Composing the entire score for a game must be demanding work, and it’s something that famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu has done time and time again over the course of his long and storied career. Now it sounds like the 64-year-old composer, who has dealt with unspecified health issues in the past, may wish to save his energy for other things, saying in a recent interview that the work of composing entire scores for video games is probably behind him.
Speaking to the German publication Zeit Online (via VGC), Uematsu said he doesn’t think he has the “physical and mental strength” to create the entire score for a game anymore. That doesn’t mean he’s done making songs for games. However, it does sound like Uematsu wants to scale back his work within the games industry.
“As far as Final Fantasy is concerned, I’m still involved by writing the main themes for the games,” Uematsu told Zeit Online. “But I don’t think I’ll compose music for a whole game again. You would have to give it full throttle for two or three years. And I don’t think I have the physical and mental strength to do it anymore. I think I’d rather use the time I have left to work on other projects that I love. Such as compositions like Merregnon or my band Uematsu Nobuo conTIKI.”
This isn’t the first time that Uematsu has indicated plans to slow or cease his output. He blogged in 2018 that he was stopping his work at the time due to unspecified health issues.
Uematsu’s work in games has spanned decades and genres. He got his start in the mid-80s, composing music for the interactive erotic game Alpha and the NES racing game Rad Racer. But it wasn’t until 1987 that the work he’s most famous for began with his score for the original Final Fantasy. He went on to compose the scores for the first nine FF games as a solo endeavor before collaborating with Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu for Final Fantasy X and Kumi Tanioka and Naoshi Mizuta for Final Fantasy XI. He’s also contributed to numerous other games, composing the main theme for Nintendo’s 2008 platform fighter Super Smash Bros. Brawl for one, and has continued banging out the main themes for most Final Fantasy games along the way. His most recent work was the main themes for both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. His last full game soundtrack was 2021’s Apple Arcade exclusive RPG Fantasian, and it’s very likely we’ll hear him again for the conclusion to the FFVII remake trilogy, whenever that drops.
Speaking of Final Fantasy VII, Rebirth launches on February 29 for PlayStation 5. As of right now, the game is scoring very high numbers, holding a 92 score on Metacritic and a 93 score on OpenCritic. That may change as more folks get their hands on the upcoming RPG, but all things considered, it sounds awesome. Kotaku writer Claire Jackson expressed as much in her review of the game:
Rebirth is sure to be a more divisive and debated game than Remake was. But in this deep sea of an RPG, I was thrilled by the action and the tactics, brought to emotional highs and lows through its characters, and found myself with an even greater love of FF7, the original and this return, than I thought was possible.
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