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  For my money, one of the most interesting aspects of a game\u2019s creation is the composition and orchestration of its music. With Final Fantasy, that\u2019s doubly the case because for me, and I imagine for so many others, its soundtrack is one of its best parts. Be it lo-fi channels, new arrangements, compilations, piano versions, or something else, Final Fantasy music makes its way into many of my playlists.\u00a0\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
That\u2019s why I was so excited to chat with composer Masayoshi Soken about his score for Final Fantasy XVI. You might recognize his name as he\u2019s also the composer of Final Fantasy XIV. Still, if you don\u2019t, there\u2019s a chance it\u2019s a name you come to remember following the release of FFXVI because after spending more than three hours of hands-on time with the game in Square Enix\u2019s Tokyo, Japan, office, I\u2019m confident we\u2019re about to get a banger of a score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
        <img src=\"https:\/\/www.gameinformer.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/body_default\/public\/2023\/05\/15\/97c7f4f4\/soken_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"image-style-body-default\" \/>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Final Fantasy XVI Composer Masayoshi Soken<\/p>\n
In talking with Soken, I wanted to speak to him about some of the major themes and melodies of any Final Fantasy game \u2013 things like the Prelude, the main theme, the Victory Fanfare, and more \u2013 and he had plenty to say. In this four-part series, I\u2019ll be breaking down different aspects of the music that excite me and hopefully you too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Be sure to check out Part 1 here first.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Music of Final Fantasy XVI Part 2 \u2013 Creating The Victory Fanfare<\/h2>\n
Much like the familiar Final Fantasy melody called the Prelude (which you can read about here), the series\u2019 Victory Fanfare is also a well-known jingle. And similar to the Prelude, it shifts to match wherever it appears. Composed by famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu for the original 1987 release of Final Fantasy I, it has since appeared in nearly every Final Fantasy game. If you don\u2019t recognize its name, there\u2019s still a good chance you\u2019re familiar with the melody.<\/p>\n
Check out the Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare below<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was curious how Soken created a new Victory Fanfare for FFXVI. He\u2019s done it before, and you\u2019ll hear it often in FFXIV, but it resembles its classic counterparts more than anything else \u2013\u00a0deep brass instruments, some bright trumpets on top, and a booming chorus laid lightly behind it all to give it that extra oomph of gravitas. His Victory Fanfare for FFXVI sounds aptly more medieval and gothic. Unlike FFXIV, the booming chorus does most of the melodic work with impactful percussion accenting it. It\u2019s quite different but fitting for the themes of revenge, war, and finding oneself amongst it all demonstrated in the game thus far.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soken tells me that getting FFXVI\u2019s Victory Fanfare to where it is today comes from a lot of learning through composing the music of FFXIV.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you know, I am working on Final Fantasy XIV as I work on Final Fantasy XVI [and] have been working on Final Fantasy XIV for a long time,\u201d Soken says. \u201cAnd I learned a lot by working on Final Fantasy XIV and I learned a lot of tricks that I could do to make certain songs sound a certain way. I kind of stumbled upon that if I use more male choice voices, [you get] a darker sound of the music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen having to create the Victory Fanfare for Final Fantasy XVI, knowing that this was a dark game, I immediately thought, \u2018Okay, if I use a male choir, you\u2019re going to get that type of dark, heavy sound and so I didn\u2019t really have to think too much about it because it was just something that came to me from my past experience on Final Fantasy XIV.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
        <img src=\"https:\/\/www.gameinformer.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/body_default\/public\/2023\/05\/15\/3fb74854\/iron_kingdom.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"image-style-body-default\" \/>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
The Iron Kingdom of Valisthea<\/p>\n
That said, Soken reveals that creating the Victory Fanfare we\u2019ll hear this June wasn\u2019t so easy. He says his first draft was outright bad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first draft I made was absolutely terrible,\u201d he tells me, laughing as he reminisces on it. \u201cBecause I wanted it to be perfect, I think I ended up working on it right until master, and I think I probably made about 30 different versions of the Fanfare.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Right before master, though, which is game development speak for the final version of the game that goes gold, Soken says he found the one that worked perfectly. That\u2019s the one we\u2019ll hear in-game this month. If you\u2019re a fan of Soken, you might be surprised to learn something he wrote is \u201cabsolutely terrible\u201d because, let\u2019s just call a spade a spade \u2013 his scores rule! But apparently, this process isn\u2019t unusual. \u201cIt happens a lot,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Something I find especially interesting about the Victory Fanfare is that the chorus features lyrics, and FFXVI localization director (and one of the main faces for the game\u2019s press so far) Michael-Christopher Koji Fox wrote most of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked a lot with the head of localization on 14 and now the localization director on Final Fantasy XVI [Koji] \u2013 we worked together a lot on creating a lot of the tracks that I make,\u201d Soken says. \u201cAnd whenever I decide to put a chorus in a song, I can always go to Koji and ask him to write the lyrics for me. That\u2019s what happened on the fanfare as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For more about the game, head to Game Informer\u2019s exclusive Final Fantasy XVI coverage hub by clicking the banner below.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
Source: Game Informer<\/p>\n


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For my money, one of the most interesting aspects of a game\u2019s creation is the composition and orchestration of its music. With Final Fantasy, that\u2019s doubly the case because for me, and I imagine for so many others, its soundtrack is one of its best parts. Be it lo-fi channels, new arrangements, compilations, piano versions, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thisislevelup.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/torgal_1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\n