Who Is Nobuo Uematsu? About The Beethoven Of Video Games Music
NOBUO UEMATSU – In this topic, we will now know and discuss about Nobuo Uematsu who is at times known as the Beethoven of video games music.
Uematsu is a Japanese video game composer who was born at the 21st day of March 1959. He is well known to be the composer of most of the songs used in the famous role-playing video game series “Final Fantasy” (FF).
He has a diverse style when composing music, which renges form classical symphonies, as heard from the early FF games; to new age and hyper percussive techno-electronica.
In the case of FF scores, it ranges from upbeat, to dark and angry, to melancholic. Through his compositions, he was able to convey the true emotion in every scene.
Here are some of its famous works, according to Hardcore Gamer:
Famous Works
- One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII)
- One of the iconic songs in FFVII. This was the final boss theme of the game and associated with Sephiroth, the main antagonist. According to Uematsu, when composing this piece, he randomly wrote two to four measures of music that pops out from his head, and piece them together.
- Vamo Alla Flamenco (Final Fantasy IX)
- Roughly translates to “Let’s Go, Flamenco”. It is influenced by Spanish or Mexican music, particularly flamenco. This is what we usually hear in a Mexican or Spanish party with a mariachi band.
- Wind Scene (Chrono Trigger)
- One of the world themes of the game, this makes you feel like you are in a vast world where everything surrounding you was foggy and eerie as if danger will unexpectedly appear before you.
- Ruins (Blue Dragon)
- Ruins is close to the hip-hop genre. The drums are snappy and pulsating, as well as the organs.
- The Man with The Machine Gun (Final Fantasy VIII)
- The battle theme of Laguna Loire, who uses the weapon of, you guessed it, a machine gun. It is only used whenever you play this character.
- Suspicion (Final Fantasy IV)
- This score is played during the scenes associated with one of the game’s characters, a dragoon named Kain Highwind, who betrayed his childhood friend Cecil Harvey, the main character in the game.
- Dancing Mad (Final Fantasy VI)
- The final boss theme of the main antagonist Kefka Palazzo. the theme is split into four parts: “1st Tier” “2nd Tier”, “3rd Tier”, and “Final Tier”, that are played on the four phases of the battle.
- To Zanarkand (Final Fantasy X)
- A melancholic score which is mostly played on piano. It is the main theme of the game. Uematsu got the idea from a flautist, who he consulted for help
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