[Album] Final Fantasy VIII (SSCX-10028)

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.