Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: No Uematsu for Final Fantasy VII Remake? No Problem

Since its announcement in June, we’ve received a very slow drip of Final Fantasy VII Remake information, an unsurprising pace considering Square Enix’s development standards. After the catastrophe that was, and is, Final Fantasy Versus XIII/Final Fantasy XV’s development (quickly approaching its 10th anniversary), you’d think they’d refrain from announcing anything too early.

Not to say Square Enix doesn’t know what they’re doing. No, they can trust fans to debate and (hopefully) figuratively salivate over even the smallest bit of new info, which in turn generates excitement with minimal effort on Square Enix’s part. For FFVIIR, we witnessed this when director Tetsuya Nomura mentioned how its battle system may receive some changes, and, to a lesser extent, when it was confirmed to not be running on the company’s Luminous Engine.

Now a new piece of info is causing heated debate. French website Jeux Video had the opportunity to ask composer Nobuo Uematsu about his involvement, to which he replied: “Not at all.” If you’re familiar with how certain types on the internet can react to specific info, you can already envision their hyperbolic reactions — assuming you haven’t already seen them. This news, combined with the aforementioned battle system info (if you want to call it that, considering its vagueness), is making some people lose it, and I haven’t the faintest idea why.

Uematsu’s importance to the franchise’s history and legacy shouldn’t be understated. He used to solitarily compose entire soundtracks for mainline installments for years. It wasn’t until Final Fantasy X in 2001 that other composers joined him, right around the time the games started becoming grander in scope. From there, his involvement with the series began lowering, to the point that Final Fantasy X-2 and XII contained no compositions from him. Though subsequent FF games contained problems, their soundtracks haven’t been an issue. That same logic partly applies to the FFVII Remake.

Uematsu was still an employee of Squaresoft for the Final Fantasy I & II remake package, and was on-hand to provide remixed tracks and contribute some new ones. But this wasn’t the case with the soundtrack for Final Fantasy III’s DS remake (subsequently ported to other platforms), which was arranged by Tsuyoshi Sekito and Keiji Kawamori; Uematsu was only credited as the original composer. The same applied for Final Fantasy IV’s remake on DS (also subsequently ported to other platforms), where arrangements were handled by Junya Nakano and Kenichiro Fukui. Some of these same composers could be arranging Final Fantasy VII’s soundtrack, and considering there were few complaints with work done for the aforementioned titles, there’s nothing to worry about.

Heck, we’ve already heard good arrangements of some FFVII tracks from a current Square Enix composer: The renditions done for the Dissidia: Final Fantasy games. The FFVII arrangements there were handled by Takeharu Ishimoto, mainly known for providing the soundtracks for Crisis Core, The World Ends with You, and Final Fantasy Type-0. Have a listen to the remix of FFVII’s Main Theme from the first game, or “Forested Temple” from the second game. I’m not saying the remixes will be exactly like those, but some worrywarts are underrating the talent with Square Enix’s current crop of composers.

That, or they’re concerned about the remixes resembling Final Fantasy X HD Remaster’s new renditions, whose results were extremely divisive. As unfortunate as many of those turned out, that Square Enix included the option to use the original soundtrack in the PS4 version is proof that they’re aware of how fans felt about them. Considering FFVIIR will be a remake (hence the title), the tracks should be arranged in the same way as those for the aforementioned DS games.

Some aspects of FFVIIR are concerning, even at this early stage, but that it will lack Uematsu’s contributions isn’t one of them. I’d recommend continuing to ponder other potential issues, like how the battle system will really turn out, if CyberConnect2 is really developing it, and whether it will actually release before the end of the decade. Square Enix previously said they would share more information sometime this fall, and considering they’re running out of time, that has to be soon. PlayStation Experience would be a good venue, but don’t be surprised if they hold that info until Jump Festa. Both events will occur next month, so you won’t have to wait long.

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