Angel: Brian, I know you have this opinion, but keep it to yourself, ‘cause it’s a
bad one and everyone’s going to hate you.
Devil: Look man, I’m supposed to be the devil in this situation, and even I agree
that, like, that this isn’t even an ethical thing, it’s just a… it’s just a bad
business decis…
OKAY, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles has the best music of any Final Fantasy game.
Please don’t hate me.
Let me convince you.
Let me first couch this statement by saying that the Final Fantasy music of all of the
games is wonderful, and Nobuo Uematsu is a GOD of composing.
He, almost single handedly, is the reason behind all of the Final Fantasy music, starting
from the very beginning.
He’s the one who made the chocobo theme, “One Winged Angel.”
If you’re thinking about video game music, there’s a high likelihood that you’re
thinking about Uematsu’s work.
Which is why I think it’s so weird that he had nothing to do with Final Fantasy Crystal
Chronicles.
Sidebar for just a second:
Sidebar over.
Crystal Chronicles was composed by Kumi Tanioka, who first started working for Square, which
is now Square Enix, back in 1998, and she worked with other great composers like Kenji
Ito and Tsuyoshi Sekito, and she worked on Final Fantasy…
13?
11?
14?
11.
Final Fantasy XI.
She helped compose that.
And after that, she was asked to head up the composition for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
And that (and this is a major understatement) is a very tall task.
Tanioka had to build this entirely new world that was still tied to the immense success
and the incredible music of the Final Fantasy series.
That’s the video game equivalent of having to write the music for the Star Wars spin-offs
when everyone is expecting John Williams.
Sidebar:
Sidebar over.
But even with this task, Tanioka did a goddamn good job with this music.
And there are two reasons why I think it’s better than any of the music in other Final
Fantasy games.
The first reason, super important, immersion.
Crystal Chronicles isn’t like most Final Fantasy games in that you have to go per year,
and you go out in your caravan, and you grab a drop of myrrh, which keeps the noxious miasma,
it’s some Final Fantasy bullshit, it’s eeeehhhh it’s not that important.
What is important is that when most Final Fantasy games have this vast open world, you’re
kind of railroaded in Crystal Chronicles.
Even in the actual levels of the game, you have to stay within the chalice’s ring.
This is a ring, what I’m making with my hands, in case you didn’t know what a ring
was.
If you go outside of that ring, you get hurt, and so you’re kind of confined to a small
space.
But the fact that it’s put on rails gives Crystal Chronicles a chance to develop this
space with the music.
The thing about Final Fantasy that kind of breaks my immersion is its random battles,
because you’re going through this beautiful open landscape and then bam!
You’re in this interstitial area, and there’s completely new music for it, and it’s like,
“Oh, how does this connect with what I was just playing?”
But in Crystal Chronicles, since each level is its own distinct space and each level has
its own music, it gives you a chance to develop and kind of build yourself into this world.
There are no random battles.
Each level is just one long battle, until you get to the boss, and the boss has the
same music as every other boss battle.
Which seems kind of like a cop out, but in my eyes it ties all of the bosses together.
It reminds you that, hey, the reason these bosses exist is because of one thing, and
it’s the miasma, which comes in later and I won’t ruin the game…
You gotta fight a memory monster.
It’s been out for a while, I will ruin that for you.
Hmm, the light.
It’s so dark here now.
After the boss battle, you’re given a drop of myrrh, a relaxing song, reminds you to
keep going on your quest.
And then, per year, when you go back to visit those spaces, you’re suddenly tied back
into the level because of the music that it was playing, and that kind of links in perfectly
with the themes of the game, which are all about storytelling and memory.
I’m not saying that other Final Fantasies don’t have an immersive soundtrack.
This one just feels moreso because of how the game itself plays.
But there is one specific thing in the music that I think is more immersive and better
than any of the other Final Fantasy games, and that’s its arrangement.
Let’s switch gears and talk about Mario Odyssey for a moment.
This game exemplifies what most modern games do when it comes to a soundtrack and the different
locations you play in.
In Bonneton, you hear spooky, mysterious song which fits perfectly with its ghostly inhabitants,
and then you go to New Donk City, and then it’s suddenly big band stylings.
It’s the jazz of a metropolis.
Each song and location changes instruments entirely in order to give you a sense of that
location.
And this happens even within locations, where you’ll go from one music, and then a different
arrangement when you’re under the water.
Crystal Chronicles does something different from most other video game soundtracks.
It keeps the instrumentation relatively similar among every single location, and specifically,
it uses weird medieval ancient instruments.
You waltz your way through a grand manor.
And then you stumble through the ever changing meter of a desert.
These instruments aren’t your typical fare, they’re medieval, things like the hurdy
gurdy, or the recorder (and not the one that you used in your elementary school music class)
or things like the crumhorn?
Is that what it’s called?
The crumhorn.
Yeah.
Which to be honest is something I didn’t know existed until I started doing research
for this exact video.
But you don’t need to know what the instruments are in order to feel how old and mysterious
they sound.
While most video game scores are trying to tell you where you are, Crystal Chronicles
tries to tell you *when* you are.
I’m taking a moment to let that sink in because that’s the most important part of
this entire video.
In this nameless, shapeless, arcane world, Tanioka has used the instrumentation in the
soundtrack to ground it into a specific, if mythological, timeframe.
The lore and the aesthetic of the game make it fantastical, but the music makes it ancient.
That effect is what makes Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles have the best soundtrack of any
Final Fantasy game, that right there.
And if you disagree with me, I want you to put the word hypotenuse into your comment,
so that way I know that you actually watched through this entire video before leaving an
angry thing in the comments, which is what most people do.
Kumi Tanioka and Nobuo Uematsu are both fabulous composers, but what Tanioka did with Crystal
Chronicles is make a soundtrack that interweaves with the gameplay and just feels more polished.
The game itself of Crystal Chronicles is not so polished, so the soundtrack stands out
as this incredible, amazing thing.
I’ll admit it, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is not that good of a game.
It’s definitely not the best Final Fantasy game.
I will take that L. But the music keeps drawing me back into it.
It’s so good that I felt like I should make a video about it that was five to eight minutes,
depending on, uh, how much I had to edit out.
And who knows, if you’ve made it through to the end, maybe I’ve convinced you.
If you want to see more things like this, make sure to like this video and subscribe
to Polygon.
And if you want to see me talk about music more, I love talking about music, and my coworkers
are certainly annoyed by me talking about music, so let me tell you instead.
What should I talk about next?