Album DescriptionAvailable in:
Final Fantasy XIII: Original Soundtrack is the complete soundtrack for the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII. It is composed by Masashi Hamauzu.
Vocals were performed by Sayuri Sugawara for the theme songs "Kimi ga Iru Kara" and "Eternal Love." The Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra performs on the soundtrack.
Yoshinori Kitase asked Masashi Hamauzu to compose the soundtrack. The proposition was a surprise to Hamauzu, who was nevertheless eager to accept. The game's director, Motomu Toriyama, requested an orchestral and futuristic hybrid sound, but gave Hamauzu freedom to exercise his own style. The main tools used in producing the soundtrack were Digital Performer, orchestral samples by EastWest, and some standard software synth (such as Massive) by Native Instruments, although a lot of live instruments were used, along with vocals in the many background themes of different locations.
Hamauzu's first compositions for Final Fantasy XIII were scores for the footage shown in events or game shows in 2006 and 2007 (notably "Blinded By Light"), and he didn't begin composing the full soundtrack until autumn 2008. The soundtrack was composed in a period of about one year. Parts of the soundtrack have been recorded with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, orchestrated by Yoshihisa Hirano. The session was recorded in a concert hall and Hamauzu listened to it from the balcony, saying afterward it was sad there was no audience, since it was so beautiful.
The two worlds of Final Fantasy XIII, Cocoon and Gran Pulse, display contrasting musical styles. Hamauzu explains that Final Fantasy XIII was intended to be a long game, which in itself provided some challenges. He felt it was important for there to be variety to the sound design to maintain players' interests over a span of time, and that is why the themed motifs are reintroduced here and there as a kind of obbligato.
The lyrics for "Serah's Theme" and "The Sunleth Waterscape" were revised for the English localization, even though the original recordings were already in English, due to the opinion of the English-language staff that the lyrics needed to sound more natural to native speakers. Many of the vocals are performed by Mina Sakai, whom Hamauzu asked to perform some vocals for demo tracks and improvise some lyrics for them. Initially there weren't plans for several songs, but Hamauzu felt Mina's performance fit the game's atmosphere, which led to further recording.
"Sulyya Springs" and "Will to Fight" have English vocals, and while Mina and Hamauzu were preparing the demo track for "The Gapra Whitewood," Mina also sang in English, but after receiving the final draft of the lyrics, she was so preoccupied with getting the pronunciation and intonation right that she lost track of the flow of the melody. The lyrics were dropped and the two employed a fictitious language to regain the feel of the previous songs. In the last part of "Battle Results," which plays upon the completion of each battle, one can hear Mina counting numbers in the Ainu language.
Nobuo Uematsu was originally announced as the composer of the game's main theme, but later decided to give his main theme duties to Masashi Hamauzu after being hired to work on Final Fantasy XIV.
User Album Review
None...
External Album Reviews
None...
User Comments
