[Album] Final Fantasy VIII (SSCX-10028)

Catalog Number SSCX-10028
Release Date March 10, 1999
Release Type Official Release
Release Price 3873 Japanese Yen (JPY)
Media Type CD (4 discs)
Classification Original Soundtrack
Published by DigiCube
Composed by Nobuo Uematsu
Arranged by Nobuo Uematsu, Shirou Hamaguchi
Performed by Faye Wong (song "Eyes on Me")
From the Game Final Fantasy VIII
Platform(s) Sony PlayStation

Tracklist

Spoiler:

Disc One 62:07
1) Liberi Fatali (3:07)
2) Balamb GARDEN (3:29)
3) Blue Fields (2:54)
4) Don't be Afraid (2:52)
5) The Winner (1:07)
6) Find Your Way (3:47)
7) SeeD (4:16)
8) The Landing (4:36)
9) Starting Up (1:19)
10) Force Your Way (3:53)
11) The Loser (1:26)
12) Never Look Back (3:23)
13) Dead End (1:11)
14) Breezy (2:43)
15) Shuffle or Boogie (2:04)
16) Waltz for the Moon (3:00)
17) Tell Me (3:24)
18) Fear (2:24)
19) The Man with the Machine Gun (2:49)
20) Julia (1:23)
21) Roses and Wine (2:18)
22) Junction (1:37)
23) Timber Owls (2:51)

Disc Two (59:48)
1) My Mind (3:12)
2) The Mission (3:36)
3) Martial Law (3:48)
4) Cactus Jack (Galbadian Anthem) (1:30)
5) Only a Plank Between One and Perdition (2:24)
6) SUCCESSION OF WITCHES (3:18)
7) Galbadia GARDEN (3:37)
8) Unrest (2:36)
9) Under Her Control (3:30)
10) The Stage is Set (3:39)
11) A Sacrifice (3:26)
12) FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC (4:33)
13) Intruders (2:31)
14) Premonition (4:36)
15) Wounded (0:53)
16) Fragments of Memories (3:13)
17) Jailed (3:50)
18) Rivals (3:30)
19) Ami (4:37)

Disc Three (63:24)
1) The Spy (3:46)
2) Retaliation (0:45)
3) Movin' (5:18)
4) Blue Sky (0:44)
5) Drifting (2:56)
6) Heresy (4:10)
7) Fisherman's Horizon (3:35)
8) ODEKA ke Chocobo (1:16)
9) Where I Belong (3:40)
10) The Oath (3:25)
11) Slide Show Part 1 (1:23)
12) Slide Show Part 2 (1:47)
13) Love Grows (4:28)
14) The Salt Flats (3:36)
15) Trust Me (3:13)
16) Silence and Motion (5:47)
17) Dance with the Balamb-fish (3:39)
18) Tears of the Moon (1:12)
19) Residents (3:06)
20) Eyes on Me [Faye Wong] (5:38)

Disc Four (61:10)
1) Mods de Chocobo (2:24)
2) Ride On (3:03)
3) Truth (3:40)
4) Lunatic Pandora (3:28)
5) Compression of Time (4:34)
6) The Castle (5:19)
7) The Legendary Beast (5:50)
8) Maybe I'm a Lion (5:35)
9) The Extreme (6:44)
10) The Successor (3:37)
11) Ending Theme (13:20)
12) Overture (3:36)
Total Running Time: 246:29

Recommended: For anyone looking for a variety of strong music with greatly improved synth in Nobuo Uematsu’s distinctive style, and doesn’t mind the composer’s total abandonment of the leitmotif structure he used in the two previous Final Fantasy games.

Final Fantasy VIII was Squaresoft’s followup to its breakout Final Fantasy VII, which had been a tremendous success in its native Japan and and even bigger smash abroad, bringing countless new gamers to the RPG format. As a result, no expense was spared on the new game, which featured the most advanced CGI cutscenes of its day, impressive, fully-textured ingame graphics, and a massive marketing push. It’s too bad more effort wasn’t put into streamlining the confusing battle system or fleshing out the paper-thin characters and plot, but the game was successful nonetheless, though it fell short of its predecessor’s widespread appeal.

There was never any real doubt that Nobuo Uematsu would return to the franchise; Final Fantasy VII had made him legions of new fans worldwide, and the new game’s higher budget meant that his efforts would be far more realistic, devoid of the tinny synth that dogged VII. At the same time, Uematsu would abandon the leitmotif-based structure that had been the cornerstone of his two previous Final Fantasy scores, instead opting for a smaller number of overarching themes and strong incidental scoring.

Building on the success of his “One-Winged Angel” from VII, Uematsu gave one of the prominent motifs a choral theme with Latin lyrics, based around the nonsense words “Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec.” It opens the powerful opening theme “Liberi Fatali,” anchors the menacing “Succession of Witches,” and appears in full in the track “Fithos Lusec Vecos Vinosec.” This choral sensibility is one of the album’s great strength, and the live singers’ voices enliven the otherwised synthesized tracks they appear in.

The second prominent theme is based on the pop song “Eyes On Me.” One of the more unfortunate side effects of Final Fantasy’s explosion of popularity was the inclusion of pop songs, which first appeared here and have since been present in every major release. They have never really fit in, despite being penned by Uematsu, and “Eyes On Me” interrupts the otherwise lovely “Ending Theme.” The song is far more effective when interpreted as an instrumental, as in “Blue Fields,” where it serves as a main theme of sorts.

The incidental scoring independent of the album’s main themes is quite strong, and Uematsu’s style is prominent enough to tie the pieces together without explicit thematic references. He goes about his task with aplomb, creating tracks as diverse as the genetle, melodic “Fisherman’s Horizon,” the acuosticc “Breezy,” and the delightful, string-based “The Mission.” Even though the game lacks a proper airship, Uematsu even turns in a rousing airship theme in the form of “Ride On.”

Final Fantasy VIII’s battle and action themes are particularly noteworthy, especially the normal battle theme, “Don’t Be Afraid.” Normal battle themes have long been Uematsu’s weakest tracks, often much more bland and modernistic than the surrounding music, but “Afraid” takes an effective classical approach, underscoring the brass with racing staccato strings and strong percussion. The boss battle theme “Force Your Way” is more modern, using a stadium-style organ and electric guitars with an orchestral backing to great effect. The larger-scale battles are album highlights, particularly “Premonition” and the climactic “The Extreme,” both of which interpolate the “Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec” melody and build from soft beginnings to explosive action statements.

Final Fantasy VIII is Uematsu at his best, refusing to rest on his laurels and crafting engaging new music that, while more fragmented than his earlier efforts, is every bit as enjoyable. The superior synth is a great boon to sensitive listeners as well, making the music much more palletable and accessible. As with every Final Fantasy album, Final Fantasy VIII is a Japanese release, available through importers and specialty retailers.

Rating (out of *****)
*****

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Bar none my favourite FF soundtrack. Far better MIDI than FFVII and doesn't make my ears bleed. Has some of the best music in FF, including Liberi Fatali (better than OWA, in my opinion), the three final boss themes, The Oath and Man With the Machine Gun.

The fact that FFVIII is my favourite FF isn't the reason why I love the OST too. It helps, yes, but FFVIII's score has a different feel to it than other FF scores. Great stuff, wot!

I'm glad to have a legit copy of the soundtrack.

5/5 of course.

P.S. I disagree about the paper-thin comment though. The characters felt more realistic to me than other FF characters. It's easy to relate to them.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I think Final Fantasy VIII was my first video game soundtrack I bought. I absolutely loved all of the fantastic melodies. My favourites would be "Timber Owls", "Martial Law", "Premonition", "The Oath", "The Salt Flats", "Ride On", "The Castle" and "Maybe I'm a Lion". There are so many more, too...

I'd have to say this is my favourite of Uematsu's works. Sheer brilliance in every sense.

A well-deserved 5/5.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I think FFVIII is probably Uematsu's best PSX FF score. Great melodies, decent synth. The only thing that's missing is the nostalgic value as I strongly disliked the game.

Considering how non-essential most of the characters were to the plot, it was smart of Uematsu to ditch the character themes.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Spoiler:

Yay for necroing 8-month-old threads. Still, the nature of this forum is a bit more timeless than some of the other forums at GFF so hopefully I won't be lynched for this.

Final Fantasy VIII and IX are probably my two favourite FF albums, 8 for its range and willingness to try new things, and 9 for its overall composition and freakin' huge size (what was it, 140 tracks in total?)

A few thoughts on 8, then:

-Regarding the Latin lyrics, I love what they did with Liberi Fatali, and the fact that the translated lyrics are far less trite and borderline-nonsensical than those of "One Winged Angel" (including the "rewritten" lyrics for Advent Children, which make little more sense than the original ones). If Uematsu was going for a "hit the ground running" opener, he couldn't have done much better than LF and that is a wonderful thing.

Two things always bothered me about it, though. First of all, looking at the "official" lyrics printed in the game case, I do believe, after having referenced numerous lyrics guides and listened to the song many many times, that the Square-provided lyrics are incorrect. "Somnus non eat" doesn't even parse, and "somnus non est," which would make the former inaccuracy an understandable, if glaring, typo, has too few syllables to match the vocals. Sounds more like "Somnus non est non" or "somnus a est non."

Other thing that bothered me about it is the feeling I get from hearing "Fithos lusec wecos vinosec." I know, I know, anagram of "succession of witches" and "love." Still, something about it feels really contrived and just...fake. A touch pretentious, maybe. Probably just me being neurotic about it, but after being driven mad trying to find out the "translation" to the phrase (going as far as even contacting Squaresoft directly (this was years and years ago, shortly after the game's release, and I was a stupid kid with nothing better to do than harass game companies)), with the nearest matches I could find being that "wecos" bore a fleeting resemblance to "wicca," Old English term for "wise" and new-skool term for "practitioner of witchcraft," and the Latin "vinosus" meaning "showing the effects of wine (i.e. intoxicated)" which I then put together to mean "something something intoxicated with a witch's power," it sucked to find out it was just a shitty anagram.

Anyway, moving on before you find out any more about how pathetic I was.

-Some truly great experimental tracks, which really are what make the album for me. "The Salt Flats" is a great track to relax to, and "The Castle," to which an old friend of mine referred as "Bach on crack," is among the more stylistically outstanding final-dungeon themes I've heard, eschewing traditional tension-building motifs for a more atmospheric (and, incidentally, more memorable) sound. Organ + harpsichord for the win, and while the organ has since been used to expert effect by Shoji Meguro (listen to "Goumaden" from Devil Summoner), few tracks have managed the same baroque sound that this one has.

-You can argue what you wish about Uematsu's ability or lack thereof to write engaging, interesting battle music, but if he suddenly got a burst of inspiration on this album, it was one helluva talking-to his muse gave him because this album has some of my all-time favourite RPG battle themes. "Don't Be Afraid" is probably the series' best standard-battle tune, more complex and layered than the 16-bit installments, subdued and steady compared to FF7's "Fighting," and doesn't seem to get tired as quickly as FF9's battle theme. Also not as overly-upbeat as FF10's. "Premonition" does a wonderful job of slowly building tension and exploding into an all-out symphonic frenzy, and still manages to loop gracefully without falling flat as it returns to its building stage and starts the whole delicious process over again. Finally, "The Legendary Beast" is a great "powerful" boss theme and develops its melodic theme smoothly across three overlapping sets of instruments (synth'd, but very convincingly so). Much better use of percussion there, too, than in "Maybe I'm a Lion," whose "tribal beat" theme felt forced and which sounded way too much like Uematsu was channeling Iron Butterfly when he wrote it.

-Hand-in-hand with the battle themes go the action/chase/danger themes. "The Mission" has already been spoken for, and I'll merely echo my appreciation for it as a subtle, elegantly understated action theme. Another favourite of mine, surprising considering how long I had to hear it while I figured out what the frell I was supposed to do in Deling City, is "The Stage is Set." A little more military-sounding, a little less thrilling and a little busier than "Mission," it's one of my favourite examples of how VGM can make use of "proper" instruments (strings) and still sound catchy and interesting. As for "Only a Plank Between One and Perdition," what can be said? "Hell is coming...RUN." It's more complex than the danger themes in FF7, and more gripping and threatening than the almost playful-sounding "Run!" in FF9. 9's was good, but the dancing-piano segment kinda kills the tension there. "Plank" manages to scare you from beginning to end.

I agree with Orion on the pop-song bit. The only FF pop-song inclusion I enjoyed was FF9's "Melodies of Life," which had the right combination of low-pitched vocals, intelligible lyrics, and a melody that was both non-gushy and also lent itself well to a (fantastic) orchestral arrangement. I used to absolutely loathe "Eyes On Me" until I heard FF10's "Suteki da Ne," which opened my eyes (and most unfortunately, as fate would have it, ears) to whole new layers of aural pain. Still, EoM is nothing to write home about, and Square has had far better luck with vocal pieces in their other games, namely Xenogears "Small of Two Pieces" and Parasite Eve's "Somnia Memorias."

Overall, though, J-pop and irksome pseudo-Latin notwithstanding, FF8 has one damn fine soundtrack to its name.

I was speaking idiomatically.