“A Great, Never-Ending Sky”

Abstract

Final Fantasy VII has been hailed almost since its release as a canonic game and remains one for which many players are deeply, sometimes obsessively, nostalgic. Attempts to explain and analyze Final Fantasy VII’s impact, however, have been ironically limited by its very canonicity. This essay examines how Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtrack for Final Fantasy VII produces nostalgia even on first playthrough. Using musical and narrative analysis, this paper argues that properties intrinsic to the game prime the player to be nostalgic for it, to desire more of it than there is or could be. In readings of “Tifa’s Theme,” “Aerith’s Theme,” and the extensive flashback sequence in Kalm, the paper argues that music in Final Fantasy VII makes memories within the story viscerally experienced places, suggesting that the past as depicted in the story is an accessible, visitable place. The game’s musical divulging of interior, past depths are thus analogous to its more obvious achievements in graphically representing 3D space. This approach to memory only intensifies the ultimate estrangement of player from the game, above all at moments where the game promises to divulge its depths to the player more than ever before. Almost 25 years after the game’s initial release, Final Fantasy VII Remake redeploys music from the original game to produce similar effects in new ways, pointing to both the possibilities and limitations inherent when the past is really revisited.