Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster: Expanding Upon the Classics
Most reviews thus far have treated the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games as a singular object—the NES trilogy of games as a single entity. In many ways, this is the correct approach, especially for the first two entries, which have been paired with each other before (on Game Boy Advance), and even when they’re sold as individual titles, where you can find one, you can find the other (PSP, iOS, etc.). Having played through the first half or so of each title, I feel that efforts made to unify the three titles into a new, 16-bit aesthetic have largely been successful.
The presentation here is not the highly stylized, sharp-lined art of the PSP games featuring larger sprites, and many folks might prefer those titles instead, feeling this is a step down. For the Pixel Remasters, everything is tailored and proportioned to look like Final Fantasy IV on the Super Nintendo (that’s not a slight—the pixel art and shading here is among the best in the business). The opposite approach holds true for the soundtrack, where for the first time, it sounds like the developers know what gems they’re working with. Many of the arrangements try different things and new orchestrations, keeping the game exciting.
Final Fantasy I, in particular, has a fascinating new avoidance of the “half cadence” that merits specific attention here. Without delving too far into music theory, a half cadence is a closure on the V chord, built from the fifth note of the scale (a G chord in the key of C, etc). The V chord naturally resolves to the home, tonic (I) chord, which made half cadences ideal for looping, as the piece would “end” on a chord that made starting over again (on the tonic chord) sound natural.
Listen to the original “Town” theme from Final Fantasy I on NES, and compare it to the Pixel Remaster edition. In addition to different orchestration on a second loop (excellent, and now standard for an NES remake) that starts around 0:28, at 0:51 we push past the loop point of the original and get new material until 1:02, only arrive to a gentler loop point at 1:09. This expansion of the music is extremely bold for a 34-year-old title, and it’s all over the FF1 Pixel Remaster soundtrack. The “Shop” theme has the biggest expansion, going from a roughly 25-second track to 48 seconds, including a beautiful appoggiatura that closes the new fiddle arrangement with a performance style the NES isn’t equipped to deliver.
Some of the battle tracks lean heavily into Uematsu’s love of prog rock, so much so that it can be jarring from the orchestral arrangements when new instrument combinations are introduced. They’re fine arrangements, but at times, it can feel like the Video Games Live concert series (there’s a particular combination of electric guitar and brass at work making that connection) rather than the original tracks.
At their best, these arrangements let the instruments take solo sections and really speak in a way that the NES tracks don’t facilitate. The cello line (the original melody) in the “Chaos Shrine” track is now supported by a gorgeous, rising violin solo that caps the track beautifully. “Matoya’s Cave” has new, punchy counterpoint rhythms with trading woodwinds and musical turns that feel like the piece is being performed in front of you. “Pandemonium” (from FF2) now has a men’s choir, giving it the weight the piece needs to close Final Fantasy IX someday; again, the team has an extreme benefit of knowing how these early pieces are re-imagined and reused in future titles.
A particular highlight along these lines is “Eternal Wind” from Final Fantasy III, which most North American players will know from the Shadowbringers expansion to Final Fantasy XIV rather than the original. FF3 received a lot of expanded material for this release, but none more than this track, boosted to almost three minutes now. “Tozus” is now a small-town parade theme, and even the more intimate tracks such as “The Boundless Ocean” have been delicately expanded upon to feel like this is the sequel to Final Fantasy many players of the NES original always wanted but until now have never received in a format that feels compatible with the others. It’s worth the premium, and it’s about double the length of either of the first two games.
Anyone playing the NES original edition of Final Fantasy III could always see what would become the defining JRPG in Final Fantasy IV. The two Knight and Dark Knight sprites point us right towards Cecil; the progression of airships (including the submarine that returns in the fifth title) to a giant “invincible” ship mirrors the more plot-integrated progression towards the Lunar Whale, etc. It’s tremendous to have an effort towards more intimately creating that sense of unity and progression across all six titles. Game music fans have been given both a gift and a promise in this month’s releases—these first three Pixel Remaster releases make me tremendously excited to see how Uematsu revisits the scores to the Super Nintendo-era titles later this year.
Dr. Ryan Thompson
Professor of Practice at Michigan State University