Final Fantasy III Eternal Legend of the Wind

Awesome, this soundtrack is very much like Dear Friends. This means exact replicas of the original melodies with high-powered synthesizers.

"Following The Wind" has the best selection of songs. It starts off with "My Home Town", a soft, benign melody, perfectly suitable for a town theme. Unlike the newer town themes, evident in FF4 and FF5, this one sounds very good. Next comes "Eternal Wind", one of the best songs on the soundtrack and evidently the title track. Uplifting and refreshing, this is one to listen to on a breezy day (hence the name). After Eternal Wind, things heat up with the "Battle Theme". Listening to an arranged version of this song, I have to admit that this is one of the best battle themes, even surpassing the almighty FFVI version and the newest FFVII one! The song finishes off with a small excerpt of the "Fanfare".

"Their Spiritual Leader" starts with a newly written piece I like to call 'Chant of The Wind'. It sounds very tribal, and the choir is a nice touch. "Let Me Know The Truth" is next, which is a song not unlike FFIV's "Theme of Love". The song finishes off with the awe inspiring "Breeze", yet another newly-written. The same vocalist who performed Roaming Sheep also does this song, and she is magnificent. The lyrics are necely sung and her voice is charmingly radiant. A strong song, and one that definitely deserves to be in the FF Songs Hall of Fame.

"Ebb And Flow" starts off with the "Invincible", a song that resembles FFV's "Ahead On Our Way", with its lively rhythm. Surprisingly, it ends with a small excerpt of FF1's "Matoya"! What must be the best dungeon theme in any FF (at least in my opinion) is "Castle of Hain". It's got a great beat, and great composition. Uematsu is just known to make every one of his songs perfect, even for a 'lowly' dungeon theme.

"Rebirth" is the entire "Everlasting World". This is basically the entire ending theme. It really is incredible how they did this. It makes you wish that the entire OSV sounded this way. The song variations are "My Home Town" and "The Invincible". Finally comes the moment I savor most. No FF soundtrack is complete without the beautiful Final Fantasy theme. This was actually added on to the very short excerpt from the original. Throw in a great finale, and you have on of the better arranged FF soundtracks available.

My main gripe of this CD is the infamous narrator in the beginning of each track (with the exception of track 6). Everyone seems to hate this guy! He totally deters from the music, and you have to spend some time fowarding the CD to get to the music. I mean OK, its interesting the first time you hear it, but after that... My other complaint is the evident mixing of songs on each track. Although I don't mind it too much, as the songs do blend in quite nicely, I would have preferred it if each song had its own separate track. That way, boom!, "The Breeze", I'm there.

There really aren't too many arranged FFs that sound as good as this, with the exception of Dear Friends and Symphonic Suite. I sincerely hope that more arranged soundtracks will be like this in the future.

Final Fantasy III - Eternal Legend of the Wind is a very varied CD. It takes a variety of styles and puts them all together into one great package. The first thing you'd pick up on listening to this CD is that annoying guy at the beginning of each track, a "narrator" who keeps you updated on the progress of our heroes as they progress through the game. So you get a very vague idea of what the story of the game is? Well not exactly. The words he uses could be applied to any Final Fantasy game. Each track consists of first the narrator, then a few pieces from the game.

The pieces are quite varied. They are mostly orchestrated, but there are also two vocal songs that can be heard on Final Fantasy 1987-1994. There is some beautifully peaceful slow-paced music on this CD, and of course there is the bouncy Chocobo theme. One tune sounds like the sort of things those worshippers in "Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom" sing, very tribal. But then it changes to this wonderful piece that sounds like it is played on a harpsichord or clavichord. Very nice. A few of the tunes sound a little electronic in nature, but it never detracts from the quality of the music. One track has a definite rock feel to it.

But beyond all the variety of styles and instruments, this is all Final Fantasy at its core. Any Final Fantasy fan will recognize the FF motifs throughout the CD. Tracks that sound strangely close to the overworld theme of FF1 or the ending theme of our FF2. And of course no Final Fantasy CD would be complete without the main theme and its familiar harp. It's here as always. No matter what you enjoy, I think you will find some of it on this CD. Once you learn to ignore the narrator you'll truly enjoy it.

Oh, horrible fate! Why must my favorite CD have to have such a stupid narrator?! It seems that I just never have any luck. These songs are at the top. All of them have heart, determination, and soul. There isn't one song on this CD that I don't like. These are in no way close to the mechanical synth of the Famicom, from which this game originated. I was so worried that it would be synthesized like the Famicom game, I almost didn't get the CD! Actually, this soundtrack came out in 1994, almost five years after the original game came out.

On to the bad part. On this CD, there is a narrator so boring, so plain, that you almost want to shoot the CD player. The narrator speaks of the story of the heroes as they journey to find the four crystals to save the world (ooohh, I can barely catch my breath!). Actually, the guy just babbles on about the four heroes and how they are being helped by the wind crystal to find the other three, and makes mention of some entity named "Doga." I'll assume that he is the main bad guy or something (uh oh, the narrator's powers are rubbing off, now I'm babbling!).

Well, in all truthfulness, this is some of the best arranged music the great Nobuo has ever created, and it is beautifully redone for this CD. The only problem is that *stupid* narrator. But if you can get over that, you will be in Final Fantasy heaven.