Penultimate Fantasies: Compositional Precedents in Uematsu’s Early Works

Abstract

This chapter surveys Nobuo Uematsu’s early compositional output, noting musical features that carry into his later style, as well as elements that were deemphasized or dropped in his soundtracks for Final Fantasy. Although many of these titles are relatively unknown in the West and were of limited success in Japan, studying them is essential to attaining a complete perspective on his compositional output. I begin by discussing Uematsu’s earliest RPG soundtracks, arguing that the stylistic differences from his later works may be partly due to differences in theming and gameplay from Square’s later role-playing titles. Next, I demonstrate how his early scores for action-oriented titles share more in common with Final Fantasy than his RPG soundtracks, owing to musical features that crossed game genre boundaries. Finally, I demonstrate how Uematsu’s underscoring for important plot moments in graphical adventure games parallels similar techniques found in the early Final Fantasy titles.