"Someone who thinks personal opinion is fact."

This isn't exactly what I meant.  An opinion is not a fact.  It can't be true or false, but it can be more plausible/cogent.  Just because I believe there are objective standards of art doesn't mean I am the standard, or that such standards aren't often (read: always) slippery and contradictory.  But there's no point in debating something if you don't think a conclusion is even remotely possible.

It's much like political theories/beliefs.

Sorry to go way off topic.

I think what he's getting at is that for both soundtracks the composers realised the limitations of the sound hardware they were working with at the time, and didn't use any compositional styles that would exeed those limits (like it would be hard to pull off Star Fox's soundtrack successfully on a NES soundchip).

Fact is, the worse you think the non-arranged part of KHII's soundtrack is, the harder it becomes to defend Shimomura gets all the glory by hiding behind Wada's arrangements. Like I said before, whose going to care about a few nice arrangements when they think the majority of the in-game music sounds like crap? In the worst case, Shimomura would only get (in your eyes misplaced) credit for those eight arranged tracks with people saying they're the only good music on the soundtrack, but that would still leave a lot of mediocre tracks to be accounted for.

Even if you believe there are objective standards of taste, you still have acknowledge that it is ultimately the buyers of either games or their soundtracks who determine whether a composer stayes in business. That means that the fact that Ito is still getting hired on a regular basis by S-E translates to there being a large audience still wanting to hear his music. Just look at how much work he's done both related and unrelated to S-E; it would be impossible for him to get this far by just relying on arrangers to make his work sound good.

You could be of the opinion that his fans have crap taste, and curse the fact that they're so large in number, but that's about it. He's not actually holding back others like Sekito from taking the spotlight, that's just the perspective of someone who dislikes his music and doesn't want others to waste their time arranging it. What's holding Sekito from getting a composing job on a high-profile title is either a result of his own choices (he'd rather arrange than compose) or the fact that there are not enough fans (potential buyers) around to justify giving him such a job. Even then, I believe S-E would give him the chance if he asked for it (they've given others such chances in the past). If not, he's free to say 'screw it' and go solo or take up another profession. Since that hasn't happened, I guess he's feeling happy where he is, whether fans of his compositions want him there or not.

Agreed...But what he said was SMB VS Star Fox, which is why I didn't get the comparison.

This entire thread kind of makes my head hurt...

To speak of FF3 DS's music, though, the video S-E recently released does have a small smattering of in-game samples -- at least, this is the first time I've ever heard the music.  So far, you can hear Crystal Cave, Crystal Room, Battle 1, Battle 2, and Fanfare.  The battle themes, in particular, are sounding quite awesome.

Video:
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=6633

Wow.

Doesn't the main battle theme remind anyone else of the arrangement on FF3 Eternal Legend of Wind CD?

*twitch, twitch*
wow, I SO can't wait for this game.
Can't wait.

I'm totally cool with SE taking so long to release ANY remake/port of FF3.  They're doing it right!

Ah yes, on topic. I particularly like what I've heard of the Crystal Cave arrangement so far. On the whole I'd prefer just an upgrade of the soundtrack to polished Snes sound chip-like quality, though (I never really did get into the arrangements for the PS editions of FFI and II). I know the game now looks N64-Playstation-ish but I wouldn't mind if they paid an homage to the game's low bit origins in the music.

Angela, wasn't it you who shared that arrangement of Eternal Wind by J.M. Midi here a (long?) while ago? Doing the whole soundtrack like that would work perfect for me.

Ito actually does orchestral arrangements unlike Uematsu or Sakimoto, so I'm not sure where you're getting this.

I'm just praying they fix the random encounter rate.  It took me about 20 minutes to play the E3 demo because fights happen every 3-5 steps.

Last time I checked, both Uematsu and Sakimoto were very fluent in the art of orchestral arrangements. Beh?

^

They both use orchestrators.

^

Even on Advent Children?

Uematsu has used Shiro Hamaguchi most of the time for orchestrations. Sekito, however, hasn't used any orchestrator for his works. Kenji Ito orchestrates his own stuff.

Uematsu didn't do any arrangements (orchestrated or otherwise) for the soundtrack. They're all done by Shiro Hamaguchi, Kenichiro Fukui, Tsuyoshi Sekito etc. Uematsu just wrote (most of) the music. I kind of wonder how much of a hand Uematsu has in new arrangements of his old tunes, that is to say, whether he just lets others go wild with his original compositions, or first re-composes (arranges) this own music so others can use it as a basis for their arrangements. My guess is it's mostly the former option, with Uematsu overseeing the arrangements as they're being created.

Edit: I lied; Uematsu did actually arrange track 8 (Water) on first disc of the soundtrack, along with Keiji Kawamori), though it's a newly written and non-orchestral track. Sounds like something from his Phantasmagoria album.