Final Fantasy XII Piano Collections: Is SE ending a tradition?
 

Has there been any word on the FF XII Piano Collections? Other than VII, most piano collections are released within a year of the game's release, but its been nearly 18 months since XII and there has been no word about it.

SquareEnix is a different company than Square was, and it is possible that they are ending tradition of creating *new* arrangements of their soundtracks (but they will profit on CD re-releases and concerts of old work). Since SquareEnix came to be, only FF X-2 has had piano collections released and those were probably in production before the merger. Since then, has SE released any new orchestral/piano albums for its games, including Dragon Quest? Mitsuda-san was supposed to have a Chrono Chross arranged album last year and that has also completely disappeared.

I'm worried all the big pushers of these wonderful arranged CDs have since left SquareEnix and we will never see a proper FF XII Piano Collections. Which is tragic because there are some wonderful pieces in it.

I hope I am wrong.

One reason is that the FFXII OST is commercially a flop. It sold less than other soundtracks in the main series (No, don't even talk about FFX-2; I recently knew that one has actually the HIGHEST sales number in the series because of Komi Kuma the popular J-Pop singer. :D)

Another reason is that FFXII's tracks are a lot harder to arrange into piano form, as far as I know.

No, the tradition certainly have not ended. They have their FFVII and (even) FFXI Piano Collections. Maybe some years later we can actually see one. ^_^

Given the fact that FFXIII's music production is given to Masashi Hamauzu the vgm piano master :) we can hopefully see a Piano Collections album.

Ditto to that "harder to arrange" reason. Sakimoto's works tend to rely heavily on the orchestral textures, meaning the layers of each instrumental part is essential to the piece, and more importantly, its not "hummable" like a Star Wars theme. Arranging for the piano will be difficult, or it wouldn't sound much like the original.

Pity the OST was a flop... While I personally didn't like the game, I felt the OST was good.

The best-selling FF album ever is VIII. Or VII. Also, when hired for FFX-2, Kumi Kouda didn't have a popularity at all. It's FFX-2 and later AVEX's hype that led her to gain a fanbasis. She and her fans tend to pretend it wasn't the case though.

They didn't even have an FF7 PC until relatively recently. So I wouldn't lose hope.

While Sakimoto's music is more orchestral (and hence, less pianistic) than Uematsu's, that shouldn't be a problem for any good arranger. Witness Hamauzu's arrangement of "Guadosalam", the original being one of Nakano's more ambient creations.

Of course, I doubt Hamauzu is available at the moment. ;)

Check this out

Ok, this was posted up on last.fm, by what it seems like was Sakimoto himself. DO NOT take my word for it though, but this does give us some insight on the fact that it MIGHT be in production right now. Or its just a fan remix that we'll never see go any farther. It does sound way too "studio" for that though. Who knows, maybe this is our light of hope? (I personally don't really care weather we get one or not, FFXII's OST was, on a whole, a drag)

Your mom was, on a whole, a drag. :(

That said, the MP3 definitely sounds fan-made. The arrangement is very simple...in fact, it sounds very much like something you might find in a DoReMi book if one were made for FF12. Which would still be pretty sweet.

There is a piano book for FFXII. You can buy it at SquareSound - Sheet Music, MP3s, MIDIs, Album, and Composer Information from Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Other Square Enix Games from their store :).

Well that means the OST of XIII is going to be incredible. Sorry to change the subject, but does anyone know who else he is working with?
I'm guessing Nobuo will do a leading track, as always?

Yes, Uematsu is writing the theme song. As far as we know, Hamauzu is working alone on the rest of the soundtrack, which is, indeed, extremely rejoicing.

That is amazing. Although I love both his work in FFX and FFVII:DoC, I would much prefer more melodic work like FFX. His work on that is literally perfect.

Hm, and here I was, waiting for an FFXII arrange album, may it be piano or just plain arrangement of selected tracks.

With the release of FFXIII, I just had to bring this thread back. SE is long overdue for 12, and I really hope they do one for 13 as well.

With Masashi Hamauzu and the other in-house composers getting laid off from SE, the possibility seems a bit grim, but that's not to say that former composers haven't gone back to contribute things.

XII's soundtrack wasn't very melodic, so it'd be difficult to fit into a piano collection, but Hamauzu has proved himself with past piano albums that he can work around that. Of course it'd also be good if he arranges tracks from his own FFXIII soundtrack as well.

I've been thinking about starting an online petition, but I don't think that'll do much good. Any thoughts?

I enjoyed the FF XIII piano collections, let's hope SE pulls a FF VII PC and releases the XII PC when there is a lull in Final Fantasy games.

Hamauzu could arrange FFXII PC, he could give the breath of life to the dead hollow pieces in the soundtrack.

Also fuck-old thread revive! FFXIII PC was kind of dull.

I agree whole-heartedly.

I think that if Hamauzu spent a good amount of time, he could make a great PC for XII. XIII seemed a bit rushed in terms of production, and I was not happy with the tracklist, as well as the overall quality of the arrangements. They seemed to be a bit skimpy.