Quote Originally Posted by nik0tine View Post
If you remove the compositions from the game you are left with nothing but professionally orchestrated, professionally composed prefabricated ambient noise. I'll take Uematsus beeps over that any day.
I think you hit the nail on the head with the composed ambient noise. Nowadays the sound is there to help be the background and help flash out the scene. Back in the day the graphics were so primitive the music was necessary to set the scene, and thus had to appear much more in the fore front.

For instance, in FF10 the only 'dungeon' that ever left a lasting impression on me was the last trudge up into Zanarkand. And I strongly feel that it would have had far less impact if the music wasn't put so far to the forefront.