composers Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano was felicitously timed, for had Uematsu carried the soundtrack alone, it would have been the most disappointing and unmemorable Final Fantasy score since the series' inception. The choice of composers was also fortunate as Hamauzu and Nakano, the two current brightest lights at Square, both possess strongly individual and idiosyncratic harmonic styles that have imbued their past scores with inimitable musical voices, and now change the soundscape of Final Fantasy with a myriad of new flavors.
Hamauzu takes center stage. After rescuing the SaGa series from the mediocrity of Kenji Ito and providing Square one of its finest scores ever in SaGa Frontier II, Hamauzu here saves FFX from what's unquestionably Uematsu's flattest, most uninspired work to date, leaping chamelonically across a dynamic and volatile aural topography in full grasp of a refined harmonic palette and sharp ear for attractive, original tone colors. From the abstract downtempo beauty of "Bisaido Island", the sparkling and impressionistic "Splendid Performance", the energetic techno of "Blitz Off", the martial atonal orchestral snarls and shrieks of "Crisis" and the lonely, hypnotic minimalism of "Wandering Flame", Hamauzu doesn't have a single poor or even derivative track. His work infuses the Final Fantasy brand with fascinating new sounds which have no prior equivalents, and alone makes the soundtrack compulsory listening.
Nakano's contribution is slighter, but still a positive asset. His mellow and beautifully atmospheric music perfectly complements Hamauzu's more complex and focused style, and adds considerable color and texture to the score's overall effect. While a few of his tracks are somewhat uneventful, he comes up with some wicked standouts. The cold, mesmerizing "Illusion" seems to freeze the very air its sound waves pass through, "Luca" plays soaring strings and rugged bass against an ingeniously syncopated, off-kilter guitar and percussion rhythm, and "Summoned Beast Battle", my favorite battle theme in the whole FF series, interpolates the Song of Prayer motif and the chord structure from Illusion within a blistering, climactic orchestral setting.
Unfortunately, the winners from Uematsu's studio comprise a short list, and none achieve any special prominence or memorability. "At Zanarkand", the solo piano opening theme, is an agreeable piece but is also too simplistic and unassuming for its own good, and represents the melody's least interesting arrangement in the score. "Quiet before the storm" has an evocative, melancholic sound quality to it and is the most elaborate of Uematsu's tracks, even if he falls back on the cliched cadences and predictable chords we're hearing far too much of in his music now. There is also a solid and lively regular battle theme, one of the better ones in the series, the moody solo piano "Path of Repentance", and an effective orchestral epilogue with a suitably apotheosized appearance of the opening theme. Then of course, there is the now expected main vocal theme, "Suteki da ne" (Isn't it wonderful?) - tolerable this time, and certainly less obnoxious than Melodies of Life or the execrable Eyes on Me, but cut from the same cloth all the same. Uematsu still relies on an overly sappy melodic line, with perfunctory, predictable harmonies and the same slow pop ballad rhythm I find indigestible. In addition, vocalist Rikki has a rather irritating lilt to her voice which makes the vocal performance less than pleasurable. Uematsu also gives us the rather dubious bonus of a second vocal song, "Otherworld", an unutterably ghastly White Zombie ripoff that's really going to hurt us when aliens come to judge the overall dignity of our species' art.
The rest of Uematsu's tracks simply sound like the work of a man with a chronic sleep deficit and a deadline over before it started; underdeveloped, trivial ideas, assembled out of stagnating recycled phrases and melodic gestures from Uematsu's past, and presented in spare, simpleminded arrangements. Tidus, Yuna and Aaron's Themes, My Father's Murderer, and Jyoze Temple are good examples, among many others, of why caffeine overdose and creative thought do not mix. It's left to Hamauzu and Nakano to put Uematsu's themes in their best light.
Despite my indifference to the Suteki da ne theme, Hamauzu manages to transform it into one of the most beautiful tracks in the set: "Spiran Scenery", a recreation for solo guitar with syncopated latin rhythm and graceful jazz harmonies. The clarity of the guitar sample and Hamauzu's meticulous addition of dynamic and rhythmic expression make for the best and most convincing synthesized guitar I've ever heard in a game. Nakano comes up with a colorful adaption of Zanarkand, "Sprouting", with exotic percussion and a curious accordion-like lead that gives the piece an ingratiating French pop flavor. Even beyond straight rearrangements, both composers incorporate subtle quotes and references to the main themes into many of their own pieces, strengthening the score's thematic consistency and cinematic quality. The only fly in the ointment is the preponderance throughout the CDs of "Song of Prayer" tracks, a brief modal a cappella theme evidently written to accompany the spirit summonings. A few are given evocative arrangements, such as one for male chorus in Hindemithian quartal harmony. Had all been arranged uniquely, the repetition of this theme could have been justified, but most are simply monophonic, solo versions, distinguished only by differently ranged singers; it's a copout and a cheap way to enlarge the tracklist.
As far as sound quality, evidently the PS2 soundchip is not a huge advancement over PS1's. Although the sound programming and sample quality is only a moderate step up over FFIX, Hamauzu and Nakano get around the absence of revolution by experimenting with unique and unconventional electronic based sounds. Meanwhile Uematsu sticks largely to the same limited acoustic instrumental palette he's never strayed far from, and his tracks sound the weaker for it.
Overall, the quality of Hamauzu and Nakano's music is so fresh and immediate, it handily supercedes any ill will engendered by Uematsu's sub-par tracks, and he does at least have a few that rise above the murk. Unlike most structures, music scores are not only as strong as their weakest links. Final Fantasy X is a diverse and richly textured score, for me the most memorable of the Sony generation Final Fantasy's, whose scattered disappointments are held in check by the virtues of the music surrounding. Give Uematsu time to recuperate his abilities, and a return of this composing trio would be unstoppable.