how to scare me using music in 1997
this is the greatest boss music in video game history:
context matters here. you first hear this after you think you’ve escaped to the shelter of the church, when somewhat baroque-looking but otherwise friendly enough Count Draclau (OK the name is a bit of a tell) invites you in and asks about that weird stone of yours. he wants to show you its true power. the music is, let’s say, ominous? uh oh, the church might have some wackadoodles in it! as ramza says, you gotta be kind of a maniac to think you can change the world.
then the music is suddenly cut off and this transformation plays out:
this animation, a melding of 3D shader effects and warping spritework and absolutely masterfully off-putting sound design, leads up to a reveal of probably the best monster design in the game. queklain is a hot mess and looks gross and wrong and goes so perfectly with the narrative revelation that’s going on here, which is that the fundaments of society are far more poisoned and corrupted than anyone has realized
fittingly then the song that plays during the fight, and during all lucavi boss fights, is titled “the pervert.” the FFT soundtrack was a two-person effort, composed by Masaharu Iwata & Hitoshi Sakimoto, and it has a grandiosity and deliberateness that uematsu is rarely attempting with his FF compositions. here that solidity gets undercut by every tool available to the PS1-era MIDI composer, creating music that is less “aw yeah epic swords battle” and more “oh god I think my controller is oozing”
the whole soundtrack evinces this level of tonal control. sweet sadness, the inevitability of military bloodshed, the provincialism and pettiness of nobles’ backroom dealings, the murk of the sewers and the self-aggrandization of the church. I am compelled at least once a month to listen to the whole thing for no particular reason except that it evokes such perfect moods.