Masashi Hamauzu, the composer of Final Fantasy XIII's original soundtrack, has left Square Enix. This follows the departures of Kenichiro Fukui (The Black Mages) and Junya Nakano (Final Fantasy X).
Hamauzu was seen to be Square Enix's main composer following the departure of Nobuo Uematsu, which now leaves only four composers remaining at the company, including Kumi Tanioka and Naoshi Mizuta. During his time at the company, Hamauzu worked on games such as Unlimited SaGa, Dirge of Cerberus and Sigma Harmonics.
The Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack is due for release on the 27th of January. It's unclear where Hamauzu will go from here.
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 2:53 pm (EST) by camilomf
Eskimo Keith: Square Enix probably bought a few Leona Lewis albums to hold them up for the next few games.
Seriously though, it sucks but i'm kinda hoping they look for composers such as Tsuyoshi Sekito (The Last Remnant) and that Nobuo Uematsu stays on for a few years yet.
My favourite RPG songs have consisted of The Last Remnant OST and Lost Odyssey OST so i'm hoping the latest Final Fantasy music will be similar.
I don't know about Sekito, but Uematsu has left a while back to form his own company.He's composing for FFXIV as an independent composer. This just might be an overall japanese industry move towards a less company-centered culture. Maybe all big composers working on future squeenix games will be independent....
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 1:42 pm (EST) by Damian
Hmm the FF team moving away from Final Fantasy games... Now the composers all "leaving" or being asked to leave.
Do you think SE is trying to make their company look a lot more tempting to possible buyers/investors by scaling down in Japan and moving their forces more to the west?
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 12:37 pm (EST) by gilburtgtr
It does seem odd that multiple composers have just 'left'. It makes me wonder what is actually going on at SE, because the composers haven't made much comment to explain themselves, and neither has Square. Hmm... :/
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 11:36 am (EST) by Eskimo Keith
Square Enix probably bought a few Leona Lewis albums to hold them up for the next few games.
Seriously though, it sucks but i'm kinda hoping they look for composers such as Tsuyoshi Sekito (The Last Remnant) and that Nobuo Uematsu stays on for a few years yet.
My favourite RPG songs have consisted of The Last Remnant OST and Lost Odyssey OST so i'm hoping the latest Final Fantasy music will be similar.
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 11:00 am (EST) by Darryl
It's pretty strange, it makes it seem like there is something going on behind the scenes at the company. Perhaps they're just going to outsource all the time now, but you'd think that would be more expensive.
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 10:59 am (EST) by camilomf
I wonder if his leave isn't timed to fall right before the release of the soundtrack in Japan for some reason. Hard to really know....
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 10:48 am (EST) by Eternity
Shawn: I wonder if he'll be like Nobuo and still does some work if SE pays good enough for it.
Probably. Isn't Nobuo doing the score for Final Fantasy XIV? so it should have some pretty great music. I could see the same happening with Masashi.
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 10:44 am (EST) by Shawn
I wonder if he'll be like Nobuo and still does some work if SE pays good enough for it.
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 10:40 am (EST) by Eternity
Hm..all these composers leaving certainly is interesting. I mean its not like there aren't other composers out there, but its disappointing to see them go.
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 4:05 am (EST) by Emi
I for one really enjoyed his score for Final Fantasy X. I hope if hes not retiring that he will join another video game company and make music for them. Hopefully if he does join another company the games he composes for are decent.
Posted on January 20th, 2010, 4:03 am (EST) by thefenrir
Oh man, so many composers are leaving...I really don't know what to say o__o
Of course, I don't think this means that Hamauzu won't be doing anymore Final Fantasy scores, he could follow in Nobuo's steps. I'm just wondering what's making them leave...perhaps it's Wada (that's just me being a biased ass xD).
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