I was thinking this morning about a couple of things and how certain VGM would be if things happened differently. So, what if...

... Mitsuda walked into Sakaguchi's office at Square, demanded that he score Chrono Trigger and was turned down?

... Uematsu didn't get help from Nakano and Hamauzu for the FFX OST?

Feel free to post answers/theories/thoughts and questions of your own.

Five years from now, in the ruined future, I would be holed up in a loft, obsessively creating a vast intersecting model of the timeline, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

... Mitsuda walked into Sakaguchi's office at Square, demanded that he score Chrono Trigger and was turned down?

We'd be wondering what score Mitsuda would consider his least developed work.

... Uematsu didn't get help from Nakano and Hamauzu for the FFX OST?

The score would have been flater overall but it would still have an audience.

A few new ones:

...Final Fantasy V had been released in the US at the time of it's original release; would that have any effect on your opinion of its score today?

...Square had stuck with Nintendo in the 32/64 bit years?

...there was a Metroid game for the N64?

...Final Fantasy V had been released in the US at the time of it's original release; would that have any effect on your opinion of its score today?

Absolutely. I still dig FFV, but not like FFIV and IV. I think that if I played that game when my brain was in its "sponge" years, I would love FFV like another FFVI. But... as is, it's a solid soundtrack and I still enjoy it.

...Square had stuck with Nintendo in the 32/64 bit years?

Less VII fanboys?

Hahaha. Really, I should have seen an answer like that coming...

What if SSH used real guitars/instruments?...

The synth rock set-up has grown on me, but I can't help but think he'd have a huge larger audience.

What if the drums/bass on Guilty Gear X Heavy Rock Tracks were any good?...

My favorite rock CD of all-time would be even better. And that's scary. Simiarly, what if Tohru Iwao's playing in XX was anywhere near as good as Heavy Rock Tracks. What if they remastered the original Guilty Gear OSC and Cyber Org to sound as powerful as they should (probably limitations of getting the music on the PS1). The mind boggles...

What if the arrangers for Wild Arms Rocking Heart and the Rockman Rock Arrange understood what a good rock arrange album is supposed to sound like?...

I'd be a much happier goldfish.

What if the Genso Suikoden series had stuck with the winning formula of GS1 (read: Higashino + streamed audio)...

Scary thought.

What if we saw a quality remastering job on the majority of Falcom's back catalogue and a lot of old Duo redbooks...

Maybe all the layers of sound would be audible for a change. World of difference from my first set of speakers on some albums. Not having to totally alter the volumes on the Duo redbooks would be quite refreshing, actually...

As for FFV's score, I did play the mangled FF Anthology version when it came out, so I wouldn't really call that bonding with the music. Can't really say how it holds up to VI, but it's an OST I had a lot of issues making cuts to and I actually still keep most of it on my iPod. It's only gotten better with time, I think...Uematsu definitely knew something back then a lot of RPG composers don't know now.

If Mitsuda hadn't done CT...Hmm, wouldn't really have been a huge loss, considering the strength of Square's sound team at the time. Would have had more of an effect on his later output, since he might not have gotten a break/gone freelance.

What if SSH used real guitars/instruments?...

Yeah, he would probably reach a wider audience, but I think his charm is in his setup. SSH without synth wouldn't be SSH to me.

What if the drums/bass on Guilty Gear X Heavy Rock Tracks were any good?...

O_O  >_>  <_<  <_>  o_O  -_-  O_o

Those are all the faces I just made thinking about that. Man...

I'm so use to the instrument set by now... it's not too fakey and not too real - it works. If they used real instruments I'd worry about the notes not being as crisp and precise as they currently are.

Rocking Heart started looking much better to me after I heard what the Rockman Rock arrange had to offer. Still, wouldn't buy it again because it felt like such a "tacked on" addition to my collection after a while but most of the renditions were handled well in my opinion despite not being pure all-out rock fest like the album's title suggests.

That's ultimately my thought on Rocking Heart...As an "arrange" album, it's suitable. As a rock album...It's hard to take some of those synth upgrades and instrument choices seriously as such. Even the Yonemitsu stuff paled in comparison to his earlier stuff...His Falcom stuff still has some of my favorite guitar solos of all time.

Even if I don't particularly agree with your other points, this one is QFT.
It's been ALL downhill since the first one, although the second one was still decent enough.

What if Takeharu Ishimoto has stuck to synthesizer programming?

For one thing, KH2 would have sounded a whole lot better.

What if Uematsu had scored FF:TSW?

It probably would have sounded a lot like FFVII:AC, which is to say a very mixed bag.

What if Koudelka had been an enormous hit on both sides of the Pacific?

Can you imagine a Kikuta-composed Shadow Hearts series?