Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

GEEK ARTICLE

Mere words cannot express how happy I am.

No, to articulate that would require some kind of massive overhaul of the entire gamut of human expression, like having faces on every on of my fingers or being able to fart real words.

Because, friends, I have bought concert tickets. Cheryl will be coming to Japan around my birthday and I have purchased these tickets for this particularly special concert 3 MONTHS in advance because this could be quite possibly the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life.

The Nobuo Uematsu “Tour De Japon” Orchestra Concert tour, performing music from Final Fantasy.

If it isn’t already obvious to you, I am a latent video game geek (Final Fantasy being a series of popular video games). I also happen to play the violin and used to play in a few orchestras back in the UK. For me, this concert represents an almost perfect marriage of two things in my life that I love. Perhaps the only thing that could top this is if they were to release a “Batman Vs. Electric Boogaloo” movie or somehow fuse baked beans and Kit-Kats into a delicious snack.

The Final Fantasy series, whilst immensely popular due to brand loyalty, has been on a downhill ride as far as gameplay is concerned, to me. FFX culminated this in what was essentially a rigid story-on-rails interspersed with the odd fight, or cinematic CG sequence. However if there is one aspect to the FF series that has been consistently excellent and thoroughly enjoyable throughout the entire spectrum of the series since the late 1980s, it has been the beautiful music, composed by the immensely talented Nobuo Uematsu who is undoubtedly one of the finest contemporary classical composers alive today. To me, his amazing orchestral scores have lifted the games to heights they would never have reached - to levels of emotiveness other commercial RPGs could never hope to attain.

The brooding, threatening sound of “One Winged Angel” and “Liberi Fatali”, the majestic build up of “The Rebel Army”, the light innocence of “Aeris’ Theme” which just feels so heart-wrenchingly emotional when you remember the dreadful tragedy that happened to Aeris in the game- I could literally go on for pages like this, at least until my fingers start to bleed or the froth from my mouth begins to asphyxiate me. So in a nutshell, I’m really looking forward to this.

You know, aside from the more obvious stuff like looking at temples and shrines, sampling ‘delicacies’ such as raw warthog testicles, it’s opportunities like this which are at once uniquely Japanese and aren’t also inherently boring or disgusting, that make me very glad I am here and able to partake in them.

For those of you who STILL don’t know what I’m talking about, do yourself a favour and head over to http://www.gamemusic.com and buy:

Final Fantasy - Symphonic Suite Final Fantasy 7 - OST

and the magnificent

Shenmue - OST (not Final Fantasy, but amazing)

That should get you started.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2004 at 8:15 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.