Congratulations everyone, the campaign we were taking part in earlier this year has paid off! Final Fantasy has again been recognised by the Classic FM Hall of Fame, rising this year to achieved 3rd position.
Last year, Aerith's Theme was placed 16th, so Final Fantasy coming 3rd this year is a massive achievement for the franchise, but also video game music in general.
Of course, this has led to some of the Classic FM snobs getting up on their high horse because it's not "real" classical music, and it's only there because of campaigns like this. However, without campaigns like this, the music would not be shown to a much larger audience.
Almost anyone who's ever played a Final Fantasy game knows who Nobuo Uematsu is. Hell, almost everyone who's interested in gaming knows who he is.
Yet despite Nobuo Uematsu's compositions being some of the most heralded, and nowadays, some of the most listened to video game music on video websites such as YouTube, he doesn't get much appreciation from the masses. This also applies to the newer composers like Masashi Hamauzu and Naoshi Mizuta.
Blinded by Light, the main battle theme from Final Fantasy XIII has 1.3 million views from a singular fan-uploaded video. And that's just the beginning. The Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children version of One Winged Angel has almost 5.5 million views.
Last year, a campaign was put together to give video game music a rightful place in the realm of classical music - it worked. But we need to make sure this wasn't a fluke.
Square Enix has teamed up with Sony Europe to offer a massive discount on all digital Final Fantasy games for just over a week.
That's right, you're now able to download Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX for £12 combined! It would have previously cost £24.
There are also similar discounts on all of the earlier Final Fantasy titles and the two Dissidia games (Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy) are also heavily discounted.
Today, Square Enix has announced the re-release for the game fans have been waiting anxiously for, Final Fantasy VII for the PC. Before you get too excited, this isn’t a HD remake, only a downloadable re-release of the PC version that was released in 1998.
However, Square Enix has included some new extras to this version. These new features include 36 achievements, characters boosters which allow the player to increase their HP, MP and Gil to their max amounts and Cloud Saves. There have been no more details on the achievements or character boosters yet.
As a part of their anniversary feature on Final Fantasy VII, Famitsu got down in an interview with character designer designer Tetsuya Nomura.
Within the interview Nomura reveals that they really would like to work on a remake for Final Fantasy VII, however they don't plan on doing that any time soon. Instead he plans to focus on making newer titles, trying to make ones that apparently match or even top off Final Fantasy VII.
Nomura also stated that he believes that producer Yoshinori Kitase is the true successor to the Final Fantasy series.
So with this bit of disheartening news, do you think we'll ever get to see a remake of the esteemed game in our time? Do you agree with Nomura's opinion of focusing on creating newer titles? And would you think it's possible for any of these newer titles to match or even outmatch Final Fantasy VII? Be sure to state your thoughts and feelings below.
I'm almost certain everyone here enjoys the music of Final Fantasy – midi, synth, orchestrated or otherwise, so it's high time our favourite classics actually top the charts. The Classic FM Hall of Fame is taking votes for the best pieces of classical music and we're joining in by going with Aerith's Theme from Final Fantasy VII.
Aerith's (or Aeris) Theme is a beautifully orchestrated piece scored by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu and has seen many an arrangement in a number of releases, including the original FFVII soundtrack, Crisis Core, Advent Children, Reunion Tracks, FFVII Piano Collections and as an additional vocal arrangement in RIKKI's Suteki Da Ne single, titled Pure Heart ~ Aerith's Theme.
The Classic FM Hall of Fame runs annually and selects 300 of the greatest classical music scored by amazing composers, including scores from films, but to our knowledge have yet to feature any music from video games.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is launching in Japan in about a month. Its US release will follow in late January. The fact that Final Fantasy has been topping the sales charts around the world for two decades makes it a rare and hallowed creation in the transitory medium of video gaming. But who's playing it these days? Are today's Final Fantasy fans the ones who started with the original game, or did those guys get tired of the whole thing along the way only to be replaced by youngsters who started playing more recently?
Following on from yesterday's North American-focussed Deal Alert, I decided that today we'd have one that was focussed more towards people in the UK.
In the future, the probably won't be the same deals, but since so many people seemed to be appreciating the Advent Children Complete package, I figured, hey, why not just do the same for the UK as it's still dirt cheap.
Amazon.co.uk are selling it for only £6.49, which is pretty cheap for a Blu-ray, and also an awesome deal if you haven't picked up this version of Advent Children yet!
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