The music of the ''

Final Fantasy Tactics is a 1997 tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square (video game company), Square for the PlayStation (console), PlayStation video game console. Released in Japan in June 1997 and in the United States in January 1998 by Sony ...

'' series, composed of ''

'', ''

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a 2003 tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. A spin-off of the ''Final Fantasy'' series, the game shares several traits with 1997's ''Final Fantasy Tactics'', althoug ...

'', '' Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift'', and '' Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions'', was primarily composed by

Hitoshi Sakimoto is a Japanese video game music composer and arranger. He is best known for scoring ''Final Fantasy Tactics'' and ''Final Fantasy XII'', though he has composed soundtracks for over 80 other games. He began playing music and video games in elementa ...

. He was assisted by

Masaharu Iwata is a Japanese video game music, video game composer. After graduating from high school, where his musical projects included composing on a synthesizer and playing in a cover band, he joined Bothtec as a composer. He composed the soundtrack to se ...

in composing the music for ''Final Fantasy Tactics''. The ''Final Fantasy Tactics Original Soundtrack'', a compilation of almost all of the music in the game, was released by

DigiCube DigiCube Co., Ltd. (株式会社デジキューブ; ''Kabushiki-gaisha Dejikyūbu'') was a Japanese company established as a subsidiary of software developer Square on February 6, 1996 and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The primary purpose of Digi ...

in 1997, and re-released by

Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate, best known for its ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', ''Star Ocean'' and ''Kingdom Hearts'' role-playing video game ...

in 2006. No separate soundtrack has been released for ''Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions''. The soundtrack was well received by critics, who found it to be astounding and one of the best video game music soundtracks in existence at the time of its release. The music of ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance'' was again composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, with assistance from

Nobuo Uematsu is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the ''Final Fantasy'' video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton Jo ...

, Kaori Ohkoshi, and Ayako Saso. The ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Original Soundtrack'', a compilation of almost all of the music in the game, was released by DigiCube in 2003. A

new age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

album entitled ''White: Melodies of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance'', a selection of musical tracks from the game arranged by Yo Yamazaki, Akira Sasaki, and Satoshi Henmi, was released by

SME Visual Works is a Japanese anime, music production and anime licensee company owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Established in September 1995, Aniplex has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime series, such as both ''Fullm ...

in 2003. ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Original Soundtrack'' was well received by critics, who praised the album's composition. Critics did not react as well to the ''White: Melodies of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance'' album, finding it to be a mediocre album with poor arrangements. The music for ''Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift'' was also composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, this time with the assistance of composers from his company

Basiscape is a Japanese video game music composer and arranger. He is best known for scoring ''Final Fantasy Tactics'' and ''Final Fantasy XII'', though he has composed soundtracks for over 80 other games. He began playing music and video games in elemen ...

. The music was released as ''Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift Original Soundtrack'' by Square Enix in 2007. It was enjoyed by reviewers, who found it to be pleasant and rewarding.

Albums

''Final Fantasy Tactics Original Soundtrack''

''Final Fantasy Tactics Original Soundtrack'' is a

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

video game music Video game music (or VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to ...

from ''Final Fantasy Tactics'', and was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata. Sakimoto composed 46 tracks for the game, and Iwata composed the other 25. The album was first released on two

Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

s by DigiCube on June 21, 1997, bearing the catalog number ''SSCX-10008'', and was re-released by Square Enix on March 24, 2006, with the catalog numbers ''SQEX-10066-7''. It spans two discs and 71 tracks, covering a duration of 2:31:03. The ''Final Fantasy Tactics Original Soundtrack'' reached #62 on the Japan

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

charts, selling over 12,400 copies. It received positive reviews from critics such as Patrick Gann of RPGFan, who says "It is the best soundtrack I own, and I don't believe that any other soundtrack known to man surpasses it yet as a whole." Ryan of Square Enix Music Online praised the way that the two composers' pieces blended together, and termed the album "one of the greatest soundtracks ever made and a true work of inspiration." Track list

''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Original Soundtrack''

''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Original Soundtrack'' is a soundtrack album of video game music from ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance''. The album contains the musical tracks from the game, composed mainly by Hitoshi Sakimoto, with assistance from Nobuo Uematsu, Kaori Ohkoshi, and Ayako Saso. It spans 74 tracks and covers a duration of 2:05:27. The first disk includes every piece of music from the game, as it sounds through the

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...

hardware. The second disk contains synthesized versions of 32 of the same 42 tracks. The album was released on February 19, 2003, by DigiCube. The release bears the catalog numbers ''SSCX-10083-4'' or ''SQEX-10070-1'' (reprint). The album reached #130 on the Oricon charts, selling over 1,800 copies. It was received favorably by critics; Richard Vardaro of RPGFan found it to be "beautifully composed" and compared it favorably to the soundtrack to ''Final Fantasy Tactics''. However, he questioned the inclusion of the Game Boy Advance version of the soundtrack, finding it to be "tinny and raspy". Chris of Square Enix Music Online also enjoyed the soundtrack, seeing it as "creative, appealing, and mature" and "a must-have". Track list

''White: Melodies of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance''

''White: Melodies of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance'' is an arranged album of music from ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance''. The album contains the musical tracks from the game, composed mainly by Hitoshi Sakimoto, with assistance from Nobuo Uematsu, Kaori Ohkoshi, and Ayako Saso, and arranged by Yo Yamazaki, Akira Sasaki, and Satoshi Henmi. It spans 11 tracks and covers a duration of 46:10. It was released on February 26, 2003, by SME Visual Works. The release bears the catalog number ''SVWC-7172''. ''White'' was not received well by critics, with Patrick Gann finding it to be a mediocre album and saying that he felt "very disappointed" with it. He found the "new-age" style to be poorly chosen and the arrangements to be sub-par. Zeugma of Square Enix Music Online was more approving of the album, saying that it conveyed the "quiet mood" it promised, but finding it to sometimes be "dangerously close to muzak" with too many synthesized instruments and too little variation.

''Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift Original Soundtrack''

''Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift Original Soundtrack'' is a soundtrack album of music from ''Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift''. The album contains the musical tracks from the game, composed mainly by Hitoshi Sakimoto, with assistance of composers from Basiscape, his composing studio. Several compositions were also taken from the scores of ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance'' and ''Final Fantasy XII''. It spans 56 tracks across two disks and covers a duration of 2:13:10. It was released on November 28, 2007, by Square Enix. The release bears the catalog numbers ''SQEX-710102-3''. The album received positive reviews from critics, with Vincent Chorley of RPGFan terming it "one of the most rewardingly pleasant soundtracks this year." Ovelia of Square Enix Music Online also enjoyed the soundtrack, saying that it was "mature yet still playful", but worried that it hinted at a stagnation in Sakimoto's musical style. Track list

Legacy

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

based on ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance'' was broadcast starting in January 2003, preceding the release of the game. The shows were compiled in a series of four of CDs entitled ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Radio Edition vol. 1-4''. The CDs were released by DigiCube on February 26, 2003, March 26, 2003, April 23, 2003, and May 21, 2003, with the catalog numbers ''SSCX-10082'', ''SSCX-10088'', ''SSCX-10092'', and ''SSCX-10094'', respectively. Additionally, a

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

was released by

Sony Records Sony Records was a record label founded by R&B duo Ike & Tina Turner in 1963. It was not affiliated with Sony Group Corporation. Ike Turner produced singles by members of the Kings of Rhythm and the Ikettes on Sony Records. Records on the label ...

on November 27, 2002, with the catalog number ''SRCL-5513'' containing the song "Shiroi hana", performed by

Zone Zone or The Zone may refer to: Places Climate and altitude zones * Death zone (originally the lethal zone), altitudes above a certain point where the amount of oxygen is insufficient to sustain human life for an extended time span * Frigid zone, ...

, which was used as an

image song An image song or character song is a song on a tie-in single or album (often called an image album or character album) for an anime, game, ''dorama'', manga, or commercial product that is sometimes sung by the voice actor or actor of a character ...

for commercials for ''Final Fantasy Tactics Advance''. A medley of pieces from ''Final Fantasy Tactics A2'' was played at the ''Fantasy Comes Alive'' concert in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

on April 30, 2010. Selections of music from the ''Final Fantasy Tactics'' series have also appeared on Japanese remix albums, called

dojin music , also called in Japan, is a sub-category of '' doujin'' activity. ''Doujin'' are non-official self-published Japanese works which can be based on official products or completely original creations. Such products are sold online on specialized ...

, and on English remixing websites.

References

External links

Square Enix's official music store
{{good article 1997 soundtrack albums 2003 soundtrack albums Tactics series Final Fantasy Tactics Hitoshi Sakimoto albums

2007 soundtrack albums