As a massive fan of the Final Fantasy Piano Collections, I will always clamber for more intricate and unusual interpretations of game music, including Final Fantasy, as they are done so often. The Materia Collective – who release so many great game music arrangement projects – have announced a new classical guitar series, starting with arrangements from Final Fantasy IV. This release will have 11arrangements including “Rydia”, “Melody of Lute” and “Golbeza Clad in Dark” and will close with an original piece called “The Crystals” – inspired by the game itself. The whole collection is arranged and created by William Carlos Reyes – as is his original piece so I’ll be interested to see if Reyes does an original piece for each collection inspired by the game itself or not. The reason why I have a special fondness for the Final Fantasy piano collections is that they often know when to push out and do some more experimental arrangements, add depth to a melody or just keep something simple and it appears this has translated across to the guitar collections here. An overview giving snippets of some of the arrangements is below and its due to be released on 19th July.
Three tracks are available to preview stream on the Bandcamp pre-order page.
At the same time, Materia Collective also announced a Stardew Valley Piano Collection too. This chirpy collection of 19 tracks is due to hit 1st August and the Bandcamp pre-order page has some tracks to preview. The breadth and depth of the arrangements on preview sound amazing.