"Composed and produced by Nobuo Uematsu."  Did he really do this?

Edit: Now that I actually read what's there, it looks like Kumi Tanioka did the new stuff for the album.  Unless that means she did new arrangements.  I ought to get my dictionary to be sure.  :\

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/ … wasure-cd/

Uematsu did not compose anything new, but a great part of the soundtrack is made of arrangements from the FF series. Apparently, JOE DOWN arranged the music, while Kumi Tanioka wrote some new themes.

Both Square Enix and Dog Ear Records like to exploit the ambiguous word 'produced' with respect to Nobuo Uematsu. I doubt his role was even truly supervisory on this project. That said, I'm quite looking forward to the score. While Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon was a subpar project in my opinion, I have a feeling that Joe Down, who did excellently on Culdcept Saga, will accustom well to the Wii's technology with help of presumably Yasuhiro Yamanaka as synthesizer operator. There are nine interesting arrangements on the main site plus a background piece possibly created by Kumi Tanioka:

http://www.chocobo.com/tokiwasure/

Comparing Chocobo Tales with other similar attempts at Final Fantasy arrangements, such as Chocobo Racing, it seems unfair to me to have such a low estimation of the project.  The remixes were to my mind expertly executed across the board.  I see a straightforward continuity between the Wii samples and the previous DS title, the only break being in the quality of the hardware.

There haven't been any low expectations stated. >_> I merely commented that 'produced by Nobuo Uematsu' means very little and is the type of PR stunt that I'm sure you're very familiar with.

With respect to the samples, there are more experimental remixes, e.g. "City Theme", "Those Who Fight Further", and "The Man with the Machine", than the vanilla Chocobo Tales. There are also some more elaborate pieces, e.g. the excellent orchestral that features as the background music on the site and likely the upcoming vocal theme. If we're making comparisons with the amateurish and bombastic Chocobo Racing, I'd still say Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon was a weaker score simply because it had no balls and just consisted of poorly implemented rehashes. I think Chocobo Dungeon Wii has the potential to make up for the faults of both scores, i.e. being different while musically commanded. I have confidence that Kumi Tanioka and Joe Down will make this one of the few Chocobo scores to look forward to.

Just listened to a few of the samples on the official site. Wow, the music that plays on the site is beautiful...it reminds me so much of a particular piece in Legend of Mana that I want to pull that soundtrack out again. The FF music remixes I managed to hear were really nice too, but I'm a bit disappointed that so many of them are remixes. It's kind of cool that they're harking back to the FF roots, but still. I suppose it's because there already are scenarios attached to those pieces and I'm not so sure about trying to attach them to new ones... Of course, that's purely talking about music as a complement to the game as opposed to the quality of the compositions themselves.

Errrm... last I checked, ALL of the pieces there are remixes, including the one that I think you're saying seems like something from Legend of Mana (which is Home Sweet Home/Homeland/Whatever translation we like these days for it, from FF5).  All good stuff, though.

Well, the ones posted on the site so far are remixes, yes, but I don't know about the rest of the soundtrack...didn't read the description of the game's music too carefully. And "Home Sweet Home" is "BGM1," NOT the default one that plays the instant you visit the site, unless the tune of has changed drastically since I last heard it...

I hope they do some tracks that aren't normally remixed, instead of remixing/rearranging the same exact tracks over and over again (as much as I love Aerith's Theme, it better not be on there)

Yeshua bless,
~Andy

Actually the one I'm talking about is still the first thing you hear when you go to the soundtrack's site.  I forgot there's a different piece of music at the game's site.  That said, BGM1 isn't Home Sweet Home either, is it?  I recognize it, but can't remember where it's from... FF4, maybe?

The first piece at the soundtrack site is most definitely Home Sweet Home.

BGM1 is Rydia's Theme

~Andy

There will be original compositions from Kumi Tanioka, but I doubt there will be many. I'm not sure if the opening site BGM constitutes an example as I thought 'Kumi Tanioka' when I first heard it.

To the Chocobo series' credit, all three of the remix-based soundtracks (Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon, Chocobo Racing, and Chocobo Dungeon Wii) have a selection of themes from across the series. I don't always agree with the treatment or the principle, but the track listings tend to be diverse. Chocobo Racing even had a piece from Final Fantasy VI Special Tracks in it

If you're refereeing to "Moogle Forest" being "Town2", it was just a speculation made by a certain website (btw, I incredibly respect the web owner). Or you coincidentally reached the same conclusion. Anyway, Kenji Ito himself reveals it borrowed the same chord progression of "Final Fantasy", and had the deformed Moogle motive. One could be chagrined at Cocoebiz not translating the interview yet.

What the heck? When I went to the site just now, BGM1 is Rydia's Theme whereas I swear that yesterday it was Home Sweet Home. Okay, I'm quitting this discussion and just waiting for the OST to come out before we all get confused even more, heh.

The Main page is "Home Sweet Home" I'm pretty sure.

On the CD page is a version of the chocobo theme.

I want to see if I get this right or not...

BGM1 is Rydia's theme
BGM2 is FF1 town theme
BGM3 is from FF3? (not sure on this one)
BGM4 is the usual Crystal theme
BGM5 is regular fight music from FF8
BGM6 is not sure where this one is from but it sounds familiar to me... arg
BGM7 is FF2 battle music? (or FF3)
BGM8 is FF1 Chaos temple
BGM9 is FF8 Man With The Machine Gun

BGM5 is the boss battle music from FF8, "Force Your Way".
BGM6 is the successive battle music from FF9, "Hunter's Chance".

And yeah, you have BGM 3 and BGM 7 right.

BGM 3 is the boss battle from FF3
BGM 7 is the battle theme from FF2

Got a chance to listen to the soundtrack today.  I'm definitely enjoying it; there's an abundance of interesting sound dynamics and arrangement choices that Takahashi has brought to these classic Final Fantasy pieces that, in my opinion, totally make them worth visiting again.  Those sleek electronica bits in "Force Your Way" and "Man With The Machine Gun," for instance.  The peppy-jaunty styling of FF1's "City Theme."  The orchestral rawness of FF5's "Decisive Battle" and FF6's "Fierce Battle."    Even some tracks I might not have necessarily cared much for before, like "Hunter's Chance" and FF2's "Battle Scene 2" suddenly become class-A songs in my book. 

And then there's just the varied selection of the pieces themselves, which make for an aurally nostalgic listen.  Labyrinth covers the entire FF spectrum, with the strong presence of FF5 songs pleasing me most -- but hearing the likes of FF4's "Airship," FF6's "Epitaph," and FF8's "Only a Plank Between One and Perdition" proved to be delightful surprises too.

Ai Kawashima's vocal piece "Door Crawl," though pleasant enough, is thematically disassociating.  Between this and Chocobo Racing's "Treasure Chest of The Heart," though, Kawashima doesn't touch Hiromi Ohta. :)

Speaking of chocobos, anyone know anything about what's on this?

http://ffkh.blog31.fc2.com/blog-entry-2762.html

(also just do a google search for "chocotto soundtrack"

Here is an interview with Joe Down Studio on this soundtrack, hosted by RPGFan.

http://rpgfan.com/features/joedown-interview/index.html

Nice interview Jeriaska!

I certainly didn't know their studio was around that long of a time (20 years) ...SFC and GB music?? TV commercials?  I only started recognizing the name like 2 years ago, max.

Good to hear how much of a fan Yuzo Takahashi is of the original tunes, because it certainly showed in the arrangements. 

oh, Sapporo!  aka: Numba One Biru!!

Speaking of which, I can finally identify track 1 on the soundtrack is the song I hear when I go to the game's main website at www.chocobo.com/tokiwasure. I have yet to listen to the rest of the CD, heh.

I want to thank Jeriaska personally for allowing RPGFan to host the English version of the interview. It certainly was excellent work. I enjoyed reading it a lot.

Ramza

Excellent interview indeed.  I'm almost tempted to play the actual game now, despite my general indifference at the Mysterious Dungeon series.

Since the OST is more of an FF Arrange Album than a Chocobo album, perhaps the gameplay would be that way too?

Fixed your sentence a bit. Damn good album, didn't much listen this before I decided to buy it, and with the small price, this is a must get for FF-fans.

Yeah, I prefer this collection of arrangements to something from Square's fresh new, crappy composers.