Oh the places you’ll go in this whirlwind tour of ten different FF worlds, from Matoya’s Cave to the floating city of Bevelle.
SHOW NOTES
0:00:00 – Prelude (FFVII)
0:11:09 – Town (FF Origins)
0:12:29 – Matoya’s Cave (FFI)
0:14:09 – Castle Pandemonium (FFII Origins)
0:15:24 – The Cave Where the Crystal Lies (FFIII)
0:23:56 – Mt Ordeals (FFIV)
0:25:39 – Kingdom of Baron (FFIV)
0:27:10 – Illusionary World (FFIV)
0:28:44 – Within the Giant (FFIV)
0:39:17 – Sealed Away (FFV)
0:41:04 – Figaro Castle (FFVI)
0:43:46 – Mt Koltz (FFVI)
0:46:05 – Devil’s Lab (FFVI)
1:00:44 – Golden Saucer (FFVII)
1:02:40 – Cosmo Canyon (FFVII)
1:06:12 – Crazy Motorcycle (FFVII)
1:11:15 – Deling City (FFVIII)
1:14:43 – Find Your Way (FFVIII)
1:20:55 – Gizamaluke Grotto (FFIX)
1:23:53 – Jesters of the Moonless Sky (FFIX)
1:27:09 – Black Mage Village (FFIX)
1:37:23 – Attack on Bevelle (FFX)
I am grateful for both this episode and the Dr. Suess reference!
Yes! Can’t wait to open a bottle of wine and just melt away to these tunes!
This episode goes well with a bowl of Yummy Mummy monster cereal. 1000000%
Can’t get enough of this Rocktober! Thanks for the extra hard work, Brett!
Funny, I LOVE the card game in 8. Interesting little middle-school story for me:
I never owned an original Playstation. I got into the Final Fantasy series with FF10 when I bought a PS2. A few years later, I decided to go back and see what all the fuss was about FF7-9, since my friends at school would tell me how great they were. I played FF9 first, then 7, then there was another year or two gap before I got around to 8. So 8 had been out for while before I actually got around to playing it. Well during this time, there was a Triple Triad website where you could create an account, get a random deck of cards, and play Triple Triad against other people on the internet. I used to spend an hour or two after school playing my friends and random internet people in Triple Triad matches – and occasionally win a match or two by the other person timing out thanks to the glories of 56k modems. So before I even touched Final Fantasy 8, I had spent hours and hours on its completely optional minigame.
You didn’t play it (maybe you will though… Next Episode = Minigame music?), but “Shuffle or Boogie” – the Triple Triad Theme – is probably my most nostalgic piece of FF8 music. For reasons completely separate from the game itself
FF7 was my first Final Fantasy. I bought a Playstation for that game based purely on the marketing. I wanted to be part of that movie experience. I rushed though it, avoiding nearly every sidequest without a concept of what I was missing. When FF8 came out I devoured it. Every character to lv 100, every card in the in-game TCG, and every spell and summon to lv 100. To this day it is still my favorite Final Fantasy, and yes, I’ve gone back and played earlier entries as well as most of the later ones. Because of this it pains me to hear Brett say he never finished it. Makes me sad.
I gotta say Brett, I’m loving these epsiodes and they’re really getting me to go and try out the older final fantasies. I’ve only played 13 and I haven’t even finished it cause it was a rental. The rest of the games I’ve touched for maybe an hour on ROMS but never really bothered going through. Hearing all of this music and the memories you guys have of these games and how they all just impacted you all….well yea, it made me reevaluate the small chance I’ve given the FF series.
I think the first one I’m gonna go for is FF 9, since I want something a bit more lighthearted and I like the design of it. I had no clue I could play it on my PS2 and I found it for pretty cheap on Amazon so I’m totally gonna dive into that. I’d also be buying Theatrhythm, if it wasn’t for the fact that a newer version with all the songs was coming out next year. Just wanted to thank you for convincing me that there was a lot I was missing out on.
You’re welcome! Glad to know the shows make a difference
Hey Brett, could you play the original versions of the NES songs on the next episode? They’re SO MUCH better than the Origins version!
I find myself humming Figaro Castle out of nowhere sometimes. What an awesome song. You guys can only fit so much into one podcast (and how!) so I’m throwing in a suggestion for Fisherman’s Horizon from VIII. Nothing more relaxing than letting it wash over you on a bad day. Can’t wait for the last week of d-d-deep cuts in Rocktober.
Clarification for what the Black/White Mage user is called in FF5: it’s a Red Mage 😛
Lots of awesome choices in this one, particularly FFIV’s stuff. That game has so many good location themes, “Into the Darkness,” “Mystic Mysidia,” among them. And “The Lunarians” is so chilling. You’ve given me a newfound appreciation for “Within the Giant,” it’s a very epic track. My favorite from FF4 would have to be “Red Wings” though.
Some of my favorite location themes from FFIII were “Jinn the Fire” (which plays in that one town where everyone’s invisible). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQG0sU3LPc and the DS version of “Forbidden Land Eureka.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wev-MtUeMPg It’s a very brief track but has this awesome mysterious feeling to it.
I liked the Easter Egg in FFIX where you can hear a remix of FFIII’s “Doga and Unei/Let Me Know the Truth” track in the Black Mage Village when you have a certain item in your possession. That game really was the ultimate throwback for the FF series.
I forgot how great FFV’s “Sealed Away” is. That’s yet another FF with a lot of great location themes. “My Home, Sweet Home,” “Walking the Snowy Mountains,” & “The Castle of Dawn” stand out for me. Also, “The Book of Sealings” intro sounds much like Sephiroth’s Theme in the beginning, and “Intension of the Earth” has a part that’s directly referenced in Kuja’s Theme from FF9. The more you know 😛
FFVI’s “Devil’s Lab” kicks so much ass, glad you included that one. The band “Those Who Fight” did a really cool cover it at PAX East this past year. Another favorite of mine from VI is “Returners,” I try not to rush through the game’s early segment with the Returners just so I can hear it loop a few times. “The Serpent Trench” is also one that stood out for me, I kinda get some of the same vibe from it as the “Pink Rabbit” tune from A Link to the Past.
Final Fantasy VIII’s Junction and Drawing system becomes more fun when you realize how you can abuse it to the point of becoming overpowered from the first couple hours of the game. Doing the Triple Triad game in Balamb Garden for hours and collecting the best cards, and using the Card Mod tool and Item–> Magic conversions was neat. I loved Triple Triad. It just sucked when certain locations started adding all these annoying rules, like picking your cards at random. It’s much better than FF9’s Tetra Master though, which had no effect on gameplay. I agree about the game’s plot twist and story being quite a let down halfway through. It got too ridiculous for its own good. Even so, very fond memories of FF8. I still remember being wowed seeing the Leviathan summon for the first time and flying the Ragnarok around the world map (great tune there).
Tsuyoshi Sekito did indeed do Brave Fencer Musashi, and while I’m one of the many who got ahold of Musashi just to play the FF8 demo, it turns out that BFM is a really awesome game with an excellent soundtrack. Really wish it was on PSN, considering Japan got it no problem.
And if anyone wants to dig into FFXII’s location music, “The Mosphoran Highwaste” is probably one of the best ones in the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySdD5Hi8As
Thanks for making these Brett. They are amazing and are now making me want to go back and play them. So much nostalgia here from my childhood, I hope one day I can share with with my son.
I actually picked up 7-9 on vita and am looking forward to playing through them again. Final Fantasy 6 is one of those games I replay almost yearly, along with Secret of Mana. I’m actually working my way through FF4 on android and looking forward to the new version of after years in the ff4ds engine.
In FF14, iirc Uematsu did most of the original soundtrack and there’s an few of composers who worked on additional tracks for FF14:ARR. The majority of the music still used in ARR is Uematsu’s work however. I know after FinFantober, we probably won’t get another FF episode for awhile, but I hope you take a look at 13 and 14 in that one. The music in 13 was THE reason to keep playing and it’s nothing to scoff at in 14 either.
Kudos for mentioning “covers” and sampling songs. There are a few Phantasy Star 2 tracks that are begging for it; you are so right.
I’ve been dabbling in hip-hop/electronica since the late 90’s as a hobby, and I have definitely sampled my share of games. Ghostbusters and Quackshot for the Genesis and Castlevania 4 for the SNES come to mind. Anyway
…..I hesitated on listening to the FF episodes because of the other great stuff in your backlog. I am glad I finally got around to listening to them; FFVII was the last one I’d played, but on account of your goodness I’m thinking long and hard about trying IX. That’s what she said.
I have a normal rotation of podcasts I listen to but I’ve thrown all that out the window so I can listen to all these FF episodes. Love this music! Great show. It’s been a lot of fun listening to all these (I’ll get caught up eventually lol). Keep it up!
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The PS1 played CDs, so it wasn’t “just a game machine.”