Nobuo Uematsu VS Yasunori Mitsuda

[Vice Nebulosa]

Yeah; music debate time! ^_^

First off, from the music listed here, only Fight with Seymour, Auron's Theme and Otherworld were written by Nobuo. The Decisive Battle was written by Masashi Hamauzu (and is an awesome track, I might add), while Aeon Battle is by Junya Nakano. So, if anything, Nobuo's speciality is not remixing (that's right, This is Your Story is by Nakano, so he's the one that recycled Nobuo's track).

Oh, right; forgot the whole "collaboration" thing that occurred in the FFX soundtrack. Point for you. My aforementioned opinions on the tracks in question still stand, but some of the blame can be removed from Uematsu. Looking over the Wiki article on the soundtrack, I find it somewhat surprising that "Run!!" was not written by Uematsu; it seemed to have his distinct "flavor" about it. Well, at least someone is able to approximate it fairly well . . .

I gotta say Mitsuda is a great composer. Chrono Trigger's OST was great and Cross' was simply genius, but I wasn't quite fond of Xenogears' and I've yet to play Xenosaga (I live in Europe, so getting Der Wille zur Macht is quite difficult).

Neither Xeno soundtrack is at all comparable to the Chrono counterparts, so Xenosaga I (beyond its extremely high production value, what with the London Symphony Orchestra) is unlikely to alter your opinion on the matter.

On a side note, you do realize Nobuo composed about a third (if not more) of CT's soundtrack?

Hell, a third is using some serious hyperbole. I count ten tracks of the total sixty-four that are credited to Uematsu, and none of them aside from "Sealed Door" are anything I would describe as "profound". Mostly his contributions to the soundtrack include the catchy, percussive themes that occur at particularly energetic points during the plot ("Bike Chase", "Burn! Bobonga!", "Tyran Castle" -- which does rule -- "Primitive Mountain", etc.). Uematsu's contributions are sizable, granted, but in this project Mitsuda is most definitely the soliloquy actor, and Uematsu the stage hand. Uematsu was merely brought in to compensate for Mitsuda's declining health during production, but the meat of the score was already in place, and it already included the musical power for which Mitsuda was thereafter known. Uematsu cannot touch "Corridors of Time", "Battle with Magus", "Undersea Palace", "To Far Away Times", etc. etc. ad infinitum, and therefore he cannot claim anything but a peripheral role in the fusion of the musical and dramatic storytelling brilliance that is Chrono Trigger.

Like you said, Nobuo is great with normal battles, but I have to disagree with you at certain points. The first is in favour of Mitsuda - Gale and The Brink of Death are great battle tracks!

God. :laugh: So you cannot only stand to listen to the suffering of those strings from the beginning to 0:15 of "Gale" and that damned blues organ which takes over the background thereafter, but you approve of it? :Eek: "The Brink of Death" was considerably better, I grant you, but nothing on Uematsu's better efforts in the same area.

Also, you gotta love Gale for being a tribute to Radical Dreamers.

Eh, "Viper Manor" earns my approval for that reason, but "Gale" was actually considerably less an aggravating listen in Radical Dreamers. *_*

Nobuo's tracks are still better, in my opinion. The normal battle themes provide more balance (I did NOT like X's normal battle theme, though...) and don't get so tedious after two hours of random battles only. His boss battle tracks range from cool (IX, IV) to simply amazing (The Fierce Battle from VI and Those Who Fight Further from VII). These are tracks that are not only nice to listen to, but fill you with emotions that should be present during a fierce battle...

*Nod* Uematsu is definitely the better man when it comes to melding the moods of camaraderie and crisis into a single "basic battle" track. Even the FFX "Battle Theme" (which I actually did enjoy :laugh:; something about following that bassline around) managed this considerably better than Mitsuda's "Battle 1" from CT or "Gale" from CC. Mitsuda is a "battle to save the universe" man, and less a "battle to kill the insignificant minions" man.

I have to say, I wasn't really fond of Mitsuda's area tracks.

Demon! :Eek: Back -- back from this holy place!

Seriously, though, I have never heard the Uematsu track that is more tranquil with a sense of beautiful simplicity than "Home Village Arni" (which, ironically, is not at all a simple piece of music), more an exotic, romantic reference to past glory than "Time's Grasslands - Home World", more an ominous anxiety before a threat that has no name but merely the form of ruin than "Ancient Dragon's Fort", more horrifying in its bleak simplicity than "Dead Sea - Tower of Ruin", more a tale of a vaguely familiar world that one regrets being a part of than "Chronopolis" (a piece plagiarized time without measure by less imaginitive composers ), etc, etc. I am not familiar with Uematsu's entire body of work (I possess the FFVII, Advent Children, and FFX soundtracks, and have heard decent portions of VIII), but what I have heard is largely fare of a shallower quality than that which Mitsuda prepares.

The Chrono universe is a considerably richer one than your basic Final Fantasy world as far as detail of plot and storytelling are concerned, and the complex themes of Mitsuda's music communicate this quite clearly. Chrono Cross, for instance, is not so simple as the "we have a clear enemy; we do not need to understand Sephiroth but we must stop him and we are justified in doing so" theme of FFVII (which is a brilliant storytelling method in its way), or the relatively shallow morality and romance-sacrifice issues confronted in FFX. CC, to examine a single facet thereof, deals with a protagonist confronted by multiple forces -- those forces, both ruthless and impassioned, that regard his very existence as a destructive abomination that should be reversed if possible, eliminated if necessary, and those quieter, more personal forces, both naïve and wise, that wish him to remain alive for one reason or another. We, as the player, witness the comparatively simple and "noble" actions conducted by the protagonists in Chrono Trigger brought to involuntary ruin by the protagonist of Chrono Cross -- such poetic irony as is wrought by the scenes in the Dead Sea is very much a finer, more twisted synthesis of intellect and sentiment than what your usual Final Fantasy title must produce for its target audience.

They just weren't as memorable as some of Nobuo's area tracks,

Thoroughly disagreed, but I enjoy the discussion. In all fairness, Uematsu has done some wonderful atmospheric work in his time; FFX in particular, what with samples like "Guadosalam", "Besaid", "Movement in Green", etc. is one of his stronger efforts.

While analysing Nobuo's and Mitsuda's work, you forgot to mention a very important factor, in which Mr. Uematsu definitelly has the upper hand - character themes.

Depends entirely on whether a track title must explicitly name a character to be considered a "character theme" in your opinion. The essence of a character's personality and aura can be woven into many aspects of a soundtrack, provided that the characters and music are of sufficient strength. Magus' theme in Chrono Trigger, for instance, takes many forms, even going as far as to become the "theme" of the Zeal Royal Family ("Schala's Theme", "Zeal Palace", and "Undersea Palace" all bear variations of the same melody). Could "Orphan of the Flame" be considered "Lynx's Theme" on the merit of its tones of ruthless power, or must the word "Lynx" be etched into the title?

I know there's more and a lot are very memorable, but I believe Nobuo's are still more memorable and there's more of them).

"One Winged Angel" for president! :frust:

Have you played FFVI? Fourteen characters in total. Each of them having a unique musical theme (besides Edgar and Sabin, who happen to share one).

Negative. Sounds intriguing, though.

In my opinion, it's not the composing experience or expertise, that makes a VGM composer - it's making the game come alive, which Nobuo managed to do in his works, especially with VI's OST and all its character themes.

Oh, fully concurred. It is not these criteria of what constitutes a "brilliant soundtrack" that is the source of our disagreement, but rather our estimates of the brilliance of the soundtracks involved, which is the best basis for discussion in matters like this. ^_^

With that, I do not mean to say Nobuo is an inexperienced composer

Hell, no one could claim such a thing. :laugh: Uematsu indeed epitomizes an unusual combination of high quality and great quantity.

- have you listened to Phantasmagoria? It's an album of Uematsu's, independent of any game he has written for.

Again, negative. Was unaware that Uematsu had done any independent work, really. Interesting.

My point is, listening to these tracks, seeing how different they are from Uematsu's gaming compositions show's how versatile a composer he really is. That's why my vote goes to Nobuo Uematsu. Mitsuda has great potential, but I feel he still has a long way to go...

Hm. Well, that is a legitimate opinion, but I am inclined to believe that Mitsuda struck his stake into the video game music industry at a virtually unparalleled height, arguably improved upon it in Chrono Cross, but has unfortunately been unable to maintain such a prodigious and unreasonable altitude on non-Masato Kato projects. Hopefully that is the only issue, and Mitsuda will rise again on a hypothetical third canon Chrono installment.