The Best Soundtrack

[Forsaken Lover]

FFIV has it.

You know it to be true.

Don't be coming in here with no "FFVI was better" nonsense. We're talking about IV, 4, 3+1 and 5-1.

FIV is Uematsu's greatest effort in the series. Character themes, battle themes, airship theme, dungeon themes - FFIV brings the highest of quality in all areas.

[The Man]

no, it's nowhere near his best; Uematsu was far from mastering the art of arrangements at this point in his career. Most of the songs are really sparsely arranged compared to his later works and they suffer from it. Even FFV was a quantum leap forward in terms of its arrangement quality.

The songs themselves are nice, I guess, but not enough to overcome the arrangement deficiency.

[Forsaken Lover]

What was that? I can't hear you over the greatness.



Hey, I played to the part where Setzer joins the party in VI. I also beat VII-X. None of them come even close to that.

Or this.

[The Man]

Hey, I played to the part where Setzer joins the party in VI.

You really aren't in a position to evaluate then, because by far all of the game's best songs (opera, Dancing Mad, ending theme) come after that. Some way after.

As for VII-X, to pick one example from each game, "J-E-N-O-V-A", "The Extreme", "You're Not Alone", and "Calm Before the Storm" are each better than anything on the FFIV soundtrack.

[Wolf Kanno]

I felt IV has a good soundtrack and the arraignments for it can be pretty amazing, but overall I feel V is the beginning of Uematsu coming into his own as a composer and he peaked with VI and VII. VIII has some good arrangements but I always felt that besides a few strong tracks most of the music felt more atmospheric than actually pushing the scene to emotional excess. IX is also a strong entry and I felt X was similar to VIII with only a handful of tracks being worth listening to and the rest better forgotten.

What I feel FFIV does better than it's predecessors was utilize music to help tell the story. I mean you hear Theme of Love and just imagine Cecil and Rosa embracing while Kain looks away and most of the character themes instantly remind you of the characters. Tracks like The Red Wings, In the Giant, and the Lunarians are all wonderfully powerful themes that play in some of the game's strongest moments. That is the legacy of FFIV's music, it elevated game soundtracks from just being background noise to being a tool for storytelling.

This is probably my favorite version of Theme of Love.

[Psychotic]

It's alright - wouldn't say it's the best. I think one of the absolute best from this game is Suspicion, sometimes called Kain's Theme. (that's how I knew it in my own head for the longest time!)

[Forsaken Lover]

All the best villains have organs in their themes. Golbez, Kuja....uh....NORG....

Does Kefka's theme have an organ in it? I don't think so. What a loser.

[The Man]

Dancing Mad has an organ; so does the Fanatics' theme. Both of those are used as themes for Kefka in later parts of the game. Once again, by not having played the whole game you have revealed your unfitness to be discussing this topic.

[Wolf Kanno]

You do realize he's trolling you right?

[The Man]

yes but I'm bored and responding to obvious trolling is alleviating my boredom so

[Forsaken Lover]

You do realize he's trolling you right?

Perhaps but I am 100% sincere in my belief FFIV has the best OST.

Granted, I operate in moods. In a few weeks or months I'll think VIi had the best OST. Then another week or month and it'll be IX.

IV's soundtrack is still amazing.