“Ahead On Our Way” starts off with a nice chant, before using keyboards and drum loops to re-produce the song in a way that sounds like an 80′s synthesizer song. It is very faithful to the original and is a lovely start to the album. ”Lenna’s Theme” is given a beautiful rendition on the softest of guitars, flutes and pads ever, to give a soothing lullaby that is so very easy on the ears.

“Pirates Ahoy” is a magnificently dark and devious song, using a guitar and keyboards to re-do the song to great success. Then suddenly, the song changes into chanting and wild animals. It blends well and gives a sense of a hard journey. “Critter Tripper Fritter” is a great comical song, using every bizarre instrument it can possibly use to make it sound like a circus gone mad! The result is three minutes of pure lunacy and one that is very welcome in this diverse album.

“Intention Of The Earth” is the most dramatic piece so far, with soaring keyboards, bass filled drums and gongs. This song comes to life with the improved instruments, as do they all, as you can get the real mysterious feel with all the true zest of the instruments. ”My Home, Sweet Home” is a vocal song, which is sweetening and charming. Using both English and Finnish, the song emphasises the importance of your real home and your mother tongue. It’s a great piece of insight and one I have a special spot for. ”The Land Unknown” is done in the same way as the opening track, staying very faithful to the original and reacting it with real instruments.

“Tenderness In The Air” is done almost completely on harpsichord that makes for an unusual diversion from the usual piano and it is played very well indeed while “Waltz Suomi” is done in a typical French manner and keeps nicely in time, doing the main theme in various different off-key and off beat styles before having a graceful finish.

“Fate In Haze” makes itself nicely mysterious with its slow tune but that fades away to become a beautiful tune for the choruses and a good build up for a nice finish again. “As I Feel, You Feel” is the first piano based song on the album, and they’ve given it to the right song. Also, there is a narration read over the top of the piece. The music with starts to sound a little lost, suddenly finds its place in accompaniment. The narration is heartfelt, and the singing in the background along with it makes it sound very isolated and cold. Strange, an acquired taste, but well done.

“Musica Machina” gives us a dramatic piece, that will have you stomping your feet to the big beat and heavy synth strings. “Music Box” does exactly what is says on the tin, but how so! It’s an adorable tune, no one can listen to this song and not think “Aww!” The closing track is fittingly “Dear Friends” which is played to precision on a guitar, and before long other instruments fit into the song making it a lovely warming away to end an extremely varied album.

“Final Fantasy V Dear Friends” is a rare treat. It does a bit of everything and does it all extremely well, with no reason to fault it at all. If you loved the game’s music, you’ll adore this. There’s always that extra pinch of excitement seeing how synth music turns out on the real instruments and this is a lesson on how it should be done.

The full tracklist:

Akira Yamaoka (Shadows of the Damned) | “Ex Animo”
Arthur Inasi (Harmonix) | “We Are One”
Bear McCreary (SOCOM 4) | “Maverick Regeneration”
Chance Thomas (Lord of the Rings Online) | “Rise Up”
Hip Tanaka.β (Mother) | “HVC-1384″
Inon Zur feat. The Lyris Quartet (Dragon Age) | “Remember”
Jason Graves (Dead Space) | “Necromancer”
Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros.) | “Super Mario Medley On Two Pianos”
Laura Karpman (Everquest II) w/Lisbeth Scott | “Pine Wind Sound”
Laura Shigihara (Plants vs. Zombies) | “Jump”
Mitsuto Suzuki (The 3rd Birthday) | “Play for You”
Nobuko Toda (Metal Gear Solid 4) | “Reminiscence”
Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) | “Every New Morning”
Penka Kouneva (Prince of Persia) | “White Cloud”
Sean Murray (Call of Duty) | “The Temple Stone”
Tommy Tallarico (Advent Rising) | “Greater Lights”
Woody Jackson (Red Dead Redemption) | “Moshi Moshi”
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) | “Dimension Break”

“Play for Japan: The Album” will be released on iTunes in June, and I’ll make sure to tell you the exact date as soon as we know. 100% of the profits will be donated to the relief efforts in Japan

“Opening Theme ~ Terra” sets the scene with a beautiful arrangement of the piece. The strings and brass soar and fade with gusto and beauty while the wind instruments delicately dish us the main tune of Terra with panache. There’s additional phases to the track which all slide effortlessly into the original tune as if they’ve always belonged and the track is superb.

“Cefka” is a magical arrangement and is possibly my favouite on the album. It gives the tune an evil circus feel. Its sinister but delicious and cleverly funny with it too. It reminds me of old black and white comedy music scores. “The Mystic Forest” takes the sinister part of the previous track and works it overtime in this slightly abstract arrangement of the song that doesnt get going till 1/3rd of the way through. The use of an operatic singer echoing in the distance is genius.

“Gau” uses the harpsichord with the strings to create a very regal, delicate and whimsical arrangement thats very enjoyable to listen to and remains very faithful to the original melody until the middle section gives us an almost Celtic Moon esque middle improvisational section before returning to the song one more time.

Sadly “Milan De Chocobo” really struggles for me. In essence the 5 minute song could have ten times more effective as a 2 and a half minute piece. Stretching the chocobo song into something slow and almost scary is an original take on the theme granted, but during the middle of the song it all falls apart because the track just doesn’t seem to go anywhere and loses its way. The beginning and end sections are great, but the middle loses it for me.

“Troops On The March” is a large scale orchestration that gives off all the grandure you can possibly manage with militant drums and harsh to the ears brass instruments. “Kids Run Through The City Corner” is much like Gau earlier with strings and harpsichord giving everything they’ve got. Very chamber classical and one of those songs you’ll either love or hate.

“Blackjack” is a track that has taken literally years to grow on me. Upon first listen I thought it was messy and uncohesive. However now I actually really enjoy it as its a breath of fresh air for being relatively simple in its delivery and quite chirpy. “Relm” takes the plesentness further with a surprise inclusion of bag pipes to an orchestrated piece! It’s different and after many listens I’m still not sure if it works better than say a flute, but the rest of the song is absolutely stunning. “Mystery Train” is a daring and delightful madhouse piano and viole solo that isnt afriad to let it all go and throw it about. It pays off too with some ragged, angry white knuckle playing. This is the one track where going absolutely nuts and stucking to it actually works perfectly and it creates its own mini atmosphere to the album.

The closing track is “Aria Di Mezzo Caratterre” which is the famous opera song that rounds off the album with style, class, elegance and power all in one swoop. Svetla Krasteva’s singing is emotive and well rounded and the song gains stature as more instruments join her for a sweeping finale.

Final Fantasy VI Grand Finale has to be admired for its grand scale of its music. Some songs on here are classic adaptations and deserve bags of praise. The flip side is that a couple of the arrangements for trying to be different actually fall short by being overly different (scary chocobo?) but overall and after many years of coming back to album, I’ve grown to enjoy it more and more upno each listen. The perfect companion for any orchestra lovers or for anyone who enjoyed Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite – for everyone else it may be better to find some sample clips first before you make your choice.

“Blue Fields” opens the album with a delicate start of this pleasant tune that calmly pitter-patters though like a dream which “Eyes On Me” calmly takes over. The delicateness of this love song is made even more apparent here in a perfectly converted to piano song. The soft playing of a complicated piece makes for superb music for drifting off to sleep and cuddles in candlelight. “Fisherman’s Horizon” is the last of the trio of dreamy songs, closing the section in beautiful fashion before the album takes a step up in pace.

“Succession Of Witches” strips away the dream to create an uneasy and haunting song awaking you to the evil side of Final Fantasy VIII but retaining a cutesy effect to make it more eerie. “Ami” makes the original piano tune into a beautiful epic with the softest of playing and the loveliest touches to make for an enchanting piece before “Shuffle or Boogie” gives the album a big lift in beat with a bluesy number that provides a nice bit of fun to the collection.

“Find Your Way” is a piece of abstract work that infects the mind with superbly detailed piano work and excellent tension building. “The Oath” is a dramatic uplifting track that gets more confident and powerful as it moves on but never fulfils its promise of a big ending.

“Silence And Motion” is a beautiful song that comes across bitter-sweet but dramatic with the song ever evolving and fast changing in what is one of the best surprises of album. “The Castle” is one of the most complex songs on the album with several different sections the song. Some are dramatic and slow, others complex and fast giving us another great evolving track. Having spoken to many pianists just being able to play this track is a marvel in itself. “The Successor” continues the evolving complexity trend with a song with a very different view to an end boss theme. It slows it right down and gives it a beauty that could have been lost in all the power of the original. Its not what I was expecting, but it gives the end boss theme a very unique edge to it.
“Ending Theme” is dramatic, elegant and regal all at the same time with several sections to it, including the Final Fantasy theme and the near 6-minute epic is a fantastic piece of work. The closing track is the extremely fun and very complex “Slide Show Part2″ with ends the album on a light note with a great, bouncy classic Laurel and Hardy sounding song!

Final Fantasy VIII Piano Collection is probably the most relaxed of the all the collections to date. Its emphasis on soft but complex melodies holds it in a good stead and the more you listen, the more you hear and the more you enjoy. Another gem in the collection.

Elsewhere atE3 we saw a trailer for Final Fantasy XIV (when will XIII ever come out!?!?!) which will follow XI and be online. Nobuo has been confirmed as the composer for the soundtrack although it remains to be seen if anyone else will join him.

It’s going to be a good year for Nobuo fans!

Tifa’s Theme opens up with a surprisingly tender piece that works out a lot better than what the original did; replacing the whiny snyth’s with the soft plinks of the piano to really set the atmosphere. “Main Theme Of Final Fantasy VII” is intricately played to great effect too with its scaling grandness beautifully rendition. “Chino de Chocobo” however is less successful, being a bit too clumsy and straightforward, not to mention sounding like a few duff notes were hit (or at least it sounds it).

“Ahead On Our Way” however restores the bliss with carefully spaced piece, allowing for a bitter-sweet taste that leaves you on a soft high, another surprise conversion.

Nothing can prepare you for “Fighting” though, as its power, rage and waves of energy take the speakers over. Still in amongst the most raging of battle themes, its still able to melodic and upstanding as a tune in its own right and is possibly the stand out track from the album.

“Cosmo Canyon” is a song that has been completely transformed into another time, place and culture. With a strong, but bare tune to go on, its been added to, beefed out and made into a complex and proud piece that will delight the listeners and rank up there with the favourites. Superb stuff! “Gold Saucer” gets a chirpy conversion that has some great pace and tweaks to it that comes across to me like a childish snowball fight scene song. Cute but with buckets of charm.

“Farm Boy” is a slower version of the song, which is pleasant enough without ever really getting into your ears, before “Rufus’ Welcoming Ceremony” gives a formal and grandeur representation to the album with a great piece that loses none of its regal charm.

“J-E-N-O-V-A” is the song with the real pace and with its full-bodied slides up and down the piano in an endless assault on the keys. Personally I adore this song, which at first seemed too much for me, but with each listen a new appreciation is found.

Then comes the crowd pleaser “Aerith’s Theme”. Thankfully, the safest route was always going to be the best way to go, and although rivalled by Tifa’s Theme for best slow song on the album, this one takes it marginally. Rarely does a piece so soft touch a person, but upon each play it never fails to touch you. In stark contrast “One Winged Angel” sounds like a bizarre b-movie theme tune. That’s either good or bad depending on how you like typical old cliché horror music, but there’s no denying it has a feel all of its own, and you will be singing “Sephiroth” along with the piano as it builds up to its climax.

“Descendant From Shinobi” closes the album in a light hearted fashion with winner of best happy track of the album, turning what was a fun little number into a classy track for everyone to hum along to in style.

All in all, Final Fantasy VII Piano Collections was definitely worth the wait. None of the 13 tracks are awful, and the album flows perfectly raising the pulse with a monstrous battle tune, only to sooth it again with a sweet ballad. Excellently pitched, excellently played and creatively transposed. Top listening!

“The Prelude” opens the album setting the scene with arpeggios from an Irish harp and the main tune played by a timber flute. It’s a dreamy way to start the album and stays faithful the original version. “Prologue” is more traditional in the Celtic and Irish sense. The various string instruments plod though the track but fail to really give it the power that the classic song deserves which is a shame. “Chocobo-Chocobo” does give it some oomph though and dares to take one of the all time favourite songs into a light. After playing it through jollily it then speeds up and plays it just how a Celtic dance would. The result is something more bouncy and uplifting before returning to the original formula.

“Into The Darkness” takes the tone down with some excellently majestic but haunting playing and was a surprise highlight of the album for me. Sadly the “Main Theme Of Final Fantasy IV” is a tail of two halves. The first half of the song is great, with someone going bananas on a xylophone, but after that it quickly becomes sombre and downbeat and while the actual tune is still well played, it seems like the wrong tone is set.

“Welcome To Own Town!” starts off very relaxed before getting a Chocobo-Chocobo treatment with a new rendition. Strangely there is little correlation between this part and the actual tune, but it is once again another highlight from the album where I didn’t expect to find one!

“Theme Of Love” is tenderly done and played out like an opera death scene! It manages to capture everything in the song that despite having many different version made from it, still manages to be fresh and entertaining. “Melody Of Lute” starts off just as the “lute” in a nice little solo piece before the other instruments gradually filter in and make this piece well remembered for being heartfelt and excellently played. Followed by “Parom & Polom” which also gets it own little individual original section that barely tries to follow the chords of the actual song, yet still fits it, this song has the unfortunate problem that its repeated just one time too many. This song proves you can have just slightly too much of a great song. It doesn’t ruin the song by any means, but it could have been better shortened.

“Giotto, The Great King” plods through original tune happily enough before getting a Celtic fair arrangement half way through and really only getting mean and evil during the last half minute! In stark contrast “Dancing Calcobrena” is haunting and mystic from the outset with its merry-go-round keyboards and its Spanish yet evil sounding fiddle. Continuing on with the mystic tones comes “Mystic Mysidia” with it’s slightly out of tune melodies that are portrayed superbly with this kind of instrumentation. “Illusionary World” finishes off what is the best segment of the album. All these songs are show the best of Celtic Moon, being intensely dark and delicious.

“Rydia” returns to the elegant side of Celtic Moon with a peaceful and delicate version of the song with soft instrumentation and tear jerking beauty before “Troian Beauty” finishes off the album in more anthem style.

“Final Fantasy IV Celtic Moon” is one of those albums that grows on you more with every listen. You can’t get away from comparing it to Xenogears:Creid or even the Genso Suikoden Celtic trilogy  which is a shame because most of those albums are better judged separately as this Celtic influenced  album has a different tone to it all together and therefore holds its own niche in the genre. Despite seeming a bit sparse and little misjudged in places, the majority of the tracks make for excellent listening and any game music fan should find solace in this album.

Welcome to the first ever Higher Plain Music podcast! This focuses entirely on video game music and talks about the soundtracks reviewed this month and has special features on Final Fantasy X songstress Rikki & Final Fantasy CC siren Yae – featuring clips from their own albums works.

This is very much a work in progress test and for the future I’d like to include interviews and guests to come along and have a chat with me. It’s going to be very open to whoever wants to come along and talk. If you want to come join in the fun, just give me a post on here, on twitter (Sitorimon) or via email!

Please leave your comments (and the answers to the 3 name the song clips) so it can improve for the next edition!

Scene I (FFII’s main theme) features a choir and a string arrangement powerfully pounding out the main tune, with a little help from some brass and percussion arrangements. It is a beautiful rendition and an excellent opener as it’s very familiar.

Scene II (FFII’s Battle Scene 2) has a very strange drumbeat to accompany the song, which aside from that is a very accomplished piece, with as much drama as you can handle. The drumbeat doesn’t really detract from the song; it just seems a little out of place although over time I have gotten used to its quirk.

Scene III is a medley of FFI’s Opening, the town theme and Matoya’s cave! Each segment is excellently transposed. The Opening part’s majestic ways must have been what earned it such high occult to be included somewhere in every Final Fantasy! The town theme is much more quieter, effortlessly rolling into Matoya’s Cave which is where the choir join the string and brass instruments for what is a very relaxing piece before building up for a crescendo of the opening theme again. Fantastic stuff!

Scene IV (FFII’s Finale) starts off with a picturesque harp and xylophone piece that grabs your heart. Then a heart wrenching string piece is played, almost like a royal anthem. From here it gradually adds layers of instrumentation to a big finale! This is classic Final Fantasy music.

Scene V (FFI and II’s Preludes) showcases various instruments for a military induced fun tune, that instead of being majestic is more happy and outgoing. Soon this stops and the traditional Prelude begins, complete with a harp. It is very cutely done. Wind instruments add a vocalised tune over the top and it forms a delicate song, which shines amongst so many big battle tracks.

Scene VI (FF1′s Kuluku’s Volcano) is a playful song, with pizzicato strings making the tune at the beginning sound like a clumsy, happy one. Soon other instruments enter the fray and it turns a little more mystical and dangerous and the pace quickens and it turns into a dramatic piece.

The final piece, Scene VII (FF1′s Main Theme) rounds off the album in typical style, with a majestically big piece, almost like a swan song. Everyone gets in on the act, and a full orchestra and choir pound out the ending to an ovation at the ending!

After listening to a blinding CD and clapping along with the crowd at the end, you’ll find this CD treasured as one of your favourites, especially if you’re a fan of the older games melodies. Technically accomplished and on scale that was rarely done at the time of making, buy this piece of history and you wont be disappointed.

Opening the CD is “Tina” which has been remixed by Snow Productions. Now it’s a house remix, and you would have no idea it was actually Tina for the first 2 minutes, before you actually hear the tune. To be honest, the song sounds a little dated and too repetitive and the Tina parts sound tacked on, but its still worth a listen to hear what they’ve done.

“Friends Beats” is a Dear Friends remix, in a hip-hop way. This song is much better and actually incorporates the song a little more, but although its merry enough to plod along, it just doesn’t cut it as a great song. It’s a shame as now Square Dance is around; we can get better dance songs! “Main Theme From Final Fantasy IV” is another remix and sounds very dated and very wrong. A Reggae beat splattered over the top of the OSV version does not make a good song. No ifs or buts. These remixes are all inferior to the excellent works we can get at OverClocked Remix – they simply have not aged well at all. Still, now we have those out of they, along comes sound synth arranged versions of the older songs.

“Prologue” is a fully arranged version of Final Fantasy, which is nice, but compared to say FFVI it just doesn’t cut it as well at would have done 8 or 9 years ago. The tunes still great, but it’s not as impressive. “Theme Of Love” suffers the same problem, but as it’s a one off song it cannot be overlooked as much. It’s a much clearer and better version than the OSV and congratulations must go to Uematsu for breathing new life into a well-used song. Maybe this was the ground workings for the ensemble release on the piano collections!

“The Origin” is an unreleased track and although it really does nothing new the tune meanders decently enough but it  will only appeal to die-hard fans. I am one of those, and I was not immediately impressed with this song. “Restless Moments” on the other hand is a true synth song and is welcome entry here. Full of panic, it struts its stuff well. “Sea of Silence” is a sombre song but really does nothing new again. It’s nice, but not enough to stand out for you to buy the CD.

“Matoya” on the other hand is a remix version done well. Using new drum technology and new synths it brings the original into a new world and depth and shows that this album could have been so very much more if others were done like this… “Mount Of The Sky” is a quirky track and one that gives a great character and I have no idea why it wasn’t released or used before.

“Opening Idea Version 2″ is a nice little track and its nice to see what other music could have been put to certain pieces of games. The same can be said for “Flying Ship Version 2″. Both are good songs and are worthy of being released.

“Mambo de Chocobo” gives us one of the best arrangements of the Chocobo theme, complete with real instrumentation. You’ll want tequila when the songs finished. It’s a classy number indeed.

“The Prelude Crystal Remix” sounds like a redundant early 1990′s Madonna song, and although it’s not dreadful by any means, it’s definitely an acquired taste just like the final track – “Final Fantasy Megamix” which is a fun way to finish off the album, if not entirely successful. It is very interesting to see what they’ve done, and how it could have been better, but that doesn’t constitute making it either a good CD, or one worth paying out for.

F.F. Mix is one of those for hardcore fans. Essentially, this is a bungled mix of wannabe tracks. Some are great, but those are tarnished by the lacklustre pieces surrounding them. This is not a worthy buy unless you see it in a bargain sale. Sorry Nobuo! (HPM loves almost everything else you’ve done!)