Nobuo Uematsu leaves square-enix

Retr0gamer

Its probably old news but nobuo uematsu has left square-enix software and will no longer be doing any soundtracks for them. Uematsu is regarded by many, including myself, as one of the best if not THE best videogame music composers. He has provided soundtracks for all of the main FF game series from 1-9 and collaberated with other artists for the FF10-11 games. He has also composed the soundtracks to the majority of squaresoft games.

However hope is not lost since the rumour is that he will be working with his old pal hironobu sakaguchi's (creator of the final fantasy series and most of squares back catalogue) new developement team who have 3 RPGs in developement at the moment. Also Square don't exactly have a shortage of excellent composers and hitoshi Sakimoto, who is composing the music for FF12, showed he is more than competent at doing orchestrated soundtracks with his work on FF tactics and radiant silvergun and the also very flexible with his Gradius V and soukyugarentai soundtracks.

Can anyone get good confirmation of this since i couldn't really find anything except some stuff on discussion forums? Hope its not true.

Edit:

Looks like its true

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2004/1959.html

aidan_walsh

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/01/news_6111914.html

Nobuo Uematsu, well-known composer of the soundtracks to the Final Fantasy series, has announced his plans to leave publisher Square Enix after nearly 20 years. In a newsletter sent to members of his fan club "Nobiyo no Shippo," Uematsu said that he will establish his own independent studio called Smile Please.

"I'll be leaving Square Enix as of October," reads the letter. "[But] it's not like I had any issues with Square Enix. I just wanted to work at my own pace. […] I'm leaving the company on good terms."

"The word 'quitting' has kind of a negative sound to it, so perhaps a better word would be 'graduating,'" Uematsu explains. "I'll continue to work with 'my old school,' writing music for games, doing concerts, and making more Black Mages albums," he said, referring to the recently formed Final Fantasy live rock band fronted by Uematsu. "I'll be working even harder than before--with the overseas market also in mind--for the future of those [projects], so thank you for your support."

Nobuo Uematsu joined Square in 1986 and quickly become known for his groundbreaking work on the Final Fantasy games. He also composed the music for most of Square's earliest game software, such as King's Knight and 3-D World Runner. His involvement with new Final Fantasy games has been declining in recent years, as he shared composing duties on Final Fantasy X, only composed a few tracks for Final Fantasy XI, and will contribute only one track to Final Fantasy XII.

On May 10, 2004, Uematsu hosted the first Final Fantasy concert to have taken place in the USA, which was held in Los Angeles. This December, he will release the second Black Mages album, which is currently planned for release in Japan only.

Deadwing

Live rock and final fantasy? It sounds wrong but feels so right..must see if i can download some.
That sucks tho..sakaguchi wrote some amazing music.

Crucifix

The black mages' stuff is indeed great.
I thought the music in more recent FF games (mainly 10-2, but also 10) wasn't that great, so hopefully this'll breathe a breath of fresh air in to Nobuo's composing.

Kiith

i really want to hear the track he did for final fantasy 12. it's supposed to be amazing.

Creamy Goodness

the black mages material is so good.

the ff music and rock really blend so well it's unreal.

one of the very few (and best) pianists i know Nobuo

mp3guy

he had some good stuff, but Yasunori Mitsuda is much better

Retr0gamer

mp3guy wrote:

he had some good stuff, but Yasunori Mitsuda is much better

Pfft!

Alright right, Xenogears had an amazing soundtrack but Chrono Cross was very weak and the only decent tracks on Xenosaga were the ones he composed that the london symphony orchestra played.

He is a great composer but nothing he has done can match the soundtracks for FFVI-FFIX. And the FFVI soundtrack is the best soundtrack ever imo.

(have to admit I didn't like most of the tracks he did for FFX)