Overview

For many years leading up to The Black Mages' release, I had been totally appalled by the arranged albums Square normally released for their Final Fantasy games. It seems that we can always count on a Piano Collections album that seems more mandatory than anything else, or a half-hearted collection of orchestrated tracks that pay no mind to pieces that would not work best when orchestrated. Recently, the pattern has taken a turn for the worse with compilation albums such as Square Vocal Collection, the two Potion CDs, plus the 20020220 - Music from Final Fantasy concert, which is mostly performances of tracks that had already been orchestrated on previous albums. I'm not saying these are bad, but the market can only over-saturate so much before people start to lose their patience. Meanwhile, for people like me, who don't enjoy Piano Collections at all and like the other relaxing styles only marginally so, it can get quite frustrating to see such great compositions go to such a horrible waste in the arrangement department. In contrast, other companies like Falcom and Konami kept a steady flow of both relaxing and exciting arrangements coming throughout the years. The idea of making an arranged album based on the excellent Final Fantasy battle themes is such a no-brainer, it's a wonder it took Squaresoft all these years to FINALLY make their first full rock arrangement. That's exactly what we have here.

10 tracks have been selected from the Final Fantasy game series and have been given the hard-rock treatment with blazing synthesizers and guitars that bring back the old-school glory days of pummeling foes with Fire3's and Atma Weapons far better than any "proper-suited" piano or orchestrated album could. The arrangements were actually done by Kenichiro Fukui (who did the score for Einhänder) and Tsuyoshi Sekito (who has Brave Fencer Musashi and the Final Fantasy II remake under his belt). I was a little disappointed in hearing this, as I was hoping that Uematsu would take a bit more pride in his own battle themes and do the arrangements himself. However, after hearing this effort, I'm more than pleased with the job Fukui and Sekito did in arranging these classic themes. And Uematsu does a fine job alongside them, playing his trusty organ.

The track selection is a healthy one complete with no-brainers selections for rock arrangements and some that are more curiosities than anything else. Chances are if you've played Final Fantasy I, II, V, VI, VII, VIII or X, you have fond memories of the tracks listed. Of course, any true Final Fantasy fan is going to gripe about the tracks that have been (or haven't been) selected and since I'm doing the review, here are mine: I'm happy that parts III and IX aren't represented here, as their battle themes weren't their strongest points, but leaving out IV was a giant mistake. Themes such as the two boss themes, the main battle theme, and the colossal battle with Zeromus are screaming for arrangements (and their fans are screaming along with them). Other glaring omissions is the music from the battle with Atma Weapon in Final Fantays VI and the final encounters in parts VII and VIII, when Uematsu really began to hit his stride with battle themes. On the flip side, there are some tracks that after hearing them really shouldn't be here (I'll deal with these later on). The arrangements themselves fall into three categories: Full-blown arrangement, marginal upgrade, and experimental.

Body

The full-blown arrangements include "Clash on the Big Bridge" (affectionately referred to as Gilgamesh's theme), "Decisive Battle," and "Battle Theme". Simply put, these are the best tracks here, and the fact that they represent their 16-bit counterparts with a good amount of style and intensity makes them the three main reasons to purchase this disc. The guitars get a full workout here, adding solos and extra parts while keeping the overall feel that made the SNES originals so great in the first place. By far, "Clash on the Big Bridge" is my favorite arrangement. At about 20 seconds in, the guitars come bursting out of nowhere along with the cool "dancing synthesizer" effect that is heard in the original. The arrangement is pretty close to perfect, considering the intensity of the original is both powered up with the guitars and expanded on throughout the arrangement. This is the best part about arranging a classic: It doesn't take a small miracle to make it sound great and this one literally hits all of the right notes to make it shine. Final Fantasy VI's "Decisive Battle" is by far the most relentless track on the album, something I wouldn't have figured from the original (which was never a favorite of mine). Three loops with enough power added each time around make this one a classic. Finally, the classic Final Fantasy VI battle theme is slowed down and given a much harder edge than the original piece, which struck me as being a bit too lighthearted for a rock arrangement in the first place. It works better I expected... That's always a compliment when I say that and I simply can't say it enough here.

Next up, we have the marginal upgrades, which are "Still More Fighting," "Force Your Way," and "Fight With Seymour" from VII, VIII, and X respectively. Don't get me wrong, I like these just as much as the other three tracks I've mentioned. It's just that, because they are much more complex than the NES/SNES themes, they don't sound like big improvements over their originals. Of course, adding guitars to already-kickass tunes is a surefire formula for success, so I don't have that much to complain about; it depends more on what you expect from an arrangement that anything else. It must be said though, the guitars are a significant increase from the original synth in these.

Of these three, the one that sticks out the most is "Force Your Way." Beginning with an effective ambiance of synths and backbeats, the piece slowly comes out on stage with an extended variation of the opening in the original. This is a great effect that is hard to put in writing, but when the guitars finally "arrive" and the piece takes off, it's so much stronger than both the original and if the track were to start out this way. It continues as one extremely effective loop, even taking timeout for a spectacular clash of solos, as the organ and guitar duke it out before reconvening for the finale. As far as picking CD favorites, I would probably rate this a close second behind Gilgamesh. Not even Final Fantasy VIII's lame junction system can put a damper on this arrangement and that's saying a lot. "Fight With Seymour" was my favorite of Uematsu's contributions to the Final Fantasy X Original Soundtrack and I'm glad to see it intact here, right down to the cool banging-effect. Still, the only real difference is an awesome guitar solo about four minutes in. It's woefully unspectacular otherwise. Finally, "Those Who Fight Further" is the only marginally upgraded track that I find myself sometimes getting tired off. It comes exploding out of the gate, but the guitars quickly fade into the background, making this piece a lot less interesting than it should be. Then again, it could just be the fact that I listened to the original so much...

Finally, we have the experimental tracks. These are the tracks where most opinions on the disc will begin to change. For example, "Battle, Scene II" really isn't that great of a track to begin with, and the attempt to slow it down (I suppose to give it more of an epic feel) doesn't help matters. The guitars help its cause, but this really was a poor choice for an arrangement. I found myself getting quite bored with it. On the other hand, "Battle Scene" is a nice version of the original Final Fantasy battle music. Only part of the theme is here, however (the first part, right when the piece starts), and the other parts sound like they've been overlapped onto it. It sounds somewhat messy at times, but is a pretty good piece to start the album with...It's just not that great on its' own.

"J-E-N-O-V-A" seems an odd choice for a rock arrangement. This track could easily have been a disaster. The original is sorta-techno, sorta-something else. Here, the arrangement keeps the original melody, while adding a throbbing techno beat and what seems to be random guitar work. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (sometimes the beat drowns out the melody or the guitar is wailing by itself for no reason) but the end result is incredibly fun to listen to, especially when the guitar gets its act together towards the end. Given that Einhänder was primarily a techno soundtrack, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to find at least one techno arrangement here. Still, I think I find myself preferring the excellent version of "J-E-N-O-V-A" from the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Original Soundtrack to this one.

Now we have the ultimate experiment, a full arrangement of "Dancing Mad," the piece that played during the 4-tier battle up the ominous tower in Final Fantasy VI to reach Kefka. Yes, you heard me right. This isn't just the part where you meet Kefka at the top, this is ALL of "Dancing Mad," literally from the ground up. The arrangers deserve some credit for taking on such a monster, but they do not deserve any credit for the way it was handled. For one thing, the synthesized voices that are used sound terrible. When I say the ones at the second part sound like they are hiccuping, I'm not exaggerating. The ones from the original Final Fantasy VI Original Sound Version actually sound better and that was original SNES music. Not to say there is anything wrong with SNES music, but it definitely sounds like computerized chanting that pushed the sound hardware to the limits and it STILL sounds eons better than what's here. Secondly, disregard anything I've said about rehashes on this album. Unlike the other arrangements, this is a carbon copy of the original and I honestly can't say that it sounds much better (some parts, even without the voices, sound worse if you can believe it). The only true arranging comes at the second half of the final part, which roughly gets a three-minute guitar treatment. This section is actually pretty cool, but not worth waiting around eight minutes for it to come up. I wouldn't say this track ruins the album, but it really is a joke. In fact, you could say that I was "feeling sad" after I was "dancing mad"...

One major complaint I have heard about this album is that sometimes the synthesizers take the full stage of the arrangements over the guitars. It's a legitimate complaint; this album would be a lot better if it would go the route of, say Guilty Gear X: Heavy Rock Tracks, and use all live instruments, but since it doesn't, it has to be taken for what it is. The synths are definitely high quality reminding me a lot of those Motoi Sakuraba uses in his arrangements (a very good compliment, for those not familiar with Sakuraba), but there really isn't anything like a guitar wailing away at a well-known melody, or just flat-out creating its' own mid-piece. Some people will never get over the synthesizers, but in my honest opinion they don't detract enough from the music to lower my high opinion of this album ("Dancing Mad" being the exception). That said, Fukui and Sekito have gotten their feet wet with this style and I will be expecting them to improve on their next effort.

Summary

The monotony of endless Squaresoft piano albums has been broken. The Black Mages should be widely available by the time you read this. You can likely find it for around $23-$27. "Feeling sad" after I was "dancing mad"... That's a good one. Maybe I "wasn't glad" that "Dancing Mad" was "acting bad". Or maybe... Ah, never mind!