The very best SE composer.

It is time to end the discussion. You, faithfull EoFFers, need to decide, which composer truly deserves the "very best" title. It's not just about Uematsu and Mitsuda anymore - all the composers you know are in the game now! Vote and write why you chose that composer, and also try to say a few words about the remaining ones.

Nobuo Uematsu: This is the man that needs no introduction. One of the main reasons for our series' fame and popularity. He really did a terrific job in making the series come to life. It's really hard to sum up the whole body of his work in one paragraph, but I'll do my best in mentioning the VI and IX soundtrack. In Final Fantasy VI the composer did his best job in utilizing character themes. Plus, the opera scene is just breathtaking, even though it's just SNES game. The FFIX OST is just so diverse it blows your mind. Uematsu also uses medieval techniques in order to emphasize the medieval-esque world - a big thumbs up for that!

Yasunori Mitsuda: This guy's work is really intriguing. Gotta love the way Chrono Trigger feels thanks to him, and all the Celtic stuff in Chrono Cross. Though I don't think his Xenosaga soundtrack gets enough credit, since IMO it's his best work.

Yoko Shimomura: Best known for her work on the KH series. And she deserves the praise for it! She's great with emotional, romantic-styled tracks. The Piano Collection for Kingdom Hearts is probably the best one yet.

Masashi Hamauzu: This guy is the reason for the only good thing about Dirge of Cerberus. And some of the best pieces on the FFX soundtrack - Assault, Summon Monster Battle, The Decisive Battle (though A CERTAIN EOFFER dares to challenge this pieces genius :mad:). Seriously, I love how this guy uses a hybrid between impressionist and expressionist harmony instead of the standart diatonic function. I really love this guy's work :love:

Hitoshi Sakimoto: The Ivalice Alliance guy... He is kinda the underdog compared to the other composers listed here - I mean, I rarely see anyone praising FFXII's soundtrack, which IMO was incredible. Seriously, Sakimoto has a great sense of instrument colour and orchestrates his tracks masterfully.

Noriko Matsueda: Many people dislike the X-2 soundtrack, but I think there are a few tracks that are really nice - Eternity ~ Memory of Waves of Light is a terrific example. I also enjoy Noriko's work on Bahamut Lagoon.

Junya Nakano: Unfortunately, I can't say much about this guy, since the only stuff of his that I've heard are his compositions for FFX and the arrangements for FFIV DS. Both seem rather mediocre to me, but I guess this guy has more up his sleve, seeing that he has so many fans.

So, guys, vote for your fabourites and say a few words.

BTW, sorry if I didn't mention someone's favourite composer, I simply placed those that came to mind on the poll. If you do like someone outside the list, however, feel free to write about them.

Nobuyoshi Sano, Yoshiki Aoi and Takayuki Aihara... I absolutely adore their work with Drakengard 1 and 2.

Mitsuda; Crono Trigger, Cross, Xenogears, Shadow Hearts, and other are my favorite soundtracks.

Uematsu. The FFIX soundtrack has some of the finest tunes I've ever heard in my entire life.

Of this list, probably Hitoshi Sakimoto. I've taken a real liking to his stuff in FFT/TA/XII/TA2.

Mitsuda is really good too but I've really only heard his stuff from Chrono Trigger and Xenosaga Ep. I.

Even though he's not exactly an SE composer, Motoi Sakuraba would probably be my favorite VG composer overall though.

Although I love FFT's soundtrack, Mitsuda's the only guy I can vote for.

Gotta go with Uematsu on this one. He's just been too prolific and varied in his composing career for me not to give him the nod. I'd give Sakimoto a good second place nod. I like pretty much every soundtrack he's done including FFXII which doesn't get enough love if you ask me. I also want to give a shout out to Jeremy Soule. Granted he only did one game for Square, but he's consistently impressed me over the last few years, and one game for Square is more than any other non-Japanese composer can claim to have done to my knowledge.

Mitsuda is a little hit and miss for me. Chrono Trigger was brilliant and Cross also had a lot of good stuff on it, but Xenosaga was an absolute bore. I can't remember everything else he's done, and haven't actually played Xenogears so it's difficult to judge if his missteps are less frequent than I perceive them to be, but in my experience he's not at the top of his game as often as Uematsu or Sakimoto.

While Yoko is awesome in the KH series, its got to go to Uemastu.

It's hard to compete with Uematsu because he has such a massive library. I can't go past him really. That being said, Shimomura's work on KH was fantastic imo.

I personally like both Uematsu and Sakimoto about the same, but since Uematsu is getting votes like crazy I think I'll cast mine for Sakimoto.

I think I've played most of those games, but the vast majority of songs that I can really remember and like are Nobuo's. Did Nobuo do To Zanarkand and Memories of Lightwaves?

I like the music in Crystal Defenders too.

Did someone forget about Takeharu Ishimoto? I thought Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII's soundtracks were gold. Uematsu is still legendary though.

I guess I forgot him, but to be honest I didn't like Crisis Core's soundtrack. I thought it was quite bland aside from the remixed FFVII stuff and even that was pretty meh. Haven't played Dissidia outside of the demo but I don't remember the music at all so I'm guessing I didn't find it that incredible.

I've recently come to the conclusion that Mitsuda is superior to Uematsu. His melodies are super quality but his arrangements are less creative in terms of orchestration than Uematsus. Melody is still the truest test for any composer, though, and he has Uematsu beat in that area for sure.

Mitsuda 3 lief. So many of the Chrono Cross tracks are classics.

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

Hitoshi Sakimoto: The Ivalice Alliance guy... He is kinda the underdog compared to the other composers listed here - I mean, I rarely see anyone praising FFXII's soundtrack, which IMO was incredible. Seriously, Sakimoto has a great sense of instrument colour and orchestrates his tracks masterfully.

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The Ivalice Alliance music is a bit iffy to me, actually (especially XII). It is about half gorgeous, and half "meh". Some of the pieces are absolutely beautiful, and wonderful mood setters, I admit. But his music is more hit-and-miss than what we got from Yasunori Mitsuda in Chrono and Xenosaga, which is why Yasunori got my vote.

And X-2's Noriko Matsueda will not be considered by me because the main battle music in that game was terrible. No matter how good I think some of the rest of the soundtrack is, the standard fight music disqualifies his work from the running.

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

Hitoshi Sakimoto: The Ivalice Alliance guy... He is kinda the underdog compared to the other composers listed here - I mean, I rarely see anyone praising FFXII's soundtrack, which IMO was incredible. Seriously, Sakimoto has a great sense of instrument colour and orchestrates his tracks masterfully.

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The Ivalice Alliance music is a bit iffy to me, actually (especially XII). It is about half gorgeous, and half "meh". Some of the pieces are absolutely beautiful, and wonderful mood setters, I admit. But his music is more hit-and-miss than what we got from Yasunori Mitsuda in Chrono and Xenosaga, which is why Yasunori got my vote.

And X-2's Noriko Matsueda will not be considered by me because the main battle music in that game was terrible. No matter how good I think some of the rest of the soundtrack is, the standard fight music disqualifies his work from the running.

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"He's" a woman ;)

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

Hitoshi Sakimoto: The Ivalice Alliance guy... He is kinda the underdog compared to the other composers listed here - I mean, I rarely see anyone praising FFXII's soundtrack, which IMO was incredible. Seriously, Sakimoto has a great sense of instrument colour and orchestrates his tracks masterfully.

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The Ivalice Alliance music is a bit iffy to me, actually (especially XII). It is about half gorgeous, and half "meh". Some of the pieces are absolutely beautiful, and wonderful mood setters, I admit. But his music is more hit-and-miss than what we got from Yasunori Mitsuda in Chrono and Xenosaga, which is why Yasunori got my vote.

And X-2's Noriko Matsueda will not be considered by me because the main battle music in that game was terrible. No matter how good I think some of the rest of the soundtrack is, the standard fight music disqualifies his work from the running.

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"He's" a woman ;)

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Ok, you're right, but I don't think that was the important part of my post.

Uematsu has both quality and quantity on his side. He is simply unmatched.

Yoko Shimomura. As far as quantity, she is not too far behind Uematsu. according to Wiki, Uematsu has 47 video game compositions. Shimomura has 40. Her range of styles is also fantastic. It's kind of a shame that you only included her work with Kingdom Hearts in your poll--although it is great.

Shimomura's other notable VG works within the Square-Enix fold:
Legend of Mana
Super Mario RPG
Parasite Eve

Outside of Square-Enix:
Street Fighter 2 (!)
Mario & Luigi RPG Series (all 3)
Breath of Fire

What puts her above the rest for me is her range. I mean, you listen to the music in Street Fighter 2, then listen to the music in Kingdom Hearts...you probably wouldn't even think they came from the same composer unless you knew. (She also shares the first name of my overall 'favourite composer'... Wolf Kanno knows what I'm talkin about.)

Some of the other guys, Hitoshi Sakimoto in particular, you can listen to any game they do and be able to know the composer. You can almost take music out of Final Fantasy 12 and put it into Luminous Arc, or put Valkyria Chronicles into Tactics. Muramasa manages to avoid this by having a heavy Japanese style, but there are times when you can strongly feel Sakimoto's sound. Motoi Sakuraba falls victim to this too (he 'counts' as a Squenix composer--all of tri-Ace's games). I can't say it's a serious criticism, because good music is good music, but having a range of styles really bumps up my respect.

Actually, I encourage you all to check out an interview that 1UP just put online this weekend with her.
Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts, Parasite Eve Composer) Interview

Uematsu. Hands down, he is just brilliant! not saying hes the only one but he is top notch when it comes to beautiful music.

I hate to pick favorites because I really like most of them; but really, Uematsu's still my favorite, with second being Sakimoto and third being Shimomura.

Uematsu has done the most consistently best job all-around, and has continued that outside of Square Enix (Lost Odyssey's soundtrack was incredible overall). I've enjoyed his music for the last 10+ years and generally listen to his stuff more than anything else.

Sakimoto did a good job with FFXII overall, I thought. His strength is his ability to make battle music, and it shows in both FFXII and Vagrant Story (if you haven't heard the battle themes from Vagrant Story, do so). I'm a sucker for good battle themes.

Shimomura's done excellent work with Kingdom Hearts, but yes, she does do more than just that. I totally loved Parasite Eve's music.

Although, to put in my two cents on this, as it was brought up: Ishimoto's remixes of the FF7 music are quite good in Crisis Core, and make me hunger for a remake of the game, if only to see the music get the treatment it deserves; I mainly don't like his original compositions on the battle themes in Crisis Core (the remixes were awesome, though), but the piano work on many of the pieces is quite solid and touching. Ishimoto did drop the ball on Dissidia overall, though, if you ask me (except for the FF9 battle theme mix).

I think i'll have to go with Uematsu, not just for quality but for quantity too, and being able to write SO MANY brilliant songs

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Originally Posted by JKTrix

(She also shares the first name of my overall 'favourite composer'... Wolf Kanno knows what I'm talkin about.)

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Thanks for the embolden-ment. I don't think I would've picked that up otherwise. xD

I'm going to have to go with Uematsu. All of my favourite SE tracks are his. Having said that, I think Chrono Trigger had absolutely brilliant music as well. And all the praise for Yoko Shimomura here makes me want to go to play one of the games she's composed for (haven't played much of KH and none of the others).

YouTube - Threads of Fate/Dewprism OST: To The Ultimate Relic

This is my favorite Junya Nakano bit :3

Other: Hiroki Kikuta. (Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 3)
I love Uetmatsu, don't get me wrong. But the funkiness of Kikuta (and the fact that there is far too little Kikuta out there) makes me point out his sheer brilliance.

I think I'll go with Shimomura. She's absolutely blatant when it comes to composing in c minor (All Organisation-XIII-related themes except for Roxas) and d minor (The other promise, Fate of the unknown(!!!!), Aqua's theme). Every work of her stuns me.

Of course, Uematsu is intriguing as well. He's my second choise.

Did not know Junya Nakano until this awesome battletheme:
YouTube - Final Fantasy XIII - Desperate Struggle [HD]

As for voting, I can't decide. I want to say Uematsu but I feel like its the easy way out :p

Nobuo is the Chuck Norris of Square music. Although I love Masashi Hamauzu's "Kimi ga iru kara" it is still Uematsu-sensei who is the best.