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It's still Wednesday where I am, and I have one more feature to add to this month. As I've listened through these soundtracks, an inevitable comparison has been in my mind to what I would consider the quintessential Final Fantasy soundtrack; not FFVII, not FFVI, nor from any other entry in the franchise, but which nonetheless captured the spirit of the project in the best possible way. I also realized at some point that I'd never done a proper feature for it since a brief mention way back at the beginning of my time here, to which mention I had later noted an intention to return thereto. Well, I couldn't ask for a better opportunity than this. While Uematsu notably contributed a number of tracks toward the end of production, the majority of Chrono Trigger's OST was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda. As a SNES release, the soundtrack is most immediately comparable to FFVI. The comparison is a fair one; both are strong in imaginative arrangement and variety. FFVI, in my opinion, makes stronger use of musical theme, having more prevalent leitmotifs throughout. Chrono Trigger, on the other hand, succeeds in an area I've yet to see matched: instrumentation. As I've mentioned before, a lot of SNES arrangements suffer from over-ambition, trying to capture a sound that's just out of reach. The better SNES soundtracks are played to their strengths as a blend between classic chiptune and synthesized instrument sampling. This Chrono Trigger does excellently, balancing its orchestral tracks against hardware limitations in a way that, ironically, invokes more accurately the feel of orchestra. Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, not because of nostalgia (of which I have none, having yet to play the game), but simply out of respect; it had been and will continue to be the standard by which I judge the music of the classical gaming era. But this isn't technically Final Fantasy, is it? Lest I cheat the month, here's one last piece for the road, a particularly impressive remix I found during the month.

Wow this seems like a cool piece of fan fic I'll consider checking it out when I get some free time, very cool!

Well, someone had to sacrifice their vote to break the tie. Let's go with the weird option of eating in the middle of a Youkai forest and see how it goes.

Moon

Yo, welcome to the community, we may be small but we are still active

surfing reimu no way

Thank you all for the warm welcome it's great to be part of such a welcoming community and thanks for the advice

Avoid clicking unsolicited links; check the url for suspicious website names.

Initially I chose a five-Wednesday month for Final Fantasy because I was struggling to decide which entries to cover, and figured having an extra week would be advantageous. Having covered four, however, I remained conflicted over what the fifth feature ought to be. FFVIII & FFIX both seemed viable, but would also result in all the features being from a specific part of the series rather than being spread out more. On the other hand, modern entries have only gotten larger, resulting in soundtracks that would take a lot more time for me to listen through. I even briefly considered spin-offs, but I have no context off of which to judge relevant impact. So ultimately, I've decided to take a slightly different approach to wrap up this series. Despite being a franchise, leitmotifs are inconsistent across entries, each soundtrack being mostly its own entity. The few musical themes that are consistent stand out for this reason, and none more than Uematsu's iconic "Prelude." I hesitated to include any iteration of this piece in the previous features due to its relevance being more toward the series as a whole rather than the given entry within which it was contained. In some ways, its the perfect piece for this purpose; its relative simplicity lends itself to customization without risk of losing its core features, allowing it to always represent aspects of both the franchise and specific iteration. My personal favorite is FFVI's, but FFX's showcases more strongly how versatile the piece can be. I left out FFVII's for being too similar to FFVI's, but in compensation I can utilize it for the other major leitmotif of the series: the "Chocobo Theme". This one have far less thematic relevance, but is nonetheless considered iconic, and lets me wrap up on a lighthearted note. FFVII had several iterations of this piece, so I've just gone with my favorite out of them (even if it isn't necessarily the best representation of the motif).

*the path has lead you to… oh no.* remilia: “ah sh_t…” flandre: “wait! lemme… uh-“ *behind the scarlet devil mansion, was the now HUGE igloo of cirno’s…* remilia: “BEHIND MY FREAKING MANSION?! oooh, i have beef with you cirno!” flandre: “bet she still couldn’t add 1+1 which is equal to uh- 2!” remilia: “at least i taught you.” ???: “HEY!” *it was ibunde and kuyara. they wanted to help.* ibunde: “you guys need help, we’re here to help!” kuyara: “yeah i don’t feel like partying with onis at the human village so…” flandre: “well with your oni strength and your tengu speed, i think we’ll be perfectly alright!” ibunde: “mhm, mhm! now cmon let’s take that stupid ice fairy down!” *she drags kuyara too dashing to cirno’s now giant igloo, the rest of you follow. that is until there’s a giant ice cube at the entrance. daiyousei seeing you guys, teleported.* flandre: “i’ll deal with this-!” *you paused her, before a gap opens below you 5 and ending up at the other side.* kuyara: “oh wow…” *kuyara pulls out a camera then taking pictures of the inside, looking all luxerious.* kuyara: “better show this to the tengus!” *now all that’s left is to find, weaken, and lead cirno to execution.*

hey it's not my fault if I have stage 4 tsp brainrot >:(

Sunset

Fight